From my perspective the screen (2017 edition) on the Garmin FR235 is plenty bright and colourful and provides all the smart features I need in my life on a daily basis.
You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but my December 2015 FR235's screen is by no means what I would call either bright or colorful (or even colourful). I highly doubt Garmin completely revamped the screen technology within a model, so we can just attribute the difference in perception as a matter of opinion.
As to the smartwatch features, I'll have to see if Garmin's made any improvements but I highly doubt they're anywhere on par with the AW2. My FR235 is on 7.30.0.0
I've had several other smartwatches in the past: Samsung, Moto 360, Pebble (3 versions of it), and everything that a high def touch-screen offered, I ultimately found to be irrelevant. Wi-Fi on my watch, again, I don't see how that would improve my life. I think that while many people bought and buy an Apple Watch, most of them use it out of sheer loyalty, cool factor or for notifications. And then there's some (maybe 20%) who use it for staying fit. You take those 2 major features (notifications and fitness) and you get exactly what the Garmin (or any other smartwatch with 5+ days battery life) is: a great smartwatch with excellent battery life.
Wifi on the watch serves to maintain connection to the phone while at home yet out of bluetooth range. It also allows some items I suppose to directly get data from the internet for weather, stocks, Siri, etc. Wifi isn't really something the user interacts with though.
The fundamental difference I found in transitioning from the Garmin to Apple Watch as a daily-wear is that while the Garmin would provide notifications, the Apple Watch provided the ability to do something with them. i.e. acknowledge a text with a thumbs-up emoji, or even make a short reply either via dictation, canned response, or drawing letters if needed. With reminders, a tap on the screen marks the item complete -- handy with a grocery list for instance. I can arm or disarm my home security system from the watch, and do this fairly often. I frequently use the Siri capability while at home with my phone in different room; setting a timer while cooking, adding something to a reminder list, setting a calendar reminder, etc. I even used the phone camera remote capability to identify a circuit breaker for an overhead light one day; left my phone in the room with the camera facing the light and could view it on the watch while down in the basement at the breaker panel.
Much of what I use my AW2 for are things I didn't realize I could do with it until I owned it.
So I can certainly understand your skepticism being that you're sort of on the outside looking in. I'd suggest giving one a try and see if you find it to be more useful as an everyday watch than the Garmin.
Oh - about battery life -- really while I charge my watch every day it's seldom below 50% battery when I go to bed and thus could realistically be an every-other-day charge item in my typical usage. My FR235 as an everyday watch would last about 5 days.
Still, it's really kind of moot for me. I don't wear a watch to bed. I take it off and set it on the nightstand or dresser. With the Apple Watch I simply put the charger button there and set the watch on it as I go to bed. It doesn't make a difference whether it's every day or every other day or every five days, the action of setting it on the nightstand doesn't change.
