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The AW Ultra suddenly seems like a bargain now with Garmins silly pricing
- Thread starter dj1891
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yeah dude, your experience trumps every other
is there some story with you and Garmin that you wanna share? I mean your bile towards that brand is on Android vs Apple level..
I mean your other points maybe, but bad sensors? The HR works perfect for me. In line with the Apple Watch I used to have and the polar strap I use sometimes. GPS incredibly accurate.
Bad display? What are you talking about? It’s an AMOLED, tuned pretty well. Those aren’t the issues with Garmin devices.
As others have said, it’s software. Like using an OS from 2002. The hardware is tremendously good.
I don’t care about battery life.
Haha oh I know. And I’ve been through the absolute best out there, and they look terrific. Even bought a few. But at the end of the day they slow the device down considerably and I can’t deal with that.
The inbuilt ones function better, are faster, and sort of designed for the device if that makes sense.
The garmin connect iq store is a joke. I had the same experience. Paying via PayPal? What the heck? Most of the watch faces are not good ones. Reducing the battery life even further. At the end I had to go back to a watch face provided by garmin
So I’m lying now. I last charged my Garmin on Sunday 3rd Nov and I’ve just put it on charge with 15% left. Do that with an AW2 and I’ll know you’re lying
With the right settings without doing sports possible. Like I said. But not as an serious athlete. The point is: Those people complaining and telling people that the watch will last 15 days are definitely not making every day sports. Sorry.
It’s a garmin sponsored forum:
forums.garmin.com
Garmin users turn to turn everything off to be the hero with battery life 😂🤣
It’s a garmin sponsored forum:
Fenix 8 Amoled 47mm - Battery Drain - fēnix 8 Series - Wearables - Garmin Forums
A dedicated community for Garmin users to ask questions, provide answers, and share feedback.
forums.garmin.com
Garmin users turn to turn everything off to be the hero with battery life 😂🤣
It’s not a sport but I walk the dog with GPS on every day for 60-90 mins.With the right settings without doing sports possible. Like I said. But not as an serious athlete. The point is: Those people complaining and telling people that the watch will last 15 days are definitely not making every day sports. Sorry.
It’s a garmin sponsored forum:
Fenix 8 Amoled 47mm - Battery Drain - fēnix 8 Series - Wearables - Garmin Forums
A dedicated community for Garmin users to ask questions, provide answers, and share feedback.
The 47mm version is known to have dodgy battery life, I’ve got the better 51mm one
Ah. Cool. I have to buy the even more expensive huge watch to get a little bit better battery life. Way to heavy. But yes. That could be a difference. I want to compare a watch with the same size and weight. Again: you will not get more than 4-5 days with that garmin.
If you want real battery life then you should use a Suunto. Real athletes with real adventures are using Suunto because of the great battery life. Your garmin will not last that long.
If you want real battery life then you should use a Suunto. Real athletes with real adventures are using Suunto because of the great battery life. Your garmin will not last that long.
Have you ever owned a Garmin/ I’m guessing not. Mine isn’t heavy, it’s lighter than all my ‘real’ watches and as I’ve given you real world experience of how it works.
if you want a true adventure watch as you say Suunto, if you want a daily driver with a battery in weeks rather than hours a Garmin, if you want a gimmick where you can listen to music through your watch and charge it every second day get an AW2 (and yes I’ve had one, I’ve actually had 3)
I am a serious athlete and I am sure I am doing way more sports than you. Running 70-100k per week plus other sports and I am using an Apple Watch.
Best watch ever. The Garmin is in the drawer.
Best watch ever. The Garmin is in the drawer.
This table is interesting and the numbers do not add up in my opinion:
fēnix 8 Series Owner's Manual - Battery Information
43mm to 51mm makes a difference of three times the battery life? Although the 43mm is 84% of the size of a 51mm?
6 hours with All Satellites and music for the 43mm Fenix 8 is really bad. Lots worse than an AWU2.
Even more interesting is the announced battery life of their battery flagship, the Enduro 3:
Enduro 3 Owner's Manual - Battery Information
Users report that the real battery life is about half of what is promised:
At default watch settings, the battery drains 5%~6% per day. - Enduro 3 - Wearables - Garmin Forums
A dedicated community for Garmin users to ask questions, provide answers, and share feedback.
forums.garmin.com
Well, if this is their shtick, let them do that. Apple is quite honest about battery life on their Apple Watches. Never seen an ad where an AWU is promised to have 6 days of battery life while in reality it is 3 days.
