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The AW Ultra suddenly seems like a bargain now with Garmins silly pricing
- Thread starter dj1891
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Interesting, now long are you skiing for? My AW1 with 88% battery health was still around 20% battery life on one of my longest days which was 845am til 5pm, 142km covered, no breaks, 7 hours moving time, 14,395m elevation!
So many running shorts have the pocket for a phone built in now that I just use those. The fabletics running shorts are being advertise everywhere and are cheap. I tried the Apple Watch option for a while and having my cell company abuse me twice as much was just no fun. I gave up when Verizon announced a 50% increase in their smartwatch lines and even if you use your Apple Watch a ton it is a drop in the bucket compared to smartphones. They want $15 a month for safety? That's too much.
Have you been on this forum after a fresh new drop of the WatchOS? People spend months hoping the battery, widget, music downloads, and other matters sort out.
Garmin watches do last for years.
Yet the Fenix 8 in 47mm offers black titanium with a week of battery life today and that is with always on display. The 51mm (aka Ultra sized) one offers two weeks.
The Fenix 8 is available in MIPS as well as OLED. Plus the new Enduro 3 is basically the Fenix 8 minus the mic/speaker/diving and it's got insane battery life.
Weird rant.
So do Apple Watches, my series 0 still turns on and can run and it’s been nearly 10 years. That said, I wouldn’t want to daily it anymore. The experience just isn’t that great. So sure a Garmin can run for years, but you really wouldn’t want to keep using it. Especially with the advancement in tech that keeps coming so fast. This isn’t merely about how long the watch will actually run for, but how long the watch can actually meet one’s needs for.
I'm not certain the advances are coming so fast. The rumors for Apple Watch X and Ultra 3 involve perhaps a larger screen, slightly flatter case, perhaps slightly improved silicon.
I own two Garmin Watches. I own the 7x Solar Sapphire and the Fenix 5x Plus.
The 5x Plus was released six years ago.
Garmin Fenix 5/5S/5X Plus In-Depth Review (with Maps, Music, Payments)
Today Garmin announced the new Fenix 5 Plus series, which takes the existing Fenix 5/5S/5X and injects full onboard color mapping, onboard music, and contactless payments. Additionally there’s new Galileo GPS support for higher accuracy, new smart notification privacy features,
www.dcrainmaker.com
For fun after I was done with my races I put the 5X Plus for one full battery cycle to see how different it would be compared to my more recent Fenix.
It has Garmin Pay, media playback and control, full topographic maps, a range of activities native, still gives me the weather and other information and did so while lasting 12 days between charges.
Now the GPS lines are more wobbly because it doesn't have multipoint GPS or SatIQ to conserve battery while tracking GPS. It doesn't have a solar panel. It doesn't have widget glances so I have to hit a couple more buttons to get to certain info. It also doesn't do any sort of training readiness and the sleep tracking is similar but won't feed into any sort of body battery type measurements. It will show how long I slept and the cycles though.
The biggest with the batteries is charge cycles. When you only have to charge once every two weeks then 500 cycles is a really long time. For an Apple Watch you're begging for that upgrade at 24-36 months and you ready plenty of reports about watches that don't make it 18 hrs anymore or make it but only with no workouts, etc.
The number one reason people have fled the Apple Watch is battery life.
Garmin released the Enduro 3 at $899. It basically can last almost forever and is the Fenix 8 without the diving/speaker/mic.
However the real issue is Garmin has great products and they don't have a ton more they can really do. If you see the reviews for the Enduro 3 and Fenix 8 they have a form of screen lock where you swipe down/left and right for features and it is quite smart. I could easily see Apple stealing it because it's a great way of integrating the touch movements but not having them accidentally mess up a workout.
Apple is pretty out of innovation here as well. I didin't see anyone clamoring for more nits of screen brightness or the pinch motion which is pretty limited. On device siri is nice but everyone really wants more battery life. We see Watch OS 11. It's added some new features but people are praying (and complaining) about battery life as a top feature.
They could both improve/do a lot more work on their health features, ECG, auto reporting of AFib, Afib burden (for Garmin), sleep apnea, blood pressure (For both) etc etc, I'm sure they will be working on some/all of that list and there is probably a lot more they can do!
Garmin can improve the smartwatch features apple has, I noted DCrainmaker said although you can set a timer on the Fenix 8 via a voice control you have to press a button first, so can't do a raise to speak!! He also noted you can't then ask it "how long is left on my timer"
Apple is playing catchup with Garmin on the workout features, metrics, offline mapping/routing etc.
