Garmin fēnix 7 Solar Multisport GPS Watch, Black with Silicone Band

Product Information

It really does everythinga sports watch ever needs to do, as a tech-laden performance triathlete I can vouch for that. Garmin is the make-sure watch to make sure you have every feature. First, it's worth clarifying something – while the new luxury watch is usually referred to as the Epix, it's technically the Epix 2.

Before we dive into sport usage, we’re going to briefly cover the flashlight. This is one of those features that’ll probably seem Inspector Gadget-ish at first, but in practice is actually surprisingly useful. I just wish it wasn’t limited to the Fenix 7X. It uses this sensor to drive a slew of data points, for example stress and breathing rate. In general, I actually find the stress estimates reasonably accurate. And it’s an easy way to glance at how the day might have gone, or how it might contribute to my Body Battery. Body Battery is basically your energy level. You recharge it every night, and then decrease it during the day, or during periods of relaxation (like sitting on the couch watching TV). The Fenix 7 sapphire solar, as pictured, has a 47mm-wide case with 22mm straps and stands 14.5mm tall – just fitting on my 50mm-wide wrist. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian Specifications

Value and competition

And for the missing ECG feature; would it in any case not make more sense to include this in a strap, which could then measure constantly while wearing during an activity? From a health/safety perspective this seems more useful than a brief reading while not in activity… At first glance, the watches in the Garmin Fenix 7 line look very similar to the Garmin Epix. Both are chunky and rugged, with metal-fronted resin cases. There are five physical buttons, with a metal guard around the start button on the top right to protect it from damage and accidental presses Adding Solar, Sapphire and Titanium each bumps up the prices. You should seriously consider sapphire to protect the lens plus Sapphire is the ONLY way to get the dual-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS goodness. having had my moan as well. I think this new chip CAN help matters in mountains based on what I’ve seen from Coros – and Garmin can certainly do as well there if they want to. The charging cable is identical to virtually every other Garmin Fenix, Forerunner, and Vivo/Venu series device made in the last number of years:

Watches in the Fenix 7 range have longer battery life than Garmin Epix watches, largely due to the different display technologies used. The Epix's AMOLED screen uