Best fitness trackers for $50 or less

Best overall: Xiaomi Mi Band 2 See at Xiaomi Global

The Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is the newest fitness tracker from the Chinese company, carrying on their tradition of offering high quality at a great price. Starting at around $49.00, it just makes the cut to be included in this article. Due to its stylish look and a wide range of features, it's also impossible to ignore.

Bottom line: The amount of features included in the Mi Band 2 makes you wonder why offerings from bigger fitness tracker brands, such as Fitbit and Garmin, are so expensive. With the ability to auto-track various activities and record sleep data all packaged within an impressively rugged design, the Mi Band 2 has everything you could hope for in a fitness tracker at this price point.

Why the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is the best

The Mi Band 2 comes with features you'd expect only to find in fitness trackers priced well over $100.

Most people looking for a fitness tracker are looking for a band that can do everything — the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 delivers.

The three core metrics every entry-level fitness tracker should have are all present; steps, distance traveled, and calories burned. The Mi Band 2 tracks all these stats superbly, thanks to some serious modifications to the internal sensors from the original Mi Band.

What surprises us the most about the Mi Band 2 is all the extra features that typically aren't available on low-budget trackers. Sleep tracking has become an important feature to a lot of users. The Mi Band 2 will not only track sleep, but also give you a detailed outline of whether your body was in a stage of light sleep or deep sleep throughout the night. On top of that, the Mi Band 2 features a heart rate monitor, which, as we said before, usually pushes the price of a tracker quite high.

What surprises me most about the Mi Band 2, are all the extra features that typically aren't found in low-budget trackers.

However, the heart monitor of the Mi Band 2 isn't without flaws. One of the drawbacks is you can't see your heart rate directly on the screen — you need to open the Mi App to check it. If you don't mind that small inconvenience, you should find the Mi Band 2 more than capable of telling you how hard your cardiovascular system is working.

On paper, the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 battery life is 20 days on standby with its 70 mAh battery. Even with heavy everyday use, that should be enough juice to keep you going for all your activities in between charges.

The icing on the cake here is its design. The tracker itself is an aluminum alloy modular piece that fits inside a silicone band — pretty standard as far as trackers go. But the Mi Band 2 manages to look a little more polished than its low-budget competitors. It has a touch-enabled OLED display that shows you the time and also lets you scroll through your daily stats. Plus, the band is relatively slim for a tracker that includes a heart rate monitor, which means it should fit comfortably on your wrist and look great!

If that was the icing, here is the cake; it's also quite water-resistant. The Mi Band 2 has an IP67 rating, which allows it to be fully submerged in three feet of water for 30 mins without showing any damaged. You'll take this tracker with you everywhere!

Best on a budget: Misfit Flash See at Amazon

The Misfit Flash has all the standards when it comes to tracking. Sleep, steps, and calories are all counted and tracked for you in the Misfit app. The Flash also has the added benefit of being able to track your swimming activities due to its high IPX7 water-resistance rating. Its battery life is beyond impressive; it can last roughly six months on a single battery, but it does use a standard watch battery that you will need to replace once it runs out of juice. Misfit Flash starts at around $18 and goes up to about $30 depending on which color you'd prefer.

Bottom line: The extremely low cost, makes the Misfit Flash hard to pass up; however, it's lack of screen, and entirely plastic exterior does make it significantly less functional and stylish.

Fitbit on a budget: Fitbit Zip See at Amazon

The Fitbit Zip is the least capable tracker in the Fitbit lineup; however, your steps, distance traveled, and calories burned data will be all be tracked accurately. The Zip is not worn on your wrist like many other fitness trackers, but rather clipped on your body or clothes, which does give you the ability to place it conveniently where others may not see it in case you don't want to broadcast to the world that you are using a tracker. The Fitbit Zip will also keep you moving up to six months on a single battery so that you won't feel like a slave to a power source of any kind. The Zip typical starts at about $49 but can rise a little bit over 50 dollars depending on your color preference.

Bottom line: The Fitbit Zip is a solid tracker for basic data, and it's perfect for the casual user. Plus, being part of the Fitbit ecosystem give you access to the robust Fitbit app and other features the company offers, which is the big reason the Fitbit Zip gets the honorable mention.

Conclusion: Get the Xiami Mi Band 2! See at Xiaomi Global

When it comes to cheap fitness trackers, Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is about as good as they come. The Mi App is a great companion to the wearable and shouldn't leave you lacking anything important.

Bottom line: Style, durability, and high-end features with a low-end price. The Xiaomi Mi Band 2 gives you little reason to look elsewhere.