garmin lcd display free sample

a small camera that gets the job done. sure there"s a ton of other cameras out there that have more options and better quality images, but for the price, this dash cam 46 is all most people really need in a dash camera. all i need is for a camera to reliably make good recordings - no need for other fancy features like gps tracking, etc. it"s small and discreet, easy to set up (especially with the built in lcd display), and affordable. basically like a set it and forget it type of camera. there"s also the option to wirelessly link it to any other garmin camera(s) in their line-up should you want to add an additional rear facing camera. plus it has a voice command option to control features that you can use to turn certain options on and off (by saying "ok garmin", then the command - it works well and keeps you from having to reach up and fiddle with the buttons.) i really like garmin"s mounting system with a simple, small magnetic disc that is the only thing that adheres to your windshield. it"s actually really easy to transfer this camera from one car to another if you need to as they provide an additional metal disc if needed. the camera is very affordable, so i just went ahead and purchased another for my secondary car.

other cameras in the past that i have used sometimes had long startup times before recording would begin - anywhere from 15 seconds even up to 30 seconds. this can be very inconvenient, as what if you"re in an accident or somebody hits you within that time? sure, you could sit there and wait for the recording to begin, but i"m sure, most people like me prefer to drive off right after starting my car. the garmin camera starts up quickly and begins recording by about 10 seconds, which is very good in my opinion. anything in the 10 second range or lower is great as that"s about the average time most take to pull out of a parking spot or so. so by the time you"ve started really moving, the recording process has begun.

setting up was easy with everything being able to be done using the onscreen display. just make sure to perform the firmware update to get everything up to date and working properly. one thing i just noticed is the camera actually has an internal battery. the manual says when fully charged it can power the camera for up to 30 minutes. pretty cool, if you"ll ever need it. it also works to continue recording after the power is turned off. you can set up this option to continue to record for a designated time after power is turned off - another convenient feature.

Today Garmin has announced not one, not two, but like 287 watches. Technically speaking they’ve announced two core product series – the Fenix 7 Series, and the Epix series. I mean, ignoring the fact that Garmin previously announced an Epix unit 7 years ago. For the new Epix Gen 2 though, check out my full in-depth review over here. Essentially, the Epix Gen 2 is an AMOLED display version of the Fenix 7, but with still very respectable battery life.

As usual, this watch is a media loaner, and it’ll go back to Garmin shortly. This review is not sponsored (nor does any company get to preview anything I review), and I don’t take any advertiser money from any companies I review. And as regular readers know, if something is crap, I’m gonna tell it brutally like it is – no matter the brand. Once this unit goes back, I’ll go out and get my own for any future testing needs. If you found this review useful, you can use the links at the bottom, or consider becoming a DCR Supporter which makes the site ad-free, while also getting access to a mostly weekly video series behind the scenes of the DCR Cave. And of course, it makes you awesome.

Now, there’s a lot to take in, both in features, but also in decoding Garmin’s wide array of SKUs here. Basically, before even considering color/material combinations there are 8 different Fenix 7 units, plus two Epix units. Including color/material combinations, there are 22 Fenix 7 SKUs. But in short, everything gets boiled down to this:

All units get all software features, and all units get mapping. The difference is that only the Sapphire units have the maps pre-downloaded for your region (e.g. North America, Europe, etc…) – whereas the base & base solar units do not. Instead, you simply connect to WiFi and download what you need for your region (though, that does take a while). That’s because pre-loading all the maps per region would add too many SKUs for Garmin to deal with (since they’d need 4-5 different region models for each model they have, quickly escalating to something like 20-30 additional SKUs to stock).

Now, there are some notable omissions here, especially coming hot on the heels of the Venu 2 Plus release two weeks ago. There is no voice assistance, or speaker/microphone for making/receiving calls. Even more, despite Garmin releasing the FR945 LTE last spring, there’s no LTE edition of the Fenix 7 either – a seemingly bizarre and odd gap. Nor is there an LTE version of the Epix Gen 2 either.

In the case of the microphone/speaker, Garmin says that the higher waterproofing standard of the Fenix series (100 meters) versus the Venu 2 series (50 meters), makes this challenging at this time. On the LTE front, I asked Garmin why there was no LTE option given it’s been a while since they launched the theoretically inferior FR945. It was the singular item they provided a ‘no comment’ on, out of the arguably 50-70 questions/details I’ve asked over the past two months.

Undoubtedly, Garmin will eventually come out with an LTE Fenix/Epix series. Where that’s just an Epix LTE, an Epix Plus LTE, or down the road in a Fenix 8 or Epix V3 (or whatever they call it). I don’t know, but as you’ll see – what’s here today is undeniably cool. But it’s also hard to reconcile this missing bit with one’s purchasing considerations.

Notably missing from that list is the new Stamina and Up Ahead features. Both of which I’d imagine could easily run just fine on Fenix 6 hardware, so it’s a shame to see those not being added. I suppose on the bright side, Garmin does seem to slowly be getting better about adding features to older watches. Baby steps…I guess.

The box for the Fenix 7 series mirrors that of not just the Fenix 6 series, but basically every other Garmin watch in the last half a decade or so. It’s grey and simplistic. While all the box contents for all four units I tested were identical (Fenix 7S/7/7X/Epix), keep in mind that some higher-end fancy-strap editions do have secondary straps in them. I didn’t have any fancy-strap editions. Thus, rather than repeat a series of unboxings, here’s just one sampling:

The band itself can unsnap easily to be swapped out, if you perhaps want a fancier band for non-sport usage, and then quickly swap to the silicone one for sports. They feature the standard Garmin quick release system, and there are three sizes depending on whether it’s the Fenix 7S/7/7X:

There’s also the new button guard on the start/stop button, which Garmin says will reduce accidental starts/stops by jackets or such. It’ll probably take you a day or two to get used to this (at least it did for me), but now I don’t even think about it. Here’s again, a comparison to the Fenix 6 (blue button).