The Enduro 3 screen is MIP I believe? Shame when the OLED screens look so much better.
I'm not certain the advances are coming so fast. The rumors for Apple Watch X and Ultra 3 involve perhaps a larger screen, slightly flatter case, perhaps slightly improved silicon.
I own two Garmin Watches. I own the 7x Solar Sapphire and the Fenix 5x Plus.
The 5x Plus was released six years ago.
Garmin Fenix 5/5S/5X Plus In-Depth Review (with Maps, Music, Payments)
Today Garmin announced the new Fenix 5 Plus series, which takes the existing Fenix 5/5S/5X and injects full onboard color mapping, onboard music, and contactless payments. Additionally there’s new Galileo GPS support for higher accuracy, new smart notification privacy features,
For fun after I was done with my races I put the 5X Plus for one full battery cycle to see how different it would be compared to my more recent Fenix.
It has Garmin Pay, media playback and control, full topographic maps, a range of activities native, still gives me the weather and other information and did so while lasting 12 days between charges.
Now the GPS lines are more wobbly because it doesn't have multipoint GPS or SatIQ to conserve battery while tracking GPS. It doesn't have a solar panel. It doesn't have widget glances so I have to hit a couple more buttons to get to certain info. It also doesn't do any sort of training readiness and the sleep tracking is similar but won't feed into any sort of body battery type measurements. It will show how long I slept and the cycles though.
The biggest with the batteries is charge cycles. When you only have to charge once every two weeks then 500 cycles is a really long time. For an Apple Watch you're begging for that upgrade at 24-36 months and you ready plenty of reports about watches that don't make it 18 hrs anymore or make it but only with no workouts, etc.
The number one reason people have fled the Apple Watch is battery life.
Garmin released the Enduro 3 at $899. It basically can last almost forever and is the Fenix 8 without the diving/speaker/mic.
However the real issue is Garmin has great products and they don't have a ton more they can really do. If you see the reviews for the Enduro 3 and Fenix 8 they have a form of screen lock where you swipe down/left and right for features and it is quite smart. I could easily see Apple stealing it because it's a great way of integrating the touch movements but not having them accidentally mess up a workout.
Apple is pretty out of innovation here as well. I didin't see anyone clamoring for more nits of screen brightness or the pinch motion which is pretty limited. On device siri is nice but everyone really wants more battery life. We see Watch OS 11. It's added some new features but people are praying (and complaining) about battery life as a top feature.
Plenty of people are using AWs beyond the 36 month mark. I still have my Ultra 1 was release and I could easily go another 2 years if not more. So I don’t think Garmin last any longer than the Apple Watch.
But, that’s not really the topic at hand. Which Watch last longer. You absolutely could run your 5x plus, but you listed all the things it’s missing and the battery life isn’t the same.
My real point was the price. The Garmin only goes up in price, but the length of time isn’t increasing for how long they last. Paying $1400 for a watch that has a life span is a bit much in my book. That was my original point.
Do you have any data points to back up the claim that „people have fled“ Apple Watch? Because this is the first time in a long time that I heard anything other than Apple dominating the smart watch market.
You do start to sound like a Garmin commercial, too. Folks in this very thread have listed a number of things that Garmin watches lack.
The 2000, then 3000 nits do make a massive difference in bright outdoor light. The pinch motion is very handy in certain situations. On-device Siri is much faster than off-device Siri. All of this is very welcome incremental innovation.
There is a tiny minority for whom the Apple Watch battery life is an actual deal breaker. There is another group of people who want to get an avalanche of health metrics, however useful (or questionable) they may actually be. Some folks just absolutely want a round shaped watch. For everyone else (in the Apple ecosystem), Apple Watch just makes a lot more sense.
All of this 👆. I was gonna ask where the idea that people fleeing the AW came from. I don’t see that at all. In fact the AWU brought more people to the AW that weren’t using them before.
I see many website and people speculating and generating rumors about features like you’ve listed above. I really question how much of much of that list can be done on a wrist, non-invasively and with no real legal liability. I’m not saying Apple vs Garmin, I’m saying regardless of company period.
You note that Garmin can improve smartwatch features and not the need to press a button Vs raise to speah. As someone who previously owned an Apple Watch I absolutely turned off raise to speak as I got sick of it activating during lectures when I was pointing at items of the displays. I got sick of seeing the last 30 seconds of everything said in the room shown on the screen.
Ray noted the lack of training on more generalized phrases yet we’ve all been making jokes for half a decade about how wrong Siri gets many of our requests.
