Nikon Coolpix AW120

Pros Sharp 5x zoom lens. 24mm wide angle. 3-inch OLED display. Waterproof to 59 feet. Integrated Wi-Fi and GPS.

Cons Images are on the noisy side. No external charger included. Bottom Line With Wi-Fi, GPS, and an OLED display, the Nikon Coolpix AW120 is one of the better rugged compact cameras you can buy, but it's not quite an Editors' Choice.

By Jim Fisher The Nikon Coolpix AW120 ($349.95) looks a lot like the AW110 that that preceded it, but includes a few important upgrades that aren't easy to notice on first glance. The lens has been redesigned to cover a wider angle and capture more light, and there's a subtle change to the rear control pad. The 59-foot water depth rating remains the same, Wi-Fi and GPS are still on board, and the 16-megapixel resolution is the same. The AW120 is a good option if you're in the market for a rugged compact camera, but it can't quite touch our Editors' Choice, the Olympus Tough TG-3. The TG-3 features a lens that captures twice the light at its widest setting and a Microscope macro mode that make it a better buy at the same price as the AW120. 

Design and Features
Available in black, blue, orange, or woodland camouflage, the AW120, like most rugged models, places its lens in the upper corner of its body. The body is small enough to slide into your pocket with ease, measuring just 2.6 by 4.4 by 1 inches (HWD) and weighing in at 7.5 ounces. It's a little taller than one of the rare rugged compacts with its lens front and center, the Pentax WG-3 GPS (2.5 by 4.9 by 1.3 inches, 8.1 ounces). The WG-3 has a ring of LED lights around its centered lens for macro photography. The AW120 also has a LED light, but it's only used when recording video.

The lens is wider than the 28-140mm f/3.3-4.8 zoom that Nikon used in the AW110. The AW120 doesn't expand on a 5x zoom ratio, so its wider 24-120mm f/2.8-4.9 zoom doesn't quite reach as far at the telephoto end, but the wider angle cover is welcome. If you're shooting underwater the field of view of the lens is narrowed a bit due to the way that light moves through water, and the wider lens will let you get closer to your subjects and put more in frame—you'll get clearer photos with less water in between you and what you're shooting. The f/2.8 lens captures roughly 50 percent more light than the f/3.3 lens that the AW110 uses, but it's light-gathering capability is half that of the f/2 lens on the Olympus TG-3. When zoomed all the way in all three lenses reduce to f/4.8 or f/4.9, placing them on even footing.

There aren't a lot of controls on the top plate, just a Power button and a shutter release. The bulk of the buttons are located on the rear panel, to the right of the LCD, but there are also two buttons on the left side. One activates the World Map feature, and the other is the Action button. Pressing Action brings up an overlay menu that allows you to adjust the shooting mode, record a video, enter image playback mode, or view the World Map. It's designed for one-handed operation, so you can shake the camera to scroll through options, and use the Action button to confirm selections. The World Map works in conjunction with the GPS to show you a map of the area you are in and to highlight local landmark. You can also browse any area of the map, even if GPS is enabled or if you're interested in a location on the other side of the globe. 

The other controls are more traditional. There's a rocker with up/down action to zoom in and out and a Record button for video at the top right of the AW120's rear. There's a directional pad with four marked positions (Flash, Exposure Compensation, Macro, and Self-Timer) at its cardinal points, and four unmarked ordinal points. The diagonal button presses come in handy when scrolling through the World Map.

The standard menu, playback, and delete controls are housed on the rear panel, surrounding the 8-way directional pad. There is also a Scene button, which gives you access to the AW120's various shooting modes. By default it's set to Easy Auto, which wrests all control from your hands. There's also an Auto mode which gives you limited control over exposure settings, but there are no true manual, aperture priority, or shutter priority shooting modes available. Instead you'll have to rely one of the nearly two dozen Scene modes, including Sports, Snow, Close-Up, and Fireworks, to name a few, to best capture the world in front of the lens. You also get about a dozen art filters and a Smart Portrait mode.

The display is a 3-inch OLED panel with a 921k-dot resolution. It's bright, but I did find it a little difficult to see under direct sunlight. I like the punchy colors an OLED delivers, but it's not quite as easy to see as the LCD that Canon uses on the rugged PowerShot D30. The Nikon OLED is noticeably sharper, as the Canon D30's screen has a 460k-dot resolution.