Starting with the hardware, the Garmin Fenix series watches have five buttons, three on the left and two on the right. In general, the upper right button is your confirmation button, and lower right is your back/escape button. The left buttons are for navigating in the menu. And you can long-hold any of the buttons to either access different menu items, or assign quick-access buttons.

And all of this data is ultimately synced to Garmin Connect where you can dive into days/weeks/months/years worth of data. For example, here’s my steps data on Garmin Connect Mobile (the smartphone app):

In addition to the step tracking, stair tracking, and every other metric is heart rate tracking. This leverages the optical heart rate sensor on the back of the watch. The Fenix 7 uses Garmin’s Elevate V4 sensor that was introduced on the Venu 2 last spring, and is now also on a variety of other watches including the Forerunner 945 LTE.

While not perfect, Garmin has continued to make strides here, and I find generally good correlation in most cases between my perceived energy levels and what it estimates. Just because I went to sleep, doesn’t mean I’ll automatically wake up with 100% Body Battery. In fact, that’s exceptionally rare. Sleep quality will drive how much body battery you wake up with. The scenarios I find it tends to have trouble with are exceptionally hard/long days, or days with exceptionally poor sleep. It’ll usually estimate correctly on the poor sleep, but then has challenges figuring out how to give you a crap score, and then still give you an even crappier score by the end of the day. You can’t go below zero. Still, I think at that point both you and the device are aware of the situation: You feel like crap.

Ok, speaking of sleep, it’ll automatically track that too, and give you detailed information about your exact sleep quality. I’ve been impressed with Garmin’s continued improvements in the written explanations of how your sleep was:

I spent considerable time the last few months comparing side by side a slew of sleep trackers for my Whoop 4.0 and Oura 3.0 reviews, and in general Garmin almost always nailed the time you went to bed and when you woke up. However, it does not track naps in any way, which is unfortunate. Further, I find it can occasionally have trouble with cases where I fall back asleep after being briefly awake between 6-9AM. It’ll often just end my sleep at say 7:10AM if I was awake/up for a couple of minutes, rather than realizing I’ve gone back to bed for 2-3 hours. Note that I have no accuracy opinion on sleep phases, as in general even medical-grade devices aren’t crazy accurate there. Further, there’s often little real-world actionable things you can do based on that.

Now, to briefly touch on Pulse Ox, which is Garmin’s blood oxygen readings. You can configure this to be off, during sleep only, or 24×7. It has two basic purposes in a Garmin wearable, one is around sleep (as potentially an indicator of sleep-related issues), and two in high altitude environments as an indicator that something is about to go horribly wrong. Two totally different use cases (note: medical folks and such also monitor blood oxygen levels too for other reasons). For the first one – sleep – you can track your Pulse Ox readings each night. It’s the red light that’ll light up on the back of the watch.

And that’s the exact same way the FDA certifies blood oxygen medical-grade devices: Sitting still. If you swagger around, you’ll either not get good devices, or, Garmin these days won’t even give a reading. They (and others) have gotten smarter with just giving you a warning that there’s too much movement for a valid result.

During the 2-minute period it’ll measure your heart rate, blood oxygen level, respiration rate, stress, and HRV (heart rate variability). The idea being you can consistently do this, ideally at the same time each day, and start to get a bit of a snapshot of how things are trending. All of these metrics are already tracked by Garmin more deeply in the app/platform, but this aims to put it on a single plate (so to speak). You can then export it into a single PDF if you’d like as well.

As we round home, it’s worthwhile noting that the Fenix 7 and Epix series watches are the first to have the new on-watch app store. This means that you can install Connect IQ apps directly from the wrist, versus having to grab your phone. Garmin outlined this feature last fall as part of the Connect IQ Developer summit. And, as outlined then, it’s pretty darn basic.

Finally, while it probably won’t matter to many people, do note that in general, virtually all of the functions that involve a smartphone require internet to function. Meaning that while the watch will happily collect data without internet, and do so for a very long time, it won’t sync to the phone without internet. That’s because the Garmin Connect smartphone app itself is merely showing data from the Garmin Connect online platform. The exception to this would be if you use the Garmin Explore app (also free), which then does allow syncing of data (namely tracks/routes) back and forth to a phone that doesn’t have internet. And again, this has no impact on viewing any of these stats on your watch itself, but only if you were spending extended periods of time without internet, analyzing your stats on the smartphone Garmin Connect app would not be possible. You can however still plug in your watch to a computer, and download the workout file and analyze that.

This next section is specific to only the Solar editions of the Fenix 7, as only those editions have solar panels in them. Solar capabilities was first introduced on the Fenix 6 series, and then later added to the Garmin Instinct and Enduro series. In the case of the Fenix 6, it added almost negligible battery life for most users. Whereas in the Instinct series in particular, the impact could be quite significant. Keep in mind that while many watches, like Casio, have had solar for years, those watches tend to be super basic in their functionality, and thus in turn, require less power to operate.

The thin stripe around the edge of the display can collect 100% of the sun’s rays. Well, technically it’s of course less than that, but in terms of simple relativity here, we’ll go with that being 100% from a Garmin spec standpoint. Meanwhile, the portion under the glass can only receive 7% – but the surface area of course is massive. Note that the 7% figure is down from a 10% claim on the Fenix 6, which Garmin explains is because Sapphire is normally less clear than regular glass, so by reducing the solar layer, it increases overall clarity (compared to keeping it at 10%). And of course, the under the glass portion (officially called Power Sapphire, now) is the entire display surface.

However, 50K lux actually isn’t super bright. For context, on a mildly sunny day in January in the Netherlands, it’s 10-40K. Similarly, a summer day in the Mediterranean and I’m easily clocking in 100k+ lux. Last week in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, I ranged from 60K to 150K in the sun (mostly in the 60-100K range). All of Garmin’s figures for battery assume 3 hours a day at 50K. So in the winter that might be tough for folks, whereas in the summer on vacation, that’s probably trivial. Garmin notes that if you go beyond the 50K conditions, it’ll leverage that power – even though the icon itself won’t show more than the full sun indicator.

As you can see, it’s quite significant – again, assuming you have the solar power. But this is only showing that 3 hours. So imagine you’re hiking in the summer across a mountain range. In that case, you’ll likely have both far more than 3 hours a day in the sun, and depending on the weather, you’ll also have way more than 50K lux conditions. Garmin says that in none of these scenarios are they claiming ‘forever power’, but the reality is, if you turn off certain features, then you can basically get there with even just a few more hours of summer sun conditions. Inversely, if you’re hammering offline music + multiband GPS in a winter snowstorm with the optical HR sensor enabled doing PulseOx 24×7, then solar isn’t gonna net you much.

D) SOS Beacon: This will flash the actual S.O.S. signal, and concurrently display emergency contact information on the watch face itself (in case someone then finds you unconscious)

Next there’s the running mode. In this mode, it’ll automatically flash the white light for when your arm is forward, and the red light for when you’re arm is backwards. Here’s the visual theory, from Garmin:

Hopefully, we’ll see this feature expand to the rest of the Fenix series in the Fenix 8. Or, to other Garmin watches. As with every Fenix series, the ‘X’ variant (e.g. Fenix 7X) always gets some new experimental feature first, and in the case of the Fenix 7 series, that’s the flashlight.

There’s literally no watch on this planet that has as many sports features built-in as the Garmin Fenix 7 series does. I don’t think that even if you downloaded every app on the Apple Watch store that you could cobble together every last nuanced sport and fitness feature. Of course, as always, that’s largely been Garmin’s thing in life: A gazillion features, of which you might only use 2-5% of them.

You can customize this sport listing on the watch, or from the smartphone. In fact, now’s a good time to talk about that new phone-based configuration. This is the first time we’ve seen Garmin introduce this level of customization from the phone. You can tweak almost every setting on the Fenix 7 from the phone. Be it sport/activity profiles, data fields/pages, or things like widgets or deeper system settings. There’s only a handful of things that must be done from the watch – for example downloading maps, or adding new sensors. As with before, you can always change all the settings on the watch itself if you want – handy when you’re out on the trails without a phone.

A good example of where Garmin seems half-way on this is the Sensors & Accessories section. You can see here that you can tweak all the onboard sensors (like whether or not your heart rate broadcasts), but you can’t pair any external sensors from the phone, you’ve gotta go to the watch. I’d imagine over time these will converge.

I actually don’t mind that this is clearly a V1 of phone-based settings. I’ve argued for years that Garmin needed to stop trying to boil the ocean on this, and instead, just start somewhere. Anywhere! Forget the past, pick a newly launching watch and add phone-based configuration. Start small and build up. For example, you can’t import/migrate settings from other devices (like you can on a Garmin Edge device). And similarly, for the most part, the settings here just feel like Garmin built all the plumbing, but it’s sorta a maze of depths to find them all. But again, for now, I’m good with that. Boiling the ocean never works, perfection is the enemy of progress. I’d rather progress.

Once you’ve got your settings sorted, head back to the watch and pick said sport. In my case I’ll pick a run. Of course, sports have different profiles for a slew of reasons. Those can be specific data fields for a sport (like strokes for paddling, or cadence for cycling), as well as sport-specific calorie burn, or the sensor types which they connect to. On this page here you’ll see the upper portion of the page showing the current sensor status, as well as GPS status. Your data pages are displayed behind it.

We’re gonna accept all that though and do an interval workout. That’s because that’ll be an easy way to show the new Stamina features. By default, Stamina will be shown for running and cycling activities. It doesn’t display in all activities, for example you won’t find it in hiking, but will find it in trail running. In any event, once we press start, the watch will start gathering data from our workout, showing pace, distance, time, and any other data fields you’ve added, depending on the sport.

Notably absent though is there’s no wrist-based running power like COROS and Polar have. If you want running power, you’ll need some sort of external sensor – either from a 3rd party (Stryd), or paired with Garmin’s HRM-RUN, HRM-TRI, HRM-PRO, or RD-Pod units – for Garmin’s own running power data field. Nothing has changed there.

Here’s a chart (it shows this later in Garmin Connect, both mobile and desktop), showing this workout of 800’s and how it played out. In some cases, the interval wasn’t as impactful – such as those last two longer ones, largely because I was struggling to hold the same intensity levels (HR’s).

Next, going back to that interval workout, there’s a new feature that shows up on Garmin Connect afterwards, which is walk/run/stand detection. This will automatically detect, during a workout, what you were doing. You can see how that looks here:

This actually does then auto-categorize the interval run times and paces – if you check out the gallery of screenshots from Garmin Connect, it has a line item called “interval run pace”, so that’s kinda neat.

This is one of those things that at first glance didn’t make a ton of sense to me. I mean, yes, it was spot-on accurate, but why bother to spend the time on this was quirky to me. In asking Garmin, they said the intention was that for certain racing/training, such as steeper incline training, it allowed folks to start to analyze whether or not the pace/HR tradeoffs were worth it on walking versus running. Since you can overlay all those stats atop it, I can see the logic there.

Ok, so wrapping up the workout, you’ll get a new set of summary pages. They aren’t drastically different than in the past, but they do add some polish and make things like the display of heart rate zones more clear.

As usual, all your workout stats can then be displayed on Garmin Connect or the smartphone app (Garmin Connect Mobile). Here’s a slate of those screenshots as a sampler:

I think in general, as much as it pains most of us endurance athletes to admit this, Garmin is usually right here. When it says I’m short in a given category, the reality is that if a coach had laid out the plan, it’d have been more balanced than my ad-hoc workouts.

I’ve long found that Garmin tends to overshoot here. Nonetheless, there’s also some misunderstanding on this from many users. This item isn’t actually saying not to train, it’s saying not to go out and do a hard workout. Thus, within the context it’s usually not too bad, though I think it still tends to err on the side of keeping you healthier rather than pushing your body closer to the breaking point.

