So I got a Fitbit Flex for Christmas (Santa ordered it from the Amazon elves for me since no male in my family is insane enough to give appliances, fitness equipment or such for a gift).  I had zero problems setting it up and none of the reported problems snapping the band in place – a lot of reviewers complained it was stiff and difficult, it didn’t seem so to me.  I’m going to write this review with the initial impressions and then come back and follow up in a month so I can give a run down of how I like it after using it for a while.

Initial impressions:

• Setup – easy and fast
• Dashboard – pretty clean and easy to customize.
• Help – had to dig a little more than I had hoped for some settings information, but overall pretty thorough and easy to use.
• Sleep – so far I’m 50/50 on remembering to put it in sleep mode.  We shall see on this one.  Having to think just prior to bed is a bit much to ask – I’m probably going to aim for starting sleep mode in the 30 minutes of tea and reading prior.
• Goals – 10K steps/5 miles is a pretty standard starting point.  Adding a common goal like weight loss or calorie intake requires a bit of slogging through help which it probably shouldn’t.
• Water resistant – showered with it and no issues.
• Non-dominant hand – sucks for us watch wearers.  Changed the setting rather than try to pair it with my watch.
• Wake up alarm – very cool and dead on with timing.  Nice.
• Sync – dammit, I want a Windows 8 phone sync.  Seriously.  The 3rd party app is pretty good though – I do wish it let you enter foods.

I do find the flashing light progress bar pretty danged addicting and it has gotten me to take the longer route several times just to see if it would kick over to the next light.  Pleased with the decision so far.