Enduro 3 is indeed MIP and I personally prefer MIP myself. I do not want my watch to GLOW at all. I turn off all backlights, even gesture based and will activate it if I really need it to read the display. I know many people who are like me and Garmin has an option for wrist based backlight during workouts vs the rest of the day and for after dark vs daytime. I do not use backlight 95% of the time.
They are not using them well and are not using them for the entire day without topping them off while driving in their car or sitting at their desk during the day. Apple rates most of their batteries for 500 charge cycles. They degrade after that and are considered in need of service below 80% capacity. Since two years is 730 cycles, that is likely where they want your watch replaced or serviced.
You can say paying the Fenix 8 price is too much but again there are different price points. Apple did not establish $800 for a default price point for a watch until the Ultra. If they can make an Ultra Pro and believe they can comnmand $1200 for it then you and I both know they will absolutely do it. They’ve already done it with iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, Macbook Pro and so on.
I’d be willing to bet that there’s an Apple Watch Pro and Ultra Pro just waiting out there.
No I don’t have datapoints because Apple themselves have stopped releasing specific figures for watch sales as well. I’m not a Garmin commercial, I’m discussing the thread topic. If I were spamming the entire forum with Garmin info I’d see your point. However discussing Garmin in a thread where Apple and Garmin are compared is called being relevant to the discussion at hand.
You can find an array of ”influencer” videos From various fitness folks who basically went all in on the Ultra when it came out. Their videos got millions of view and Apple is an easy horse to back in this race. However the vast majority of them basically had to switch back to Coros, Garmin and other watches when they wanted to get something done beyond setting timers, taking calls and replying to texts.
Even Apple Watch owners (of which I used to be one) are upset with OS updates that ruin battery life, a Now Playing that can’t realize you don‘t want to play off your iPhone, a podcast app that seems hopelessly screwed up, and third party apps like Audible are a mess.
Sometimes the Apple Watch isn’t nearly as smart as some people imagine. When you don’t have a cellular connection the Apple Watch has had a broken or incomplete means of dealing with music, podcasts etc in the background for ten years now. If you want to give your cell company $10-15 a month it might work right as long as your iPhone isn’t too close and it keeps getting confused which you want and so on.
Sleep tracking is great, if you create an entire structured routine to charge your watch precisely when you shower and when your driving home or something akin to that.
In my own peer group which involves a lot of fitness folks, the balance of Apple vs Garmin has shifted even more towards Garmin. A friend who was just fine using his Apple Watch 7 got upset when it died during his marathon. Battery life from Apple indicated the watch should have finished it no problem. However the watch was almost 2 years old and 84% battery health wasn’t enough. He went and bought an Instinct 2 for such activities now. He got it on sale for $250. It is triathlong and marathon capable and he went on a two week trip without so much as a charging cable with no problem. His Apple Watch sits in a drawer.
Garmin lets their tech age a bit and often drops the prices down the line. I own a Fenix 7X which is the gen before the 7X Pro. I’ve no reason to upgrade yet but I also know I can wait a year and likely watch Garmin drop $200-300 off the price or wait until the 8 Pro, which like Apple will likely feature incremental improvements in speaker, microphone and on device assistant and so on.
Garmin is not doing anything different than Apple did when they challenged if people would pay more for an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro or Perhaps Ultra Pro Watch soon. I’m so old I can remember when people scoffed at $160-200 AirPods because you had the corded ones that came with your iPhone. I can remember when they scoffed at the Apple Watch itself.
You can find positives and negatives with all the devices if you look for them. I have an AWU2 and a new F8. Shockingly, I can still find faults, which seems crazy! Yet here I am! 
I do think that the bread and butter of the two companies makes a difference here. Garmin may rely on these watches more heavily to contribute to their bottom line that Apple does. Do I think Apple really likes the Apple Watch or do I think they keep it evolving slowly to create ecosystem lock in? Yes to both.
This Garmin F8 is gorgeous, and has so many options. Yet, as much as Garmin touts mapping and navigation, as a trail runner, all I get for turn by turn is an arrow and "turn in 338 feet". There are apps on AW that tell me to "turn at the next sidewalk and go down the stairs, then left on Main Street". My point is, as great as Garmin is at some things, it relies heavily on its reputation for others, sometimes unwarranted.
I love the back and forth debate and to be fair, both devices are a marvel to behold when considering the technology they have. I just wish that I could combine them!!!
