Category: Gadget Insider

For those who are not familiar with the company Fitbit, they were once the kings in wearable fitness trackers. Their wearable devices come in a variety of styles and prices. The company went public in June of 2015 and after hitting its highest point in August of 2015, things quickly began to go downhill. After a lot of ups and downs, Fitbit’s stock has seen a significant downfall since 2017 and continues to disappoint shareholders. The company went from $51 per share to falling just below $5 per share in February 2018, to today trading at just under $5.50 per share.

Fitbit has struggled a lot throughout the last 2 years, from failing to raise stock value to failing to sell large enough quantities of their new fitness trackers, especially with competitors such as Apple and Samsung that came in and stole the majority of the niche market with their own wearable devices.

It is obvious that fitbit is losing customers and losing profits, while constantly searching for solutions to meet shareholders expectations. Fitbit relies heavily on sales of their wearable fitness trackers to stay afloat, but how do they plan on selling more fitness trackers if less and less people are buying them?

With profits not meeting expectations, it is possible that Fitbit could be cutting corners on the quality of their products. They have admitted that they have cut prices on some of their fitness trackers in order to make sales, but usually when companies are cutting prices, they are also cutting costs which could also mean cutting corners on quality and functionality. However, with so many technology advancements throughout the years where it is no longer necessary to physically go to a store in order to have a tech gadget fixed or restored, could it also be possible for companies to cause software glitches to their devices.

From personal experience, I own a Fitbit Charge 2 and had a fishy experience with my device. After seeing that I had a low battery on my device, I plugged it into the charging port, like I usually do. This time however, the battery would not hold a charge. I followed all the troubleshoot options with zero results. I reached out to customer support where they were no help since my fitness tracker was no longer covered under warranty, 4 months over the allowed time period to be exact. Customer support did however offer me a 25% discount off of a new device from the Fitbit store. I always take good care of all my electronic devices, so I was definitely shocked when this had happened out of the blue. Due to my curious nature I decided to do some research and investigate if there were any other reports of similar issues with the fitness trackers.

Filtering through the community Fitbit forum, there were a lot of reports of sudden unexpected issues with Fitbit devices, that strangely were all reported within the last few weeks. Digging further through the history, there were many reports last year as well, but oddly the complaints only correlate within the first few months of the year. The reports all claimed sudden unexpected battery issues or display issues. There was also a forum where a hefty number of users had begun reporting battery issues with their device as of March 31st 2019. Consumer reports say that Fitbit customer support would not offer any assistance to fixing current devices, but only offer a 25% discount off of a purchase of a new device, and the coupon being valid only X number of days. One customer wrote that they were having software issues with their new Fitbit Charge 3 a few months after purchase, when this person reached out to customer support, they were apparently no help and responded saying that it was a known issue and they are working on a solution, but there was no ETA available. After being aware of a hardware issue with the new Fitbit Charge 3, it took Fitbit weeks before acknowledging that there was faulty equipment with the devices still under warranty, and only replaced a selected number of consumer devices. There seems to be a trend happening with Fitbit and their devices. It could be that cost cutting is causing product quality to suffer, and as a result customers are suffering as well, or it could be that Fitbit is purposely causing glitches to their devices. Regardless of what is causing these fitness trackers to malfunction, Fitbits customer service is definitely set up to try and force new sales to users. Compared to their competitors such as Apple and Samsung where customer service is top priority, Fitbit needs to step their game up before they lose all their customers. Seeing the current trend that is happening with the company and consumer reports, I would not recommend purchasing a Fitbit fitness tracker as the cost vs. benefit does not measure up to competitor fitness trackers. There are many cheaper options on the market that provide the same features as fitbit devices for the same or similar product lifespan. If someone is willing to spend more for a device with better quality and a longer product lifespan, then Apple and Samsung have a variety of options that could be right for you.

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Its the time of the year where it will be very interested as this is the first time Samsung and Apple will be releasing new phones very close to each other. Usually by this time Samsung Galaxy S10 is available to everyone and everyone moves on to the next thing which would be Apple iPhone 11 or iPhone XI, what ever the name will be. This time however no one forgot about Samsung because the shocking release of a foldable phone that even grabed Apple fans to take a look. To make things worse for Apple, Samsung foldable phone had a design flaw which you would think is hurting Samsung. But its not as bad as you think.

Samsung name lives on, even if it is bad press everyone still keeping eye on when the Galaxy Fold will be release to public. That is bad news for Apple as Apple fans will be looking out for new iPhone 11 and still looking at Galaxy Fold. Some may just skip the iPhone 11 and get Galaxy Fold just because it is something new.

Samsung Galaxy S10 phones were announced on Feb. 20th 2019. The key features of the Galaxy S10 that were announced live were indeed impressive, but the company did not provide much about the specs and details. Lucky for us, we do have the specs and some are impressive while others are not, at least when comparing to the Galaxy S9. We will not be going over the release of the Galaxy S10e since the price is too high and the specs are just not all that impressive.

The price is little higher than we expected but if you pre-order the Galaxy S10 or Galaxy S10+ by 3/7/19 you will receive free Galaxy Buds. Does not apply to Galaxy S10e. You can order your New S10 or S10+ Unlocked from Amazon:

Samsung Galaxy S10 : https://amzn.to/2EwfWnQ
Samsung Galaxy S10+ : https://amzn.to/2TddTPO
Samsung Galaxy Buds: https://amzn.to/2HLYos7
To Get Samsung Galaxy S10 LED Back Case : https://amzn.to/2EpmO6I
To Get Samsung Galaxy S10+ LED Back Case : https://amzn.to/2EH8wiW

Samsung Galaxy S10 Factory Unlocked Phone with 128GB (U.S. Warranty), Prism Black

Key features that we really liked:

3 Main Cameras. UltraWide Angle , Wide and Telephoto lenses. 12MP and 16MP for the UltraWide.

10MP Selfie Camera

4K Video Recording 60FPS and 240 at 1080p similar to S9

8GB Ram – Yes Please

128GB-512GB internal Storage + up to 512GB SD Card

Under Display Ultrasonic Fingerprint sensor

Headphone Jack – Some of us still use it.  I use it all the time to connect external Microphone when I am recording video in 4K

Bigger batteries in both S10 and S10+  3400mAh for S10 and 4100 for S10+

Not so impressive features but still worth Mentioning:

Faster charging with 25W USB-C but it will actual charging at 15W same as in S9

Reverse wireless charging – it is nice but you will probably not use it often.

FM Radio (US & CA Only)

USB C Charging Port

WI-Fi 6 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax – It is the first phone to have that but unfortunately most of us will not used it, the technology is just too new. By the time it is available to most folks we will be looking at Galaxy S11 and S12.

What we really Did Not like:

As you probably already guessed, the phone price tag: starting at $900 for the S10 and it goes up from there.

Galaxy S10 and S10+ are not 5G. Samsung will be coming out with 5G version later in 2019 but from the specs we were a little disappointed.

The 128GB and 512GB configuration, we would really like to see 256GB option. Looking at their website, it is possible that Samsung will introduce 256GB version later in 2019/2020

Adobe Rush still not available, but at least it should be later in the year.

Conclusion:

Wi-fi 6 is impressive but most of us will not be able to use it. 80211 ax is a new technology and having to spend more money to replace a router that can handle the faster speeds is not recommended until you at least have Fiber 1 Gigabit Internet connection. 5G will be exclusive to Verizon for now and not available to the rest of us probably till 2020. Most major carriers are testing 5G in selected cities but 5G will most likely not be available to consumers until 2020-2021.

We mentioned the 128GB configuration and that we don’t like it because 4k video might be filling it up fast. We can add a 512GB SD card but in our experience when you are recording in 4K, it saves the video to internal memory because the external SD card is not fast enough to capture so match data.

Am  I going to pre-order the Galaxy S10? No I am not, but I will be upgrading to S10 later on this year. Just because I really want to get my hands on it first to see if S10+ might be better for me and I am waiting for Adobe Rush to be available for Galaxy S10.  That does not mean you should wait. If you are thinking you will want to get it soon, then now is defiantly the time to pre-order and take advantage of the Free Galaxy Buds. But if you can wait then who knows, Samsung may offer little discounts later in time.

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Apple watch is sexist once again with Apple watch series 4 pricing.

Apple has been under fire for being sexist when it comes to work environment for woman and lots of apps aberrantly but this time it is different. Apple is punishing the man and plus size people this time by making them pay more for Apple watch. Its no secret that most men have bigger hands than woman in most cases and if you are overweight you most likely have gained a little on your wrist. This time it actually matters to your wallet because if you have big hands then expect to pay as much as $50 extra.  The cheapest version is $30 extra for 10mm gain and premium bands are $50 extra for 20mm gain.