These workouts can be downright beastly when Garmin chooses to get spicy. Seriously, I’ve seen multi-hour interval workouts show up. Inversely, if you’ve had a hard few days of training, or, really poor sleep, it’ll simply tell you to rest. In fact, if you really get it upset, it’ll actually flash a warning to you mid-morning that your day isn’t going well and that it’s going to basically cancel your planned workout. In general, I’ve found that when the watch gets this upset, it’s almost always legit. Usually something like back-to-back poor sleep combined with a hard workout tossed in the day prior, and maybe showing high stress.

In any event, if you do go ahead and choose a workout, it’ll iterate through each step with the exact targets displayed on the screen in real-time. None of this has changed from how it works on past Garmin watches over the last decade or so.

First up is the new map manager feature. Up until now, when you bought a Fenix series device, it included the maps for your region (e.g. North America or Europe), but not other regions. For that you either had to pay $20-$30 to download maps from Garmin (which was cumbersome, at best, using a desktop computer), or, you had to download similar free maps – which was also cumbersome. But the new map manager makes it all free, and directly on the watch.

Downloading takes a long-ass time. To download the TopoActive Europe map (11.6GB), I timed it at somewhere between 4 and 4.5 hours (I went to bed at 4hrs with it at 90%). Seriously. You can alternatively use Garmin Express on a computer, which tends to be a crapton faster, since it’s transferring USB. Remember that in general the watch uses a lower-power consuming WiFi chipset, so it’s not downloading things as fast as a phone or computer. In other words, do this the night before you leave for a trip, and let it sync overnight. Or, let it sync while you make a 12-course dinner or something.

Note, that in February (a month after this review went live), Garmin has now split it out into three different regions, to allow you to pick just one region, saving you space – especially notable for non-Sapphire SKU’s. This is only available when using a computer with Garmin Express, though, that’s massively faster than WiFi (most of these took less than 10-15 mins for me to download, compared with hours on WiFi, since the Fenix/Epix units don’t have very fast WiFi connectivity).

Ok, with the maps downloaded, let’s set out on an adventure. In today’s case, I’m using a route created on Komoot. But you can also create routes in Garmin Connect directly, or other 3rd party apps or files. For example, if you have a GPX/TCX/FIT file of a route, you can import them in. The easiest thing to do is import them into Garmin Connect, which then allows you to sync them to the watch. But, to show you the new Up Ahead feature, I need to use Garmin Connect to tag the waypoints with standardized icons. So I’ve imported this Komoot route to Garmin connect:

Now, I’m going to add a few waypoints here. Waypoints in files of course aren’t new. They’ve been around for a decade or two. In this case, Garmin calls them Course Points, but it’s effectively the same. You can tap on your route and add these points from a list of about 50 different standardized icons.

Continue doing that till you’re done. Garmin says that they’ll soon support enumeration within Up Ahead (explainer in a second) from 3rd party files. But in the meantime, you need to use either Garmin Connect or Garmin Connect Mobile to tag these locations.

It’s simple. This isn’t some crazy complex feature. And in fact, it’s roughly like what COROS added for navigation. The difference is a bit more polish. Garmin added standardized icons, and the fact that you can easily glance at it on a single page, versus having to scroll through a list.  No matter who does it, I found this incredibly helpful on my recent hikes. Mainly just for quick context. The distance is, as expected, using the course route.

One thing that’s grown on me as more annoying is the lack of arrows or chevrons on the Fenix series routes. Garmin added arrows for the route direction on the Edge series this past year, like many other vendors have had for years. While this doesn’t matter for many course that are clear-cut, it does matter for courses that may intersect, like a figure-8 course I did on Thursday. In that case, when I got to the crossing point, I tried to decipher which way to go, but Garmin wasn’t clear. In fact, it seemed to tell me to go one way, but as I’d learn some time later – that was the wrong way. Unfortunately, because I was technically on the course, I never received an off-course warning. As such, ClimbPro was also broken because it kept thinking I’d be turning around going the other way.

Now again, I’ve also gone years without this functionality, but it seems time to at least have the option for arrows. After all, Garmin has approximately 9,238 other routing-related options. In any event, that largely self-owned failure aside, I’ve had no issues with navigation across a wide variety of hikes, runs, and bikes over the last 6-7 weeks.

In terms of details offered, the maps between the Fenix 7 and Epix are technically identical. What’s not the same though is the visibility of features at different levels. Meaning, due to the better display of the Epix series, you’ll see more details at a higher zoom level because there are more pixels. Here’s a simple comparison of what you see over the same spot and exact same zoom level (200m), between a Fenix 7 and an Epix series watch:

And in the above case, the Epix backlight is automatically on, however, in the below photo, here you can see that even with the backlight off (dim), the Epix display is far easier to read than the Fenix 7 Sapphire.

Plus of course, the Epix display itself is far brighter and more clear (even in direct sun) than the Fenix 7 display. That’s even more true at night/dusk, when the backlight is more crispy on Epix. Nonetheless, I used both just fine and didn’t get lost in the jungles, mountains, or volcano lava rock.

The Fenix 7 contains virtually identical features to the Fenix 6 series in terms of both music and contactless payments. Meaning that these features are basically the same across all Garmin watches. In order to play music, you’ll need to pair up some sort of Bluetooth headphones or Bluetooth speaker. Then, you can download music and play offline Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music, as well as any of your own MP3s. Meanwhile, on the contactless payments side, that continues with Garmin Pay, where you can load your bank cards – assuming they’re supported. These days, the biggest banks in the US and many other countries are supported though.

You can also use Spotify to download podcasts, which is a handy way of doing it versus the regular Garmin podcast feature that requires a computer to sync the podcasts. With all music streaming services it’ll leverage WiFi for the music sync. In general, the simple math is about 5-10 seconds per song to download (so about 10 songs per minute (speed varies based on the length of the song and other factors. You’ll just choose which playlists you want, and then it’ll go off and download them. As long as the Spotify app checks in once per 30 days, your music stays valid.

I haven’t had any skips or dropouts in either casual listening to music at my desk, or in workouts using the Beats Studio Buds. I’m not a huge listening to music while working out person though, but I find in general these days Garmin and others seem to have compatibility with headphones pretty well sorted out (compared to devices from a few years ago being some of the first generations to have wearable music support, and often had connectivity issues).

Now, switching gears a bit you’ve got contactless payments. These use NFC, and in Garmin’s case their payment platform is called Garmin Pay. It’s essentially no different than Apple Pay or other payment platforms, and is generally supported anywhere you go as long as the card itself is supported by that merchant. And in fact, that’ll likely be your main limiter in terms of usage: Whether or not your credit card is supported.

For this, you’ll need your bank to be supported by Garmin. That’s many of the big banks in the US, but beyond that it varies quite a bit. It’s hit or miss. A full list is here.

In my case, my Netherlands bank (ING) isn’t supported (still). However, my US Visa credit cards (Chase) are supported. My French Bank account (HSBC) isn’t supported, nor are some of my US local banks. Ultimately, this requires Garmin going to every single bank worldwide and get them onboarded. It’s not just a blank Visa/AMEX/Mastercard type thing. Hence why it’s hit or miss.

While you won’t get any payment receipt on the watch, you can see it later in the Garmin Connect app under ‘Recent transactions’ within the Garmin Pay details.

I had considered placing this section within the GPS accuracy section, or perhaps within the sport section. But both were already pretty long. So consider this a shorter primer to a slate of changes Garmin has made. There’s actually more than just the addition of dual-frequency (multi-band) GPS here. Garmin has also revamped pretty significantly both its base GPS mode for big battery life savings, as well as gotten rid of the GLONASS/GALILEO options. Sorta.

Garmin is hardly the first company here in this space. While Garmin did roll-out multi-band GPS to some of their hand-held devices a year ago, the Fenix 7 & Epix are the first wearables to have it (despite rumors to the contrary, Garmin says the Tactix Delta nor any other wearable from them had multiband prior to this). In any case, the first endurance sports watch to add it was the COROS Vertix 2 this past summer, and then more recently Huawei has touted it in their GT 3. In my testing of the COROS Vertix 2, I didn’t see holy-grail-like results. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the promised land either. Of course, the tech is new, and thus we’re likely to see (and have seen) firmware updates rapidly that’ll improve that. More on that in a minute. In the case of COROS, they’re using the MediaTek/Airoha chipset (AG3335M), and Garmin confirmed they are also using Airoha as their supplier. Prior to confirmation from Garmin, this made sense in my testing, as in almost every scenario over the last 6-7 weeks, the Vertix 2 and Epix/Fenix 7 units made the exact same errors in virtually identical ways (and inversely, did things correctly in near-identical ways). Garmin also confirmed that both Sapphire and Non-Sapphire units across all Fenix 7 and Epix units are using the same chipset supplier (Airoha).

GPS Only: This is the base GPS-only option, however, Garmin says they’ve drastically increased the battery life here compared to the past GPS-only option, and indeed, you can see that in the battery chart.

All Systems: This confusingly named option is dealers choice between GLONASS and GALILEO, and Garmin is the dealer. As a user you can’t choose which one to use, but instead, Garmin is now switching between GPS< GLONASS, GALILEO, BeiDou, and QZSS based on the quality of the satellites from each, determining “which to prioritize”

Note that the usual smart-recording or 1-second recording option is still in the settings (and still annoying defaulted to ‘Smart Recording’), but that has no bearing on the GPS reception timing/display, it’s purely what it writes to the recorded file.

One thing to keep in mind is that Garmin does track vastly more health stats behind the scenes that COROS does and at a higher rate too, which certainly has a big battery drain component. You can turn off some of these though, which would increase the battery life further on the Garmin.

I’d also see some minor differences between the COROS Vertix 2 and Garmin units. For example, here the COROS Vertix 2 incorrectly gets frisky while going under a tunnel, sharply meandering off to the side. However, a short bit later, the Fenix 7X then did some less sharp but longer bushwhacking away from the path. Which is interesting because in general I saw that most of the time if the Vertix 2 made an error, then the Fenix 7 and Epix repeated it.

Next, let’s head into the jungle for a hike/trail run. This one had it all! From deep woods, to dense trees, and towering cliffs. Here I was comparing the Garmin Epix on my left wrist, the Fenix 7 on my right wrist, plus both a COROS Vertix 2 (right hand) and a Forerunner 745 (hydration pack).

I’m not saying Garmin is right here, but I am saying that based on all my test data both over the last 6-7 weeks, but also from this past summer/fall with the COROS Vertix 2 and multiband, that it tends to over smooth in areas where the going gets tough. That in turn tends to result in lower overall distances. On a tree-dense route like this, or frankly, any ultra route, it’d be nearly impossible to know the exact actual distance you went. Even a measured trail course isn’t going to know whether you took each corner a foot or two wider (which would add up considerably over a longer route).

It is also true that both the COROS Vertix 2 and Garmin Epix/Fenix 7 units in multiband, outperformed the FR745 (using just GLONASS). One can see that in numerous occasions. However, keep in mind that extra unit was largely on my backpack shoulder strap, which has body-blockage effects.

Meanwhile, for HR accuracy testing I’m typically wearing a chest strap (either the Polar H10 or the Garmin HRM-PRO), as well as another optical HR sensor watch on the bicep (mostly the Polar Verity Sense, as well as the Whoop 4.0 band). Note that the numbers you see in the upper right corner of the charts below are *not* the averages, but rather just the exact point my mouse is sitting over.  Note all this data is analyzed using the DCR Analyzer, details here.

You’ll notice that for the first 2 hours and 42 minutes, things are generally very close, with only relatively minor disagreement when walking downhill (moderate in that we’re at 100-110BPM, so it frankly isn’t going to matter much if one is 103BPM and the other 107BPM). For virtually all uphill/moderate/intense segments, it’s identical. That straight-line section is when I was filming, so things are a bit wonkier there – don’t worry about that. Then after that, things snap right back to it. The drop-out line around the 4:30 marker is simply me taking off the watches to take a few photos of the displays.

I go through everything from real-world side-by-side battery life on long workouts, to how the screens differ in real-life usage, plus aspects like map differences, graphing details, and more. It’s more than just the display! You can find the full Fenix 7 vs Epix post here.

As I sit here typing this on my laptop, I’ve got Epix on my left wrist and the Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar on my right wrist. And there’s simply no comparison in the display. Even with the Epix display automatically dimmed because my wrist isn’t facing me, it’s still easier to see than the Fenix 7 on my other wrist. Of course, this Epix lacks ultra-long battery life, either in standby watch mode or GPS mode. But frankly, I just don’t need that. Sure – I’d *like that* if it could be with an Epix display, but I’m very consistently getting 6 days of Epix battery life over the last 5-6 weeks. That’s in always-on display mode with roughly an hour of workouts per day (and usually longer on weekends). A blend of GPS and non-GPS.

This ultimately means it comes down to what you prefer: Significant battery, or better display. And ironically enough, that’s pretty much been the same choice consumers have been trying to decide for the last few years, the only difference is this time the battery trade-offs are far less drastic (or far more acceptable) for most athletes.

If you"re shopping for the Garmin Fenix 7 Series or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. Even more, if you use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with coupon code DCRAINMAKER, first time users save 15% on applicable products!

Seriously, this will change your life. $9 for a two-pack of these puck Garmin chargers that stay put and stay connected. One for the office, one for your bedside, another for your bag, and one for your dog"s house. Just in case.

This wifi-connected scale will track your weight and related metrics both on the scale display and in Garmin Connect (plus 3rd party apps like Training Peaks). It"ll also then sync your weight to your watch/bike computer, to ensure accurate calorie data.

The HRM-PRO Plus is Garmin"s top-end chest strap. It transmits dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but also transmits Running Dynamics & Running Pace/Distance metrics, stores HR data during a swim, and can be used without a watch for other sports. Also, it can transmit XC Skiing Dynamics as well.

If you"re shopping for the Garmin Fenix 7 Series or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. Even more, if you use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with coupon code DCRAINMAKER, first time users save 15% on applicable products!

Seriously, this will change your life. $9 for a two-pack of these puck Garmin chargers that stay put and stay connected. One for the office, one for your bedside, another for your bag, and one for your dog"s house. Just in case.

This wifi-connected scale will track your weight and related metrics both on the scale display and in Garmin Connect (plus 3rd party apps like Training Peaks). It"ll also then sync your weight to your watch/bike computer, to ensure accurate calorie data.

The HRM-PRO Plus is Garmin"s top-end chest strap. It transmits dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but also transmits Running Dynamics & Running Pace/Distance metrics, stores HR data during a swim, and can be used without a watch for other sports. Also, it can transmit XC Skiing Dynamics as well.

Fitbit vs Garmin. They’re two of the biggest and most well known tech brands around, and while both produce some of the best fitness trackers(opens in new tab) money can buy, they offer completely different takes on what a wearable should be.

Fitbit introduced millions to the concept of fitness tracking, and kick-started competitive step counting as a trend. Garmin typically appeals to a much more hardcore crowd. If you see a fitness watch on a marathon runner, there’s a good chance it will be a Garmin.

The best Garmin watches(opens in new tab) can do loads of stuff Fitbits can’t, like let you navigate offline using a map on your wrist. And they deal in deeper stats that are ideal for analysing your performance and fitness over time.

This can make Fitbits seem fluffier at times, but a couple of higher-end watches like the Sense 2 and Charge 5(opens in new tab) have sensors not seen in any Garmin. They also tend to be better-looking, or at least better aligned with the stylistic norms of popular wearables.

In this article we’re going to dig further into the differences between Fitbit and Garmin watches, and look at most of the models you may want to consider buying.

Garmin has a vast number of models available, with various niche watches to suit different sporting styles. Fitbit, on the other hand, is much more straightforward.

To give a similar run-down of the Garmin line-up would take far too long, so let’s stick to the ranges. At the top sit the Epix 2(opens in new tab) and Fenix lines, including the Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar(opens in new tab). These are expensive, but are also brilliant hardcore exercise watches.

The Forerunner series (which includes their latest model, the Garmin Forerunner 955(opens in new tab)) offers enthusiast-grade features for less money.

Garmin’s mid-range Instinct(opens in new tab) watches are aimed at outdoorsy folks, and offer excellent battery life but a more basic, if very clear, display.

The Garmin Venu(opens in new tab) models are the closest to Fitbit’s smartwatch-style models. You get OLED screens, slicker-looking designs, but the battery doesn’t last as long as some others.

The Garmin Vivoactive(opens in new tab) combines a more casual appearance with an MIP screen, which only gets clearer out in bright sunlight. And down towards the bottom of the range, casual tracking lines include the Vivosmart andVivomove(opens in new tab).

There"s bound to be something that will appeal to you in the Garmin range, as there are so many options to choose from. But if you"re after a leaner range of models (and a cheaper, more straightforward watch) you might prefer a Fitbit model.

Fitbit and Garmin are not budget brands. If you’re after something truly cheap, check out Realme, Xiaomi, Honor and Huawei (we have a full round-up of the best budget fitness trackers(opens in new tab), too.). However, Garmin’s prices get flat-out intimidating at the higher end, and Fitbit’s simply do not.

Garmin’s priciest variant of the Epix 2 costs $999/£899, and that is not even the most expensive watch Garmin makes. Fitbit wouldn’t dream of making something so pricey.

You could argue the two brands are relatively evenly priced, from another perspective, though. An older Fitbit Sense (like the one in the image above) and Garmin Venu 2 are of comparable quality, are similar in price, and simply have differing strengths. However, Garmin can’t match the value of the Fitbit Charge 5 with anything in its catalogue.

This plays out most clearly in heart rate results during exercise. Watches like the Garmin Fenix 7 (shown above) are super-accurate, even in challenging workouts with short, sharp bursts of high exertion.

The latest Garmin watches also have superior GPS, with Multi-Band support that should result in a better signal in environments in which other trackers might struggle. We think most owners will be perfectly happy with Fitbit’s GPS, though.

Garmin does not make anything quite as sleek and reserved as the Fitbit Luxe, for example. We also like how the Fitbit Charge 5 combines quite high-end health features with fairly petite, cute styling.

The traditional Garmin approach leans more into an aesthetic designed to appeal to adventuring types. In some models the bezel extends above the display, for added protection, and cases may be extra bulky to facilitate extreme water resistance.

The Garmin Venu series aims for a much more approachable, smartwatch-like appearance. Its Vivomove looks just like an analog watch, but has a screen hidden under the surface.

Not all Garmins look like they only belong on the wrists of marathon runners. But if you’re after that classic low-key wearable look, Fitbit has a clear lead.

Garmin offers far more hardcore fitness features than Fitbit. However, none of its watches have two of the features found in the Fitbit Charge 5 and Sense 2.

While the Garmin Venu 2 Plus reportedly has “hidden” ECG hardware, no Garmin watch has either of these features. And that kind of makes sense. Garmin makes fitness watches, not ones intended to check heart health.

Garmin’s Connect platform lets you design your own workouts, which the watch will then guide you through. And all of this comes included as part of the experience.

Top Garmin watches also use the data they collect to let you balance your workout schedule properly. Body Battery lets you see if you’re working too hard, Training Load is an indicator of exertion in aggregate, Performance Condition gives you an idea of your training effectiveness and VO2 Max(opens in new tab) is a solid long-term indicator of fitness.

Garmin watches are better than Fitbits for workout tracking. Some of the pricier models are overkill for many folks, but the greater reliability of Garmin’s stats means that conclusion holds regardless.

We also like that Garmin doesn’t keep any stats behind a subscription paywall, meaning you get access to all the data you might need to track your progress towards living a healthier life.

Garmin’s exercise mode library is larger too. And it is one of the few companies that makes such an extensive list of tracking modes seem worthwhile too, with specialized stats for niche pursuits and guided sessions for things like yoga and weightlifting.

Garmin provides loads more features for the more exercise obsessed, and manages to do the basics better too. However, if you are just looking to track regular runs we do think most will be perfectly happy with one of Fitbit’s GPS-equipped watches, such as the Fitbit Versa 4 or Fitbit Charge 5.

Garmin makes some of the longest-lasting fitness trackers in the world. Take the Garmin Enduro 2, for example. It can last up to 550 days in its battery-saving mode, if you pick the solar charging version.

A handful of the company’s models are available in solar form. They use a ring around the display that can harvest a decent amount of solar energy, and the display itself does too, at a lower rate.

The Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 last “6+ days”. With these OLED watches we find they both tend to last most, but not all, of a week with multiple tracked workouts. But if you go for an MIP-screen Garmin, you can stretch that to a couple of weeks, or beyond.

Fitbit is a more casual fitness tracking brand than Garmin. It focuses on style and approachability, and none of its wearables are as expensive as those of Garmin’s top-end lines.

If you are big into outdoor exercise, a Garmin is probably the better pick. Its watches have deeper fitness features, and we find the stat accuracy level to be notably higher for aspects like heart rate. We consider the Fenix 7 to be the best Garmin all-rounder, but if that seems too expensive the Forerunner 255 is a great watch to look into.Today"s best deals on Fitbit and Garmin watches

5-inch LCD display,Memory Card Supported: microSD Card Free lifetime maps with over 6 million points of interest; Hear spoken street names Speed limit indicator USB mass storage…

Enlarge / Garmin"s Vivoactive 4 is the company"s best blend of smartwatch aesthetics and fitness tracking capability on this list. It has all the fitness tools of an Apple Watch SE (heart rate, blood oxygen, GPS, music storage) and an always-on display, which the SE lacks.

Garmin created the best alternative to the Apple Watch when it came out with the Vivoactive 3 Music. For 2019, Garmin has updated that device with the Vivoactive 4 series, which includes the 45mm Vivoactive 4 and the 40mm Vivoactive 4s. Minor hardware changes accompany equally minor smartwatch software changes in this device, but that"s because new fitness features steal the show.

Garmin added a ton of fitness improvements to this watch, including optional all-day pulse ox measurements, hydration tracking, new breathing exercises (that don"t suck), new custom workouts, on-screen animations, and more. Unsurprisingly, all those improvements add up to the Vivoactive 4"s $349 starting price, which is at least $100 more than what the Vivoactive 3 Music goes for nowadays.

The display itself is a backlit, transflective memory-in-pixel panel, which, in comparison to LCD panels, uses technology that allows it to consume less power. That"s one of the hardware factors that lets the Vivoactive 4s get up to seven days of battery life (by Garmin"s estimation). It has essentially the same quality as previous Vivoactive displays, so the watch face is always visible, and you won"t have trouble reading it while running outside in the sun.

While familiar, this display is in stark contrast to the AMOLED panel on the new Garmin Venu smartwatch, which was announced at the same time as the Vivoactive 4 series. That device, however, starts at $399 due not only to its AMOLED panel, but also for some additional features that aren"t present on Vivoactive 4 devices (keep an eye out for Ars" review of the Venu in the coming weeks). Thanks to that big hardware difference, the Venu will more closely compare to the Apple Watch Series 5. Advertisement

The Vivoactive 4s is packed full of fitness-tracking sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, altimeter, optical heart rate monitor, onboard GPS/Galileo/GLONASS, pulse ox, compass, and a thermometer. Both the heart rate monitor and the GPS have been updated with new sensors, so they should be even more accurate and more efficient than those in previous Garmin wearables. There"s also storage space on the Vivoactive 4s for music, and all Vivoactive 4 smartwatches have onboard music storage as a standard feature. That means you won"t pay extra for it like you had to when Garmin first introduced the Vivoactive 3 Music after the Vivoactive 3 had been available for a little while.

