Fitbit’s new fitness watch looks slightly better in person

Yesterday Fitbit announced Blaze, a new “smart” fitness watch that tracks a bunch of different activities. And the immediate reaction to the watch was mixed.

Some of our Verge readers and Twitter followers said it looked way too big. Others saw it as an attempt to compete with Apple Watch. Investors didn’t love it, either; the company’s stock nosedived after the announcement.

We got some hands on time with the Blaze today at CES and got a closer look at some of its features. It’s the first Fitbit to have a color LCD display, but it’s also not a unibody watch. It consists of a pop-out tracker that you can pop into other bands and frames. It has optical heart rate sensors, but no built-in GPS.

It’s still not a very attractive watch. It is big, especially on my wrists.

But it’s at least and lighter than the Fitbit Surge (one person at Fitbit’s CES booth pointed out that it fit in the sleeve of his button-downs, unlike the Surge). It manages to cram a lot of features into a non-smartwatch smart watch, too. Until we get to test it for an extended period, we won’t be able to really judge its capabilities — or its heart rate accuracy — but you can watch the video and decide for yourself whether its looks appeal to you.