Microsoft Band 2.0 review: over 100 guided workouts are great, design is comfortable and improved, but clasp is bad and GPS can be slow
Microsoft Band 2.0: Big steps forward mean you just might ditch your trainer — Review: Better than the original, but not perfect.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's second fitness band lands in a market where the first generation was serviceable but unremarkable; this review credits the over-100 guided workouts and a more comfortable design as a genuine step forward, while flagging two concrete defects — a bad clasp and slow GPS lock. Within six weeks Microsoft shipped an update adding music controls, activity reminders, and improved exercise tracking, signaling that software fixes were already part of the product plan.
The competitive frame matters more than the scorecard: eight months later Ars judged Samsung's $179 Gear Fit 2, with built-in GPS, strong enough to make top-tier Fitbits look outdated, while the Pebble 2 review found accurate heart-rate hardware undermined by disappointing fitness software. Hardware alone stopped being the story; the coaching layer became the differentiator.
First-order effects
- Buyers weighing the Band 2.0 get a clear trade-off: guided-workout content and comfort versus a clasp and GPS that lag the competition, pushing price-sensitive shoppers toward Samsung's cheaper Gear Fit 2 when it arrives.
Second-order effects
- Samsung answers on the spec Microsoft got wrong, shipping built-in GPS in the Gear Fit 2, while Microsoft counters through its fast-follow December firmware update to exercise tracking — a cadence war where each vendor patches the other's headline feature.
Third-order effects
- If reviews keep weighting software over sensors, wearable makers converge on ecosystem plays — guided coaching, companion apps, recurring updates — where hardware gaps like Pebble 2's are fatal but fixable flaws like the Band's clasp are not.
The trend: Fitness bands are shifting from step-counting hardware to software-differentiated coaching platforms, with vendors patching features across releases faster than annual hardware cycles.