Garmin has improved its devices significantly over the past year or two when it comes to music storage. I had a "better late than never" attitude when Garmin finally added music storage to some of its wearables, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the desktop interface for transferring tracks wasn"t as horrid as those of other smartwatch makers. Since then, Garmin has added support for downloading tracks and playlists from Deezer, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Amazon Prime Music, so paying subscribers can download music to listen to while running (and using a pair of connected Bluetooth headphones) without their smartphones present.

Overall, I"d argue Garmin has a better system for downloading and playing music from a smartwatch than Apple has and, therefore, the rest of the competition as well. While Apple makes it incredibly easy to pick tracks to sync and play music on its watches, you"re limited to the music and other audio you have in your iTunes account and Apple Music (if you subscribe to the latter). LTE-equipped Apple Watches also make it easy to stream Apple Music playlists while working out. But users aren"t locked into one ecosystem with Garmin, and I"ll always prefer that flexibility over the alternative. Unfortunately, though, that means we will likely wait a long time for Apple Music integration to arrive on Garmin smartwatches—if it ever happens at all.

There are a lot of new fitness features on the Vivoactive 4s, but let"s start by talking about one that directly affects battery life: optional all-day pulse ox. The pulse ox sensor inside the Vivoactive 4s allows it to measure the level of oxygen in your blood based off of the heart rate and breathing data it collects. Most healthy people will see a pulse ox percentage close to 100 in the Garmin Connect app after the pulse ox sensors gather enough data, but percentages dramatically lower than that could signal health problems. Like most consumer wearables on the market today, the Vivoactive 4s isn"t a medical device, but it can capture useful information that users can share with their doctors who can then decide if there"s a problem that needs to be addressed. Advertisement

Previous versions of Garmin devices like the Vivosmart 4 could measure pulse ox on the fly or during sleep to capture more data over the course of the night. Now, if you enable continued, all-day pulse ox measurements, the Vivoactive 4 will periodically take readings throughout the day.

But this constant monitoring will dramatically reduce battery life, and unless you have a known problem with your blood oxygen levels that you want to monitor in a new way, I wouldn"t recommend it. For the first few days of testing the Vivoactive 4s, I enabled pulse ox during sleep, and I got roughly four days and four nights of battery life out of the smartwatch. That"s a little more than half of Garmin"s estimated battery life for the device in smartwatch mode (up to seven days). It"s still a good battery life for a wearable by normal standards, but you will have to charge the Vivoactive 4s about twice a week if you choose to enable pulse ox while sleeping.

I still believe pulse ox information isn"t necessary for most users, but it"s encouraging to see Garmin include a pulse ox sensor in nearly all of its new wearables and actually use it. Fitbit has been touting the pulse ox sensor found in almost all of its wearables introduced since the Ionic, but the sensor isn"t active in any Fitbit devices—and there"s no telling when Fitbit will put it to use.

The manual is accessible at Garmin"s website and through the app. It"s scant on information but adequate for basic users. The troubleshooting section is near-worthless but you can get help through their support system. The manual is fairly easy to use. Mostly because it"s lack of depth it rates a 3/10.

The GPS allows a selection of time, location, and speed to be displayed on the video. Cold lock here is about 10 seconds, warm lock nearly instant. It seems to hold the signal well.

Give the cam a sample of your voice and then by saying "OK Garmin" (user changeable) it allows you to save a vid or pic along with the option of sending it to the "Vault". The "Vault" feature of this cam stores your clips or pics on a Garmin server for 24 hours for free; this service is upgradeable via a monthly subscription to 7 or 30 days storage. You need to set up an account with Garmin to use the "Vault" feature, which allows you to access it online with any device. I tried "fooling" the cam with a higher and lower voice pitch and it wouldn"t accept the command, so there might be an issue with multiple drivers. Even speaking softly it activated. 9/10 only because of the limited commands, 10/10 for functionality.

Activation during parking mode relies on the G-sensor, there are no other modes available. Parking mode is indicated by and on-screen notification and once begun the LED indicator will go from flashing to solidly lit. Unlike older Garmin cams you no longer need a special "parking mode cable", the 57 can be set to start it"s "Parking Guard" coverage at 3, 5, or 10 minutes after the car has stopped moving. There is a "Timer" function where you can set a limit on how long this coverage will go before the cam shuts down which can protect your car battery from being over-discharged. If you have an older Parking Guard cable it can still be used for the 57; you don"t need to run new cabling. Parking mode switching is about 90% reliable, sometimes the cam just keeps recording normally. I"d recommend using this cam with the parking mode cable for best reliability.

You can access a menu, change cam settings, and download a clip or pic through the Garmin Drive app. You can pair the cam with your phone app using Bluetooth which worked great for me the first time then refused to fully connect afterward. It takes 2 Bluetoogh connections where their older cams (as do most other cams) need only one. To connect with this cam I have to reboot both cam and phone, then it will work once. That"s a 3 1/2 minute process for me and frustrating beyond belief. I"ve looked around and asked for input from other users- those results range from "works great" to some problems to people like me. Seems to happen as much with IOS/Apple as with Android. I can"t get wifi to connect with my phone, but I suspect that is a problem with my phone as you lose wifi when you enter "airplane mode" whereas it can still be on with most phones. Still I"ve seen many reports of dropped connections, corrupted files, and dropped frames when trying to DL a file via wifi. The app has limited user-choices in the menu compared to many other cams, and little of use in trying to resolve any issues you encounter on your own. After consulting with others I"ll give the Garmin "Drive" app a 4/10 score but personally I rate it 0/10. I"ve used some crappy phone apps for dashcams which were better than this.