Surge or Ionic???

[BobStein3]

I am on my third Surge in a little over a year. My first Surge had an OS failure and was replaced.  My second Surge had the band bubble and peel away from the watch and was replaced.  My third Surge now is currently having battery issues and cannot hold a charge longer than 24 hrs.  Being out of warranty now, Customer Service will only offer me a 25% discount on a replacement.  I love my Surge, I only wish it was a durable product.  I've read about many of the problems folks are having with the Ionic.  I am interested in hearing from former Surge users ... should I buy a new Ionic now or wait and baby my Surge until it dies completely?  BTW, my 25% discount is only good for 30 days.

[jrobbins]

I used a Surge for about 6 months and went through 3 of them myself.  Finally I got fed up enough that I moved to a One and a Pebble watch.  I have been using the Ionic for 6 months now and still enjoy it quite a bit.  I had some problems with all day sync and notifications while using a Pixel phone, but after switching to iOS I have had no problems at all. I think that Fitbit is on the right path here as long as they continue to update the OS on the Ionic it should be a great watch for a while yet.

If you do not need GPS built in I would look at the Versa as well.  But if I were you I would take advantage of the discount and buy something new right now.

[Cantryboy]

I would say ionic--it would solve at least one of your problems since the band is interchangeable

[Rich_Laue]

My Surge was acquired the month that it was released. Whike the band shows a little wear, the battery still lasts 5 days. 

[bmw54]

Depending upon what you use it for, you might be interested in something I posted a while back:

 Ionic vs Surge

as bad as your Surge might look, for running it functions far better than the Ionic. For important training runs and racing, I stopped wearing my ionic and use my old Surge instead. 

[Giampi71]

I'm using Ionic with a Pixel. Contrarily to @jrobbins I don't have any problem of sync or whatever else, simply perfect. I think updates following your move to iPhone might have done something 🙂

So a big PLUS for me too on the Ionic

[BobStein3]

Interesting.  I'm curious have you received your replacement Ionic yet?  I'm curious how it performs compared to the apparent lemon you purchased.  

I love my Surge.  If the battery was replaceable or held a charge longer and the band wasn't disintegrating I wouldn't even be considering the Ionic ... although, I admit it is much more attractive.  GPS function is important to me so my choices are limited and my 25% discount on a Ionic expires in 30 days.  Oh, what to do???  I wish I could have more faith in FitBit that a new Ionic won't start having all the same problems I've had with all my Surges.  

[bmw54 · Accepted solution]

---

@BobStein3 wrote:

Interesting.  I'm curious have you received your replacement Ionic yet?  I'm curious how it performs compared to the apparent lemon you purchased.  

I love my Surge.  If the battery was replaceable or held a charge longer and the band wasn't disintegrating I wouldn't even be considering the Ionic ... although, I admit it is much more attractive.  GPS function is important to me so my choices are limited and my 25% discount on a Ionic expires in 30 days.  Oh, what to do???  I wish I could have more faith in FitBit that a new Ionic won't start having all the same problems I've had with all my Surges.  

---

@BobStein3: I wish I could be more encouraging about the Ionic. My replacement Ionic functions pretty much the same as the first. On my marathon training runs they've both lost GPS after about an hour and struggled to regain it thereafter. But the Surge (on my other wrist) soldiers on. I'm running Boston Marathon this Monday, there's no way I'd do it with just the Ionic! In prior years I've scanned the entire Runners Village without spotting any fitbit product. Amazingly few competitive runners use fitbit - I wish I'd known this before shelling out the $300. I just couldn't believe fitbit would release anything as annoying and unreliable as the Ionic.

If you aren't a competitive runner and are happy to run at fairly steady pace for less than 10 miles at a time, the Ionic will probably satisfy you. It's very pretty and has cool watch faces available (I like the trek watch face)

But if you employ pacing strategies and regular accurate feedback the Ionic might disappoint. 

good luck