Apple Watch Ultra 3 Coming Next Week: Eight Reasons to Upgrade

[Alan Wynn]

All this talk of garmin battery life is disingenuous.

I agree it is disingenuous, but just not in the same direction.

The table posted here was for GPS recording and NOT regular “smart watch” time.

That is true, because their “smart watch” is just not that smart. As a “smart watch” do you consider it in the same class as the Apple Watch, the Pixel or Samsung’s offering (I mean just using it as a “smart watch”, not using any of its fitness tracking functionality)?

Garmin’s web page for the Fenix 7x says it offers 28 days in “smart watch” mode, but that number drops to 36 hours with All Satellite Systems and Multiband. Add music, and the number drops to 16 hours.

All this without an always on display. I completely agree with you that if one used a Garmin Watch exclusively as a “Smart Watch”, without using the sports tracking, never streaming music from it (as without a live data connection it takes too much work to set it up to do that), it would out last an Apple Watch Ultra by a great margin, but it would be a vastly inferior experience, and not what Garmin’s aspirational users would plan to do.

Starting a GPS based activity that drops to over 24 hours. If I add music it drops to 16 hours.

So if one does 2 hours of GPS tracked (but not multiband) works with music a day, one would get 8 days instead of 28. Again this does not even have an always on display. Still better than the Apple Watch Ultra, offers, but a far cry from 28 days.

My Apple Watch Ultra burns about 70% of the battery in a typical day with a 1 hour trail run with music.

So you can do two hours a day of GPS tracked workouts with Music in a day and still make it a full day (usually do a bit more than that and still only charge once a day, but that is fine for a minimum comparison.

But only 40% on non-GPS days.

How do you use your Apple Watch? Do you have the Always on Display on? How many notifications do you get a day? What other interactions do you do?

Garmin watches do not operate as “everything on” because you’re all including GPS recording in that time which the vast majority of Apple Watch users will record 2, maybe 3 hours per week? Or none at all.

Here is the problem with your comparison. Garmin (and its aspirational users), talk about the 30 days as if it was normal usage for an active fitness tracking user, but it really is not, it is for some one who barely wants a smart watch (what they call “smart watch mode”, but since I cannot find what their assumptions are for what that usage is I cannot really compare it). I do 2-3 hours of GPS tracked workouts, with my watch every day in standalone mode streaming music or making phone calls. I need to charge every day. I cannot really compare that to a Fenix 7x as I could not do that with a Fenix 7x (there is no ability to use it standalone, since it does not have LTE/cellular.

There is absolutely zero argument that garmin watches have vastly better battery life. And Apple Watches have a vastly superior user experience if you want to interact with notifications. Different tools for different purposes

The “vastly better battery life” is only the case if one uses it as a vastly inferior smart watch without even an always on display, which would make no sense, but when comparing it with something closer to real usage (2 hours of GPS tracked workouts a day) it is better, but only because it is such an inferior experience.

 

[kidnaper]

I agree it is disingenuous, but just not in the same direction.



That is true, because their “smart watch” is just not that smart. As a “smart watch” do you consider it in the same class as the Apple Watch, the Pixel or Samsung’s offering (I mean just using it as a “smart watch”, not using any of its fitness tracking functionality)?

Garmin’s web page for the Fenix 7x says it offers 28 days in “smart watch” mode, but that number drops to 36 hours with All Satellite Systems and Multiband. Add music, and the number drops to 16 hours.

All this without an always on display. I completely agree with you that if one used a Garmin Watch exclusively as a “Smart Watch”, without using the sports tracking, never streaming music from it (as without a live data connection it takes too much work to set it up to do that), it would out last an Apple Watch Ultra by a great margin, but it would be a vastly inferior experience, and not what Garmin’s aspirational users would plan to do.



So if one does 2 hours of GPS tracked (but not multiband) works with music a day, one would get 8 days instead of 28. Again this does not even have an always on display. Still better than the Apple Watch Ultra, offers, but a far cry from 28 days.



So you can do two hours a day of GPS tracked workouts with Music in a day and still make it a full day (usually do a bit more than that and still only charge once a day, but that is fine for a minimum comparison.



How do you use your Apple Watch? Do you have the Always on Display on? How many notifications do you get a day? What other interactions do you do?




Here is the problem with your comparison. Garmin (and its aspirational users), talk about the 30 days as if it was normal usage for an active fitness tracking user, but it really is not, it is for some one who barely wants a smart watch (what they call “smart watch mode”, but since I cannot find what their assumptions are for what that usage is I cannot really compare it). I do 2-3 hours of GPS tracked workouts, with my watch every day in standalone mode streaming music or making phone calls. I need to charge every day. I cannot really compare that to a Fenix 7x as I could not do that with a Fenix 7x (there is no ability to use it standalone, since it does not have LTE/cellular.



The “vastly better battery life” is only the case if one uses it as a vastly inferior smart watch without even an always on display, which would make no sense, but when comparing it with something closer to real usage (2 hours of GPS tracked workouts a day) it is better, but only because it is such an inferior experience.

This isn’t meant to have any attitude but do you have or have you ever used a garmin watch? “but that number drops to 36 hours with All Satellite Systems and Multiband. Add music, and the number drops to 16 hours.”

Yeah, that’s true. But you don’t leave the GPS on when you’re sitting at a desk, driving, or on a couch watching TV. So that’s 36 hours of activity vs apple’s battery life while off the charger. Compare the 28 days of “smart watch” vs the Apple “42 hours” of battery on the Ultra 3. That 42 hours is going to drop precipitously when you start a run. You’re comparing an idling car to one accelerating to highway speeds

I’m not going to go point by point in responding to this; you know how you use your watch, I know how I use mine. I charge my garmin twice a month and don’t need to bring a charger on vacation. My only issue with all of this was the battery chart for GPS time being used as though it’s “real life” usage numbers because it’s not.