The holiday's best smartwatches and fitness trackers

Apple leads the pack this year for high-end fitness smartwatches. The Apple Watch Series 3 improves heart-rate tracking and is faster, but similar in function to last year's swim-ready GPS-equipped Series 2.

Spend a bit more for cellular, and the Apple Watch Series 3 can get phone calls and messages and eventually Apple Music streaming, if you pay per month.

But if you don't need GPS, cellular or water resistance, the Apple Watch Series 1 can save you a good amount of money.

The Nike version of the Apple Watch adds some custom watch faces, but is the same otherwise. Nike fans will appreciate it.

Fitbit's top-end smartwatch for 2017 has tons of features, is swim-waterproof, has GPS, stores music and can make mobile payments. It will also have apps and new watch faces down the road.

The best Fitbit for the price is still the Alta HR: It's tiny and lasts a week on a charge. Just don't get it wet.

The Fitbit Flex 2 can be worn as a necklace or on the wrist. There's no heart-rate tracking, but it's swim-waterproof.

The best Garmin tracker is the waterproof and feature-studded Vivosmart 3. It's a great all-day band, but lacks GPS.

The Garmin Vivosport, adds GPS and can be worn swimming, but costs a bit more.

The best regular-looking watch with fitness added might be Garmin's new Vivomove HR. It tracks heart rate and has a display, and sports analog design with real physical watch hands.

Samsung's top smartwatch from 2016 is still around, if you're interested in an Android-ready watch that can also take phone calls. It also has a streaming Spotify app.

The upcoming Gear Sport adds swim-ready water resistance to the mix, but lacks a speakerphone.

The new Gear Fit 2 Pro is like a curved-screen mini-Samsung sports watch. It can store music, has GPS, works while swimming and also has Spotify.

There are a ton of Android Wear watches available, with a lot of variations. Huawei Watch 2 is one of the most dedicated fitness Android Wear watches of the current bunch. The US version is Wi-Fi only, but you can compare it to our review of the LTE-enabled version.

If you're listening to music and taking calls on Apple Watch, you'll need some wireless earphones. AirPods pair the best and swap easily from calls to music, one-ear or two-ear. They're made to go with the Watch quite nicely.

Samsung's newest fitness earphones are fully wireless and have built-in heart rate and music storage. They're a watch companion or a standalone fitness tracker on their own.

Check out the video version of our wearable gift guide.