The AW120 is rated to shoot 59 feet underwater, and while we weren't able to take it down that far, it survived being submerged in water without issue. It also handled a number of drops without incident, from as high as 6.6 feet, and it's rated for use in temperatures as low as 14°F. The Canon D30 is one of the few rugged compactst that's able to go significantly deeper under water—it's rated for depths of up to 82 feet.Both GPS and Wi-Fi are integrated here. The GPS module adds your location information to photos; it takes about a minute to lock onto a signal, but updated pretty quickly after that in my tests. You can transfer photos from the AW120 to an iOS or Android device using the free Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility app. The camera acts as a hotspot which you can connect to using your device, so you won't need to be near your home network to make it all work. Transferring images is easy, and you have the option of moving full-size, 1.5-megapixel, or 0.3-megapixel photos, and it only takes a few seconds to copy from camera to smartphone or tablet. The app also lets you use your mobile device as a remote viewfinder. The Live View feed is smooth and you can adjust the focal length of the lens and fire the shutter, but no other controls are available.

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BillGuard (for iPhone)

Pros Easy connection to credit card issuers. Provides details about transactions. Uses crowdsourcing to flag often-reported merchants. Automated contact with financial institutions. Reports on gray charges and data breaches.

Cons Navigation sometimes awkward. Analytics not particularly enlightening. Bottom Line BillGuard flags merchants on your credit card statements who frequently charge consumers for products or services they've either forgotten about or they didn't know they were requesting.

By Kathy Yakal

If everyone went over their credit card statements with a fine-tooth comb and reported any questionable or unwanted charges immediately, there wouldn't be much need for an iPhone app like BillGuard. But not everyone does. I know I don't. BillGuard, described by its developer as a "personal finance security service," is a smart, useful, innovative iPhone app (also available on Android) that's simple—almost fun—to set up and use. It displays your credit card charges as they occur, flagging any that have been frequently reported by members of its network as questionable or unauthorized. You can either confirm that those charges are authorized or ask BillGuard, via a simple automated reporting system, to contact the merchant on your behalf.

Used conscientiously, it can help you nip those pesky unwanted charges in the bud—and save you some money and aggravation.

Gray Charges and Security Breaches
BillGuard doesn't promote itself as an identity theft-prevention tool, though it can work like one if you check it regularly. Rather, its mission is to help you avoid "gray charges," unwanted hits on your credit cards. Maybe you signed up for something and forgot about it. Or maybe the merchant used misleading, deceptive language or hid a recurring charge in fine print that you're unlikely to have seen. BillGuard claims that U.S. cardholders spend $14.3 billion in gray charges annually, so it's a good idea to keep an eye out for them.

If you follow financial news, you know that last year there were numerous data breaches at major corporations like Target. In response, BillGuard has added a watchdog feature to alert you via email and phone when these occur, in case you don't hear about it quickly.

A Familiar Routine
BillGuard requires a passcode when you first download the app and set up an account. That's a good thing. You should always protect information related to your finances, including what you purchase and where you shop. Once you've signed in, you only have to enter the four-digit passcode to get back in instead of typing your sometimes-unwieldy login credentials. I like this.

The setup works the same way as any other application that connects directly to your financial institutions (like Mint or LearnVest). You select your card issuer from the list supplied or search for it if it doesn't appear. Enter the user name and password you use to access your account online, and BillGuard takes a few minutes to set up the connection, showing you a helpful instructional video while you're waiting. The company used to charge $9.99 if you wanted to track more than two accounts, but thankfully, that's no longer the case. The service and app are free to use.

BillGuard's home page is a dashboard that displays a small window and four navigational buttons. Your total credit card debt incurred so far in the current month appears in the window, along with your balance.

The four icons bring you to four different types of content: Inbox (transactions from merchants that the crowd has reported as a potential problem); All (all transactions); Analytics (a line graph illustrating the current month's transactions); and Savings (online coupons that may lower your expenses based on your spending).

Help with Transactions
BillGuard makes good use of the iPhone's navigational tools, though you can't always return to the dashboard with a single action. On the home page, there are icons in the upper-right and upper-left corners. One opens your utilities menu, and the other lets you add another card. As you move deeper into the app, you use navigational buttons like the back arrow and Cancel to reverse directions.

