I’ve been an avid Apple watch user for the past 3-4 years or so. Not surprising because it’s the best smartwatch you can use if you’re so integrated in the Apple ecosystem. However it does have one glaring deficiency - battery life. 1-2 days if you’re lucky. It’s fine if you use it for work or play daily but if you plan to go on a weeklong hike or camping trip, you’ll be charging the watch daily. Not to mention it’s not really built for the outdoors. Without any case or screen protection, the Apple watch would be ruined in the jungle or up the mountains.
Hence why I sold my beloved Apple watch 3 (I know it’s old) and got myself a Garmin Fenix instead. The Garmin brand is well known for making rugged smartwatches and GPS trackers for the last few decades. They’re the benchmark for outdoor wearables. I was torn between this Fenix 5X and the newer Forerunner 245 but ultimately settled for the former simply because it has an altimeter which is handy for casual hikers like me.
The other advantage the Fenix 5X has over the 245 is it’s made of stainless steel instead of plastic which makes it more durable. At first glance, this Fenix series looks huge on my wrist. It’s certainly a step up from my tiny Apple Watch 3. The original band was a heavy titanium bracelet which put on some weight on my wrist. I had it on for a week or two before switching to this more lightweight silicon band. The silicone band can quickly be detached by pressing a button on it which is pretty convenient.
The Fenix series is the flagship watch from Garmin and the Fenix 5S despite being an older model, still provides multisport features just like its successors. Among the features available include maps, Spotify, music playback, pulse oxygen level and heart rate monitor apart from GPS of course. In spite of all the features that it has, I mainly use it for running and activity tracking other than the occasional altitude and heart-rate monitoring. You can log in to Spotify with the watch and play some music including offline ones but the watch needs to be connected to wi-fi and a Bluetooth headset or speaker. This watch comes with 16GB of memory space.
Connecting to GPS is almost instant outdoors. It tracks my pace, time and distance pretty accurately. The altimeter’s accuracy is up for debate because from my hiking experience, the altitude displayed is always ~100 to 200 meters different from the established peak height. The watch connects to an iPhone or Android and displays all notifications from your phone if you want to, although you need to scroll down the text if you want to read the entire message. You can download and change the watch face using the Garmin IQ connect app or get a detailed record of your activities and change the watch settings with the Garmin Connect app. This watch also syncs to the Nike Run Club app so all my decade long record from the app is not lost and kept in sync even when I am now using this Garmin.
Battery life is advertised as up to 18 days without GPS use. My real world experience for this 2 year old unit is 6 to 7 days before needing to charge. Even that is still a lot more than what a typical Apple watch can offer although you need to bear in mind that this doesn’t have the high definition resolution of the Apple wearable. To be frank, the Fenix 5X offers much much more features than I can care to find out or use. You can see the full specs here. For the casual runner like me, it’s a little overkill. But since it comes free with the watch, I don’t mind at all.
If you want a watch that syncs seamlessly with all your Apple devices and you prefer a Retina display on your smartwatch then the Apple watch is more suited for you. If you’re more of an outdoor person, don’t mind an SD screen and you abuse your smartwatch regularly in the elements, then one of these Garmin series would be perfect for you. Of course if the new Apple Watch Ultra offers many of the features of a standard Garmin but for RM3,799, they’re definitely out of my budget. So until the price comes down or I can afford a second hand unit then I’ll stick with this Fenix 5X for now.
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