I do think that the bread and butter of the two companies makes a difference here. Garmin may rely on these watches more heavily to contribute to their bottom line that Apple does. Do I think Apple really likes the Apple Watch or do I think they keep it evolving slowly to create ecosystem lock in? Yes to both.
This Garmin F8 is gorgeous, and has so many options. Yet, as much as Garmin touts mapping and navigation, as a trail runner, all I get for turn by turn is an arrow and "turn in 338 feet". There are apps on AW that tell me to "turn at the next sidewalk and go down the stairs, then left on Main Street". My point is, as great as Garmin is at some things, it relies heavily on its reputation for others, sometimes unwarranted.
I love the back and forth debate and to be fair, both devices are a marvel to behold when considering the technology they have. I just wish that I could combine them!!!
This 100%! The differences is what make each great, but I don’t think either is better than the other. Each has its strengths. I will stand by the cost of Garmins have kind of crazy.You can find positives and negatives with all the devices if you look for them. I have an AWU2 and a new F8. Shockingly, I can still find faults, which seems crazy! Yet here I am!
I do think that the bread and butter of the two companies makes a difference here. Garmin may rely on these watches more heavily to contribute to their bottom line that Apple does. Do I think Apple really likes the Apple Watch or do I think they keep it evolving slowly to create ecosystem lock in? Yes to both.
This Garmin F8 is gorgeous, and has so many options. Yet, as much as Garmin touts mapping and navigation, as a trail runner, all I get for turn by turn is an arrow and "turn in 338 feet". There are apps on AW that tell me to "turn at the next sidewalk and go down the stairs, then left on Main Street". My point is, as great as Garmin is at some things, it relies heavily on its reputation for others, sometimes unwarranted.
I love the back and forth debate and to be fair, both devices are a marvel to behold when considering the technology they have. I just wish that I could combine them!!!
I have an Epix 2 for a couple years now. Great device for activity wear (daily wear fine too) and definitely some functionality the AW doesn't have (golf) and battery life.
Still, tempted for daily use by the AWU2 or 3 (like the color of the 2, if it goes black for the 3, less inclined), but would result in a full move back into Apple ecosystem. To that end debating iPhone Pro 15 or 16, and, replace my 2017 IPP with an M4.
But that gets pricy.
Still, tempted for daily use by the AWU2 or 3 (like the color of the 2, if it goes black for the 3, less inclined), but would result in a full move back into Apple ecosystem. To that end debating iPhone Pro 15 or 16, and, replace my 2017 IPP with an M4.
But that gets pricy.
I'm making the (pricey) move back to Apple. Garmin Epix 2 > AWU 3, Pixel 8 > iPhone 16 Pro, Pixel Buds Pro > AirPods Pro 2 (then the rest of the home devices at some later point).
The battery on my Epix is around 3 - 4 days with workouts, music etc so it's really not a huge difference to the ultra but downloading music to the watch is so slow (youtube music) and with the new training load & vitals features coming to watchOS there isn't really anything that makes the Epix standout for me anymore
The battery on my Epix is around 3 - 4 days with workouts, music etc so it's really not a huge difference to the ultra but downloading music to the watch is so slow (youtube music) and with the new training load & vitals features coming to watchOS there isn't really anything that makes the Epix standout for me anymore
3-4 days?
Are you ultramarathoning on a daily basis dude?
My Epix Pro 51mm, with daily 1hr workout (no GPS though, gym cardio) lasts 7-9 days. AWU1 with same routine held 1.5-2 days at max.
~1 hour run with GPS and playing music from the watch most days. ~1 hour gym session on days I don't run.
It's also the 47mm so slightly smaller battery than the 51mm
It's also the 47mm so slightly smaller battery than the 51mm
He said he's playing music off the watch which sadly is still a real battery killer on the Garmin watch.
RunGap will push all my garmin data in to apple health. It's what I used to go in the other direction a few years ago
Really depends upon your needs. Just like Apple, Garmin offers an array of watches.
Fitness Watches | Sport Watches | Smartwatches | Garmin
Garmin offers an array of products for all types of athletes including, sport watches, hybrid smartwatches, and fitness trackers.
www.garmin.com
Many of their watches are more targeted vs one size fits all. They have everything from "I'm a woman who wants a petite and elegant watch to track my Pilates classes" to "I want my watch to talk to my diving gear while I dive 100m deep.".
They have watches from running a 5k to running 100 miles.
Lots of price points, materials, displays and even square and round forms.
They are lacking in LTE connectivity. There's a common complaint that their array of choices actually ends up confusing customers.