You can do one of two things when you're viewing a list of transactions. Tapping on a line item provides additional details about the merchant and transaction, calling up a green check mark and orange push pin buttons. Clicking the check mark turns the transaction green in your list, signifying that it's an authorized charge. You can also simply swipe it to the right.

Tap the push pin, and another small window of options opens. If you click the Help Me Recognize This button, BillGuard provides links that let you ask a friend about it via email or text message. You can also start a search in Google from that point to try and figure out what the charge is. The Report/Contact Merchant button takes you to the Report Charge window, where you can select your problem from a list that includes Stolen Card, Forgotten Charge, and Hidden Fee. You'll be able to enter text expanding on that, and then you can authorize BillGuard to contact the merchant for you.

A Simple, Friendly Solution
Personal finance management applications are just getting started when they connect to your financial institution and download transactions. They have many other features. BillGuard is much less complex, but it's still very smart, in a couple of ways. First, it draws on the experience of other consumers to let you know when what you're experiencing with a particular merchant is widespread. And second, it has isolated one element of personal finance that can get lost in the noise of more robust applications. BillGuard provides a quick and easy solution to one clearly-defined problem–gray charges. Which are you more likely to do, pore over your printed or downloaded credit card statement, or pull out your iPhone and spend a minute or two with a cool app? BillGuard is one personal finance app I'm going leave on my iPhone long after I've finished testing it.

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Acer B326HUL

Pros Solid feature set. Plenty of picture settings. Gray-scale performance was very good in our tests.

Cons Expensive. Middling color accuracy. No MHL support. Bottom Line The Acer B326HUL is a 32-inch professional-grade monitor that uses Vertical Alignment (VA) panel technology to deliver very good gray-scale performance and inky blacks. You get a generous selection of I/O ports and picture settings, but out-of-the-box color accuracy is less than ideal given the price.

By John R. Delaney

When it comes to desktop monitors, size matters, especially if you need to view multiple applications at the same time. With the Acer B326HUL ($899.99), you get a sprawling 32 inches of screen real estate and the deep, dark blacks that are the hallmark of Vertical Alignment (VA) panel technology. While not as pricey as our Editors' Choice for big-screen professional-grade monitors, the Lenovo LT3053P, the B326HUL is still fairly expensive, but in return you get a nice array of I/O ports, solid gray-scale reproduction, and an ergonomic stand. The WQHD (2,560-by-1,440) panel offers a sharp, highly detailed picture with good viewing angles, but it's out-of-the-box color accuracy could be better. Support for MHL connectivity would also be welcome.

Design and Features
The B326HUL isn't particularly flashy, but it's attractive nonetheless. The enormous 25-pound cabinet has thin (0.4-inch) bezels on the top and sides and a slightly wider (0.7-inch) bottom bezel that holds five function buttons and a Power switch. It is supported by a large rectangular base and arm assembly that gives you just under six inches of height adjustability, and the monitor can also tilt and swivel. VESA-compliant mounting holes are available should you decide to hang the display on a wall. The panel's matte, non-reflective coating does a good job of reducing glare.

Around back, there are two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort port, a dual-link DVI port, and an audio port. You also get one upstream USB 3.0 port and two downstream USB 3.0 ports. Two additional USB 3.0 downstream ports are mounted on the left side of the display. Many of the latest monitors offer HDMI ports that support MHL connectivity, so you can connect to compatible smartphones and tablets, but the B326HUL does not. The standard-issue 2-watt embedded speakers are moderately loud and predictably tinny.

As with the Acer K272HUL, the B326HUL uses on-screen labeling to let you know which buttons to press while navigating the On-Screen Display (OSD) menus. Picture presets include Eco, Standard, Graphics, Movie, and User-Defined modes. In addition to Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, and Color Temperature settings, there are 6-Axis Hue and 6-Axis Saturate settings that let you fine-tune color levels, and an Adaptive Contrast Management (ACM) setting that adjusts the monitor's contrast according to what's being displayed on the screen. I'd suggest leaving ACM disabled, as it tends to make the picture much too bright.

The monitor comes with a three-year warranty on parts, labor, and backlight. Included in the box are DisplayPort, HDMI, USB, audio input, and dual-link DVI cables.