That’s what I am saying. The gps accuracy is really bad if you are using satiq. Garmins crippled version of saving battery life. Turn dual band on and the battery life is really bad. Sometimes even not better than a AWU. A Suunto will last with highest setting what was promised. That’s why I am telling that garmin is lying here.
The battery on a garmin is NOT better. They are reaching the better battery life with compromises. Some people like that. Me not. I want all features. If I have dual band I want to make use of it.
The battery on a garmin is NOT better. They are reaching the better battery life with compromises. Some people like that. Me not. I want all features. If I have dual band I want to make use of it.
Also Garmin uses a 200mh single core CPU with 5MB RAM and charge $1200.
That is a huge compromise on Garmin for that insane price tag.
On AW, you have very good 3rd party apps that does everything (except radar, but a watch is not the best device for cycling).
An AW is not "just a watch" it's a device with a complete OS, a complete SDK, a super powerwerful CPU, powerful GPU, neural engine and is a platform which let developers create apps and make things more complete/custom than built in apps.
There is no comparison with Garmin (or Polar/Suunto ...). Garmin SDK just allows limited development, you can't re-create a workout app.
It's like comparing a smartphone with a feature phone. People install apps on smartphones, why not on smartwatches ?
By the way, Apple Pay is a killer app, Garmin pay is a joke, supported by just a fraction of banks and way less convenient to use.
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You can feel that while navigation. The garmin is soooo Slow. Unbelievable for that price tag. When you are using footpath or WorkOutDoors you are back from 1980s into the year 2024. Still unbelievable for me how slow that processor is. 😂
It is the same processor that was built in the Fenix 7 and Epix 2 (not the Pros, the first ones).
So no wonder that the new UI is laggy.
Will be funny, when Amazon throws out Epix 2 Pro at Black Friday for 500€ and the Fenix 8 is more than double the price. For what exactly?
Big AWU user here too. Been running 80km weeks with it for this last marathon block (Valencia). The LTE support is by far, for me, the best feature. I don't have to bring a phone. Was 5km from home during a long run a few weeks ago and my wife called me to say she needed to go to the hospital.. High tailed it home and took her in (she's ok now). I also had the option to take a cab and PAY for it with my watch. Very difficult to do that with a Garmin here in Canada. Garmin Pay support is poor.
Sure I have to charge it every day or so.. I have to do the same with my phone and laptop. No biggie. But not needing a phone and being able to take an emergency call, is the most important feature for me.
False advertising.....I only get 14 days of battery for the daily workouts and the weekend golfing.This table is interesting and the numbers do not add up in my opinion:
fēnix 8 Series Owner's Manual - Battery Information
www8.garmin.com
43mm to 51mm makes a difference of three times the battery life? Although the 43mm is 84% of the size of a 51mm?
6 hours with All Satellites and music for the 43mm Fenix 8 is really bad. Lots worse than an AWU2.
Even more interesting is the announced battery life of their battery flagship, the Enduro 3:
Enduro 3 Owner's Manual - Battery Information
Users report that the real battery life is about half of what is promised:
At default watch settings, the battery drains 5%~6% per day. - Enduro 3 - Wearables - Garmin Forums
A dedicated community for Garmin users to ask questions, provide answers, and share feedback.
Well, if this is their shtick, let them do that. Apple is quite honest about battery life on their Apple Watches. Never seen an ad where an AWU is promised to have 6 days of battery life while in reality it is 3 days.
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This table is interesting and the numbers do not add up in my opinion:
fēnix 8 Series Owner's Manual - Battery Information
43mm to 51mm makes a difference of three times the battery life? Although the 43mm is 84% of the size of a 51mm?
6 hours with All Satellites and music for the 43mm Fenix 8 is really bad. Lots worse than an AWU2.
Your comparing the smallest Fenix 8 with the largest Apple Watch Ultra is pretty disingenuous. That would be as absurd as comparing the Apple Watch SE with the Ultra 2 and finding it lacking.
