Fitbit Zip

Fitness trackers, like the people they're meant for, come in plenty of shapes and sizes. The latest addition to this category of wearable devices that act essentially like pedometers, only smarter, is the petite Fitbit Zip.?Our Editors' Choice for fitness gadgets is the outstanding Fitbit Ultra, a sleek and compact device that provides a wealth of easy-to-understand information about your health. However, the company will soon retire the product and replacing it with two new options: the soon-to-be released Fitbit One, which is very similar to the Ultra except with modified look, and the tinier, lower-cost Fitbit Zip.

At $59.95 (direct), Fitbit Zip caters most to price-sensitive folks. No other good-quality fitness gadget I've seen comes in under $99, from the bracelet shaped Nike+ FuelBand ($149) to the boxy MP3-playing? Motorola MotoActv ($249.99) . If cost is your primary concern in choosing a fitness tracker, Fitbit Zip may be an ideal option.

However, given the mere $30 price difference between Zip and the new Fitbit One, I'd rather pony up for the latter. Fitbit Zip does an admirable job of counting steps taken and miles walked or run, but it lacks a few features that I think are worth the extra money. While I have not yet formally tested Fitbit One, I can safely say based on experience with Fitbit Ultra (and word from the company that functionality will be nearly identical) that the altimeter and sleep data you get with the more expensive gadget are extremely cool. Plus, Fitbit One, which I got some hands-on time with pre-release, has an even more attractive design than Ultra. The Zip, in comparison, looks a little cheap.

Design
When I say Fitbit Zip is tiny, I mean I've eaten pieces of candy bigger than this thing. It's 0.2 by 1.2 by 1.8 inches and weighs 0.3 ounces. Also included in the package are a color-coordinated rubbery case with clip, so that you can secure Fitbit Zip to your clothes, and a USB plug-in device that enables wireless syncing to your Fitbit account (more on that in the Set Up section).

This wireless activity tracker comes in five colors?white, black, lime, magenta, and blue. To me, the white and black look more sophisticated than the other sporty colors, so I opted for a white test unit.

In the center of the plastic body, a simple dot matrix display shows the time, how many steps you've walked (on a midnight-to-midnight cycle), total distance in miles, calories burned, and a happy face to reward you for staying fit. Compared with the slick Fitbit One, the Zip?s gray display looks downright schlocky.

Fitbit Zip has no buttons to press, instead relying on a simple tap to cycle through the information. The display goes to sleep when you?re not active to conserve battery power.

Set Up
Unlike most other fitness tracking devices that need to be connected by a cable to your computer and recharged every so often, Fitbit Zip is entirely wireless and runs on a watch battery, which you can replace when it dies, but should last several months.
Out of the box, you plug in the USB syncing connector into your computer, which initiates a download of the Fitbit software. You'll also see prompts to log into your Fitbit account, or create a new one if you need.

The Fitbit Web account is really the heart of the program, and it works with a number of other apps, such as Lose It! and MapMyRun, as well as physical devices for health and fitness, including the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale, which automatically logs your weigh-ins to the account to track your weight effortlessly.

For all the Fitbit components to work properly, you do need to enter into the Web account your height, weight, age, and sex. All that information stays private.

With a Fitbit account set up, you can clip Fitbit Zip to your clothes or tuck it in your pocket, and go about your normal day. When you're in range of your computer with the USB stick, all your data will wirelessly upload to your Fitbit account.

Web Account Features
Fitbit Zip will keep track of the ground you cover every day, but it won't count stairs or hills that you climb any differently, as the Fitbit Ultra and One do (climbing stairs burns about four times as many calories as walking on flat surface). All this activity is uploaded to your account, where you can view intuitive graphs of your progress.

You can set up goals, like losing weight or simply taking more steps in a day, and Fitbit will keep an eye on your progress.

The Web account is comprehensive. You can manage your calorie intake by logging foods and drinks you consume, and also entering special activities in addition to walking to ensure you get credit for burning more calories. For example, if you swam three-quarters of a mile in 35 minutes while not wearing the Fitbit Zip?which is water- and sweat-resistant, but can't be worn in a pool?the Web account will computer how many additional calories you burned. Fitbit Zip only tracks walking, jogging, and running, but that's true of nearly every fitness tracker I've seen.

A journal section also appears in your account for keeping notes, as well as areas for monitoring sleep, blood pressure, and glucose if you have the appropriate devices or want to manually enter information.

The Fitbit Ultra and its successor the Fitbit One include automatic sleep tracking data, which I really enjoy seeing, but this capability didn't make it into the lower-cost Fitbit Zip.?

Should You Zip?
Miniscule, yet effective, Fitbit Zip certainly does meet the needs of anyone looking for a good quality fitness tracker at an affordable price. But seeing as you only have to shell out an extra $30 for the upcoming Fitbit One, which will replace Fitbit Ultra (our Editors' Choice), the added cost seems worth it. Fitbit Zip doesn't look as sharp as the Fitbit One, nor does it track your sleep or give you credit for additional calories burned when you climb stairs. And with any of the Fitbit devices, you get the same great Web account for free. The Fitbit Zip might make sense if you're unsure of your commitment to using a fitness tracker in the first place, but for everyone else, I recommend spending just a little more for the Fitbit One.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/lj9w1wdJjHk/0,2817,2410013,00.asp

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