Performance
The B326HUL is a good all-around performer for a professional-grade monitor, but I expect better color accuracy from its almost-$900 list price. As shown on the chromaticity chart below, red, green, and blue colors (represented by the colored dots) were all just outside of their ideal zones (represented by the boxes). None of the colors were so far off as to cause tinting or an oversaturated picture, but if you require very accurate colors, you'll have to use the 6-Axis Hue and Saturate adjustments to bring them in line. Otherwise, in my tests, colors appeared uniform and crisp and showed some added pop from the panel's dark-black level.

The monitor aced the DisplayMate 64-Step Gray-Scale test, displaying every shade of gray cleanly and accurately. Shadow and highlight detail was superb while watching The Bourne Legacy on Blu-ray, and the picture looked great from every angle. Video played smoothly, but this model isn't geared toward gamers; the panel's 6-millisecond (black-to-white) pixel response produced minor fast-action blurring and a trace of ghosting in very dark background scenes. The B326HUL's 27.3-millisecond input lag (the time it takes the monitor to respond to commands from your input device), as measured by the Leo Bodnar Lag Tester, is acceptable but not ideal.

The B326HUL used 48 watts of power during testing while set to the Standard mode. In Eco mode, power consumption dropped to an impressive 29 watts without too much dimming. The Dell UP3214Q averaged 88 watts of power in Standard mode, and the Asus PQ321 used 72 watts.

Conclusion
The Acer B326HUL is a solid professional-grade monitor for users who require lots of screen real estate, but don't necessarily need, or can afford, a big-screen UHD display like the Dell UltraSharp UP3214Q. Although its color accuracy is a bit skewed, you can use the B326HUL's extensive picture settings to tweak color levels, and its gray-scale performance is outstanding. You get a good selection of ports with this monitor, including two HDMI ports, but neither of them support MHL connectivity. If color accuracy is a deal-breaker, our Editors' Choice for professional-grade, big-screen monitors, the Lenovo LT3053P, is an excellent performer and is loaded with features, but it'll cost you almost twice as much as the B326HUL.

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Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Red)

Pros High-quality mechanical keyboard is great for gaming or typing. Individual key backlighting. Built-in media controls. Detachable wrist rest. Solid aluminum construction.

Cons Pricey. No color options for backlight. Bottom Line The Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Red) is a mechanical gaming keyboard with features gamers will quickly embrace, like swappable keycaps and individual key backlighting.

By Brian Westover

The Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Red) ($129.99) is the update to the Corsair Vengeance K60, one of Corsair's mechanical gaming keyboards. The new model gets a few functional tweaks, like mechanical switches and individual backlight for every key, along with some cosmetic changes, like crimson backlighting and a black-on-black color scheme. The Editors' Choice Roccat Ryos MK Pro may offer more in the way of features, but for gamers looking to equip themselves with a competitive gaming keyboard, the Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Red) is one of the best around.

Design and Features
The Vengeance K70 has the same industrial-looking design as the Corsair Vengeance K95, with a machined aluminum base covered in keys that appear to hover over the black, anodized-aluminum deck. Unlike the Corsair Vengeance K95, the Vengeance K70 doesn't have the 18-key module on the left, so you don't have programmable macro keys, nor do you have swappable profiles for assigning those macros. The button-studded, bare-metal design is visually striking, but it also makes for completely unencumbered access to all of the keys and easier cleaning of dust and crumbs that would be lost inside a keyboard with the more common framed keys.

Attached to the front of the keyboard is a separate wrist rest, which is covered in a soft-touch rubberized finish with a dimpled texture. Unlike the integrated wrist rests seen on the Roccat Ryos MK Pro, this one is also removable. The wrist rest extends the length of the keyboard—a change from the left-hand-only wrist rest that was included with the Corsair K60. For those who like the left-hand wrist rest (which was especially good for first-person-shooter gaming), it can be purchased separately ($14.99).

The keyboard features 104 total keys, seven physical buttons, a 10-key numeric pad, and built-in media controls. The media controls include Play/Pause, Stop, and Forward and Back buttons, with a roller knob for Volume Control and a Volume Mute button. The keys most used in gaming, WASD and the numbers 1 through 6, also come with swappable keycaps, which feature a sculpted ergonomic surface and textured surface, along with a red metallic sheen. The keyboard also comes with a keycap puller. While the previous Corsair K60 included keycap storage built into the wrist rest, there is no such storage included with the Vengeance K70.

The keys themselves feature Cherry MX Red switches, which have a solid typing feel, with a smooth, linear motion that offers consistency no matter how fast you hammer away at it. But it doesn't have the audible clicking noise and tactile bump you would get with the more popular Cherry MX Blue switches. The keyboard is also available in models with either Cherry MX Blue—as seen on the Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Blue)—and Cherry MX Brown switches, which fall between the two with the same tactile bump signaling each keystroke, but without the added clicking sound.

The Vengeance K70 gets two big
improvements over the previous iteration. First are the mechanical switches under every key—the previous model used silicon dome switches under the function keys. Additionally, the Vengeance K70 gets individual key backlighting, with each key glowing with its own LED underneath the laser-etched keycaps. The new design glows red instead of white, a look that is significantly more in line with the aggressive gamer aesthetic than the office-friendly look of the Corsair K95. The backlighting can also be customized for each key, turning the lighting on and off for individual keys, and saving the lighting pattern to the keyboard's internal memory.

The included USB 2.0 Y-cable not only connects the keyboard for use, but also allows for a USB pass-through connection, providing a handy port when your PC tower is tucked under a desk or behind a monitor. It is, however, limited to USB 2.0 speeds. There's also a sliding switch on the back of the keyboard, next to the USB port, which lets you adjust the polling rates (the minimum interval between repeat key presses) for the keyboard, letting you select between 1 millisecond (ms), 2ms, 4ms, and 8ms. But most users will simply leave it pegged at 1ms for the faster response times.

The Vengeance K70 does require downloading the accompanying Corsair Gaming Software to access all of the programmable features of the keyboard. The software is Windows only (Windows 7/8/Vista/XP). Corsair covers the Vengeance K70 with a two-year warranty.

Performance
While testing the Vengeance K70, I used it for both daily work and gaming. The Cherry MX Red keyswitches offered smooth motion and excellent typing feel, whether I was typing up a product review or engaging in a high-speed chase in Watch Dogs. Unlike the Cherry MX Blue keys on the other model of the Vengeance K70, the Cherry MX Red switches are quieter, and offer a smoother up and down motion without the tactile bump and audible click mid-keystroke.

But things got interesting as soon as I swapped to the textured gaming keycaps. The sculpted, textured surface of the keys made it easy to find and stay on the WASD cluster without having to glance at the keyboard. It made it even easier to use other keys (such as for using items or tossing grenades), because I could be sure I returned to the proper keys without needing to look away from my monitor, letting me pay that much more attention to the game.

My only real complaints are the same ones I had while using the Vengeance K60—the molded keycaps are great for gaming, but not for typing, so you'll need to switch keycaps whenever you go from gaming to typing. The swappable number keycaps also don't include secondary characters, making it a pain to remember which key is used for the dollar sign or a pound sign for your funny hashtag.

Conclusion
The Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Red) is a well-built gaming keyboard with a great design and a decent feature set. Like the Corsair Vengeance K60 before it, the keyboard offers premium construction and game-friendly features, like swappable keycaps and high-quality mechanical switches, but it also gets some big improvements, like programmable backlighting. It may not have the extensive selection of features seen on other gaming keyboards—the Editors' Choice Roccat Ryos MK Pro keeps its top spot, thanks to its many customizable functions—but it's still a notable addition to the list of best keyboards for gamers.

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Bowflex Boost

I have yet to see an activity tracker costing less than $99 that I can wholeheartedly recommend. Fitness brand Bowflex (owned by Nautilus) is taking a stab at it with its $49.95 activity monitor, the Bowflex Boost. This wristband looks and feels beautiful. It's sleek in shape and is crafted from a soft and durable silicone that feels almost velvety. But it lacks a real interface, other than one indicator light and a single button. That means you have to look at your iPhone or Android phone to see stats for your daily steps, distance, sleep, and calories burned. Seeing as the app plays such a crucial role for the Bowflex Boost, you'd think it would look more attractive.

Together, the Boost and app just fall short of being a great pair. I definitely recommend spending a little more—upward of $99 to be precise—on a fitness tracker that you'll love. My two favorites are the $99 Fitbit One and the more expensive $199 Basis Carbon Steel Edition, which includes a built-in heart rate monitor.

Bowflex Boost Design and Features
The all-black Bowflex Boost is a wrist-band activity monitor made of a soft silicone. Two rows of holes line a loose end of the strap, which wraps around and secures into two fasteners that sit at the top. The way the band wraps around your wrist is a bit odd because the fastener is unconventionally at the top, near your wrist bone, rather than being on the underside.

The tracker component is permanently fixed inside the band, so you'll never lose it. The back side has a two charging connection points that, when fitted onto the included charging cradle, snap in place via magnets.

When you look at your wrist, you see nothing but black—until you press a single button that's just barely raised on the band. That button turns on an indicator LED. More on that in a moment.

Steps, Distance, Activity. When the Boost is charged and strapped on your arm, you wear it all day long to track the number of steps you take, the distance you travel (in miles or kilometers), and your total activity. When you set up the mobile app, it will also estimate how many calories your body burns over your base metabolic rate, using information you give it about your sex, height, weight, and age.

You also use the app to customize your goal for how much activity you want to get in a day. The indicator light is red when you are 50 percent or less of your goal. It changes to amber when you're between 50 percent and 99 percent, and it turns green at 100 percent and above. You have to press the button to see the color, however. The Boost never gives you information otherwise.

Sleep tracking. The Boost does have the ability to track sleep, but you need to actively put the device into sleep mode by pressing the holding the button until it turns purple. Likewise, you have to press and hold the button when you wake up to turn off sleep tracking.

The Boost only tracks the amount of time it took you to fall asleep and your total sleep time. After several days and weeks, you can see a bar graph or line graph of your sleep habits over time—more on that in the section about the mobile app.

The Fitbit line of products that track sleep do it automatically, asking you only what times you got into bed and woke up the next morning. The Jawbone UP24 shows the same statistics that the Boost collects, plus your light and deep sleep moments. Those are helpful to analyze if you have trouble sleeping or wake up frequently at night, because you can see where you were in your sleep cycle when you were disturbed. The Basis Band goes even further; it collects heart rate and skin temperature data, which helps it figure out your REM periods, too.

Water-resistant. The Bowflex Boost is water resistant up to one meter (3.3 feet), which means you don't have to worry if it gets wet, but you shouldn't swim while wearing it. If you swim laps from time to time for exercise, you'll probably prefer the Misfit Shine, while more serious swimmers and triathletes who care about their speed and Swolf score should take a look at the TomTom Multi-Sport.

Boost Mobile App
The Bowflex Boost is compatible with the iPhone 4s and newer models; iPad 3 and newer models; and select Android phones running Android 4.3 or later with Bluetooth Smart. There is no option to sync the device with a computer, so you must have a compatible smartphone.

Frankly put, the app is ugly. A gray and red color scheme reminds me of business software from the late 1990s. It's very basic, though at least it works. To sync the Boost to the app, you press and hold the one button on the device for about five seconds until it blinks blue. Then you can let it go and wait for an on-screen confirmation that it's syncing.

The main page of the app shows four red progress bars. The top one indicates your general activity level, as a percentage toward your goal. The other three show the number of steps, calories burned, and distance traveled. All four progress bars show percent toward completion, and they turn green after you hit your goal. Above each bar are numerical values of your current total and goal.

Swipe once, and you can see sleep data. It's not very detailed, showing only the time it took to fall asleep and total sleep time. If you turn your phone sideways (to landscape mode), the graph becomes a little easier to read.

What's missing from the app is a way to log calories consumed, or at the very least, the option to pull in data from another calorie-counting app, such as MyFitnessPal. Many other activity trackers let you connect to MyFitnessPal. It's become the standard, and there's no reason it shouldn't be an option in the Boost app.

Think Long Term
I wish the Bowflex Boost had a better interface and more evolved app. The band itself is a gorgeous piece of work, even if the strap is a bit unconventional. The $49 price may be alluring, but I don't think many people will find they'll get the lifespan out of the device that they had hoped. You don't want to buy a new product only to abandon it a few weeks later out of frustration.

If you want a device that you'll use for months or years, I recommend the Fitbit One or the Basis Carbon Steel Edition. In the end, I think most people will be glad they paid a little extra. The real kicker about fitness trackers, though, is that they are very personal, so I fully admit that even those two devices—as much as I sing their praises—aren't right for everyone. Read up on how to choose a fitness tracker and then browse through my list of the best activity trackers for fitness for more guidance.

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