Even more interesting is the announced battery life of their battery flagship, the Enduro 3:
Enduro 3 Owner's Manual - Battery Information
Users report that the real battery life is about half of what is promised:
At default watch settings, the battery drains 5%~6% per day. - Enduro 3 - Wearables - Garmin Forums
A dedicated community for Garmin users to ask questions, provide answers, and share feedback.
Well, if this is their shtick, let them do that. Apple is quite honest about battery life on their Apple Watches. Never seen an ad where an AWU is promised to have 6 days of battery life while in reality it is 3 days.
It isn't half of what is promised. The scenarios in the table are for specific scenarios to help you gauge how the watch will because most of the time the usage is mixed.
Apple Watch - Battery
Find out more about the battery life of Apple Watch. Learn about charge time, power reserve, and other battery metrics, too.
www.apple.com
Apple does the exact same thing. Using GPS exclusively, here's how long the watch will last. If you are using music exclusively, here is how long it will last. etc.
They have a lot fewer options because they don't give you many options. You have low power mode and that's about it.
When you say people are getting about half of the claimed battery life, that is bettery life that in that table means if you used it exclusively in a smart watch mode with zero workouts. You just read the time, get your notifications, use Garmin Pay and so on.
Since most people workout with the watches, often several hours a week, the battery time is often about half if it were used just as a smart watch. My Fenix 7x SS is charged every two weeks.
When you complain that the smallest Garmin when put in all systems GPS mode while playing music will only last 6 hrs but using my Apple Watch with music and GPS in an area where it used LTE a bit in a weak signal area caused it to die in less than 2.5 hrs.
Those are edge case uses for both devices.
That said, I've found it interest that Apple doesn't want to provide GPS battery estimates for AW10 in low power mode. It's clear it extends the battery by about 35-40% which would give the base AW10 about 10 hrs of GPS life. I guess Apple wants to sell more Ultras.
All of this can be true and still completely miss the point. There's a lot of speculation right now about the Vision Pro as an example. I'm sure it is the best product in it's segment but the reality is that there's more power and more cost than most customers appear to need or want.
Except for the point that most people don't honestly need a second super small smart phone. They need a device that goes on their wrist and hits some different needs. While Apple provides a more powerful watch they haven't provided a native dive app for it, proper native navigation support for routing and sports, and so on. You say as an example most people would buy a bike computer and not use their watch for their bike rides, the same can be said about the watch and a smart phone.
Can it be liberating to run without your phone for some people, who apparently want to give $10-15 a month to their cellular company for that privilege. I guess it can be. However in a thread about the expense of watches it seems absurd to give your phone company $120-180 a year just so you don't have to carry your phone in a belt or pocket of your shorts. Most running shorts have a fitted picket that holds the phone and doesn't let it move around.
Oceanic+ is $5 a month. Footpath is $24 annual/$4 monthly. I cannot tell whether your app is a one time pro purchase or a monthly subscription.
You note you can't recreate a workout app on Garmin but why would you need to? Garmin has made their native watch workouts the best in the business. Apple has refused to properly improve their workout app much in 10 years which is why apps like yours are trying to fill the gap. You know how lacking their native workout app is because that is literally the point of your app. However you aren't filling the gaps for some little start up company that doesn't have the resources to address all the needs. You are doing this for a 3.4 TRILLON dollar company that somehow can't add elevation profiles and navigation, along with say a simple indication if a sensor is attached and working, how strong your GPS signal is and so on. How many gigs of memory and how fast does the processor need to be to do those things? It's not the hardware. Apple hasn't done many of these things in over TEN YEARS.
That’s what they tell you. Even for me: Running 1h+ a day this stupid watch will tell me 15 days. The reality is: after 4 days it’s nearly empty. Fake battery life
Apple Watch is so bad, it's so off the market and so far from user needs that Garmin sells 100x more watches.
My aim is not to suggest that Garmin (or other sport-focused brands) make bad watches—they certainly don’t. I simply want to counter Garmin fanboys idea that serious runners can’t use an Apple Watch and that it’s somehow a joke compared to a Garmin.
For 95% of runners, the Apple Watch Ultra offers more than enough functionality. Plus, you can enhance it by purchasing a third-party workout app that better suits your needs for less than €10 as a one-time purchase (such as WorkOutDoors or YouRace), gaining most of the features the standard app might lack.
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Same discussion with BEV-haters who all fall in a category of car drivers where a BEV can't be used (e.g. driving >800km every day and so on).