F itness has become a huge seller in recent years. A quick glimpse at your Instagram feed and every third person out there is trying to make a living posting their latest regimes, workouts, guides, and numerous other videos, as well as an inordinate number of selfies.

Fitbit's first true smart watch is a a success and generally lays the ground work for plenty of improvements to come - both in firmware and future models.

Fitbit has introduced a new member to its tracker family the Fitbit Ionic. This first-ever smartwatch is replacing the Surge, which has been on the market for t

The Fitbit Ionic ($199 at Amazon) was announced in August 2017 and released in October of that year to less than rave reviews. The design wasn't great, the software felt unfinished and its price ($300, £300 or AU$450) was hard to swallow. Even worse, it arrived after the 2017 refresh of the Apple Watch ($169 at Best Buy) line, which introduced the Apple Watch Series 1 and Apple Watch Series 3.

Fitbit’s fitness smartwatch has gotten better with an infusion of watch faces and apps, but some of its extra-smart features still aren't as polished as the competition.

Fitbit Ionic has a better-than-most-smartwatches four-day battery life, while still having always-on heart rate and a comfy fit; It has features galore: waterproofing, GPS and on-wrist mobile payments, plus new watch faces and a growing app store; It works with iOS and Android, and has an excellent phone app and social community.

Wrist payments don't work with as many banks as Apple Pay and Android Pay; On-wrist music is hard to set up and use; Software and apps sometimes feel buggy.

Fitbit’s fitness smartwatch has gotten better with an infusion of watch faces and apps, but some of its extra-smart features still aren't as polished as the competition.

Fitbit Ionic has a better-than-most-smartwatches four-day battery life, while still having always-on heart rate and a comfy fit; It has features galore: waterproofing, GPS and on-wrist mobile payments, plus new watch faces and a growing app store.

Wrist payments don't work with as many banks as Apple Pay and Android Pay; On-wrist music is hard to set up and use; Software and apps sometimes feel buggy.

If the Apple Watch is a smartwatch first and a fitness tracker second, the Fitbit Ionic feels like the inverse. Depending on what you're looking for in a wearable, that could be a very good thing. The Ionic's $300 price tag places it firmly in Apple Watch territory.

Vibrant screen; Changeable straps; Safe for swimming; Excellent battery life; Smart notifications; Built-in GPS and NFC; Pandora integration; Open SDK for app developers

Expensive; Thick bottom bezel; Case easily scratches

Ultimately, the Ionic is a respectable debut for Fitbit's first serious attempt at a true smartwatch, and the company continues to excel at fitness-tracking features. But while its new operating system is intuitive and well-designed, overall the device still feels like a placeholder.

Bright display; Long battery life; Comprehensive fitness features; Swim tracking; Contactless payments work well

Finicky; incomplete software; Cannot reply to notifications; Limited selection of third-party apps

The Ionic is Fitbit's latest smart device release and it includes all the features you'd expect with a fitness tracker like GPS, a heart rate monitor called PUREPULSE®, and sleep tracking. Additionally, there is onboard storage for 300+ songs and downloaded Pandora playlists.

The touchscreen Fitbit Ionic has GPS, a four-day battery life, on-board workouts & third party apps.

There's a lot of hype behind (and hope riding atop) Fitbit's first true smartwatch. The Fitbit Ionic isn't just the company's first fully-featured effort in the smartwatch space, it's the centerpiece of their pivot into the broader tech space.

Battery Life; Great software

On-board music is annoying to setup; Inconsistent performance