MashBlur

It’s been more than a year since the ill-fated Fitbit Force tracker was pulled off shelves due its allergy-inducing wristband. Despite the ailment, the device otherwise received high praise for being one of the best — if not the best — fitness trackers on the market.

Now the company has introduced a reboot of the Force with a brand new name: the Fitbit Charge, and like the previous model, it’s a solid tracker that covers the basics. The Charge monitors steps taken, calories burned, quality of sleep and even shows you what time it is.

The new tracker has a few extra bells and whistles, too: Notably, notifications from your smartphone are pushed to the device’s display, and it has an improved clasp design, which keeps it from mysteriously disappearing from your wrists.

Battery life is improved, too — rated to last 10 days on a single charge.

But fitness trackers have made a lot of advancements since the original launch of the Force. Some devices offer more notifications and features beyond what the Fitbit delivers. Android wear includes your social-network notifications, and the Microsoft Band will let you pay for your Starbucks coffee via the display.

Other fitness-focused wearables like the Basis Peak offer continuous heart-rate tracking, so you can see how the heart handles both workouts and daily stresses. The Charge doesn't do this either.

That's one of the biggest issues with Fitbit’s newest gadget: It’s a perfectly good tracker at $129.95, but 

While the Force was a standout back when it launched in 2013, its Charge reboot is no longer a game-changer. That doesn’t mean, of course, it’s not a viable fitness tracker. It is; you'd just be wise to wait for the Charge HR instead.for just $20, the Fitbit Charge HR (launching in early 2015) will come with continuous heart-rate monitoring, and that alone is worth holding off for the larger investment.

Let’s take a closer look at why:

The hardware of the Charge is similar to the Force with a few tweaks: the wristband is more texturized thanks to small ridges that form a subtle pattern. It’s lighter on the wrists, too, and is one of the least-obtrusive designs we’ve seen, especially for one with a screen (such designs tend to be clunkier). It’s not often you’ll forget you’re wearing a tracker until it buzzes with a notification.

But the design is still not as sleek as Jawbone's tracker lineup and, once again, it’s not something you’d want to leave on during a chic dinner. Unlike the Fitbit Flex (the predecessor to the Force that's still popular today), the core system doesn’t pop out of the wristband and can’t transferred into a more fashionable option (like one from high-end designer Tory Burch).

This means you’re stuck with whatever color you choose (blue or black). The good news, however, is that the clasp is noticeably improved: It fits more snugly around the wrists and didn’t fall off once during testing. In the past, Fitbit device’s have been tricky to secure — the Charge goes on and off in a cinch.

However, you still can’t completely submerge Fitbit products in water. They're water-resistant, but you have to take it off (and remember to put it back on) every time you hop in the shower or go for a swim.

One of the biggest improvements to the Fitbit Charge is that you no longer have to put the device into sleep mode at night. Yes, just like the jolly guy at the North Pole, it knows when you’re awake and when you’re not. Owners of previous Fitbits (or those with other wristband trackers) likely know the frustration of waking up in the morning with no new collected data because it was never switched to sleep mode in the first place.

The Charge takes this step out of the equation altogether — a small but useful perk. However, it looks more closely at your nighttime cycle (deep sleep vs. light sleep), rather than a 30-minute cat nap you might sneak in during the day.

Even still, the Charge (like most of Fitbit’s product offerings) is easy to use. It’s now possible to call out workouts and monitor how many calories were burned during a specific period.Clearly, sensitivity to arm movement is still something Fitbit, and other builders of fitness trackers, have yet to perfect. You can trick the device into thinking your moving when you’re merely reading a book or moving your arms during a conversation, so precise accuracy should be taken with a grain of salt. At the same time, activity notifications lagged for me, too: I got an email congratulating me of my 10,000-step victory a day late.

There are a few software updates available, including a new feature called Challenges that lets you go head to head with friends throughout the week, weekend or daily. And of course, the smartwatch-like alerts are particularly handy, which show you who's calling or texting via a message that pops up on the display. The device vibrates each time this happens too, so you don’t need to reach for your smartphone to see who’s contacting you. +1 for not being rude at dinner.

However, you can’t respond to notifications like you could with a smartwatch. All of this is forgiveable, of course, because first and foremost, the Charge is a fitness tracker. The Microsoft Band, another new fitness tracker, packs all the notifications you’d ever want onto its device, but as a trade-off: It’s far bigger and noticeable than the Charge, which is also softer to the touch.

For now, the Charge is truly an improved reboot of the Fitbit Force, but that’s about it. If you’re looking for a comprehensive fitness tracker to give you a bigger picture of your overall health, wait patiently and save your pennies for the Charge HR (again, at only $20 more), due in early 2015.

And if you're willing to spend more, the Fitbit Surge "superwatch" ($249) — a device specialized for runners with more smartwatch capabilities — is coming in the same time frame. The key takeaway: Fitbit has a lot more up its sleeve, so there's no need to settle on the basic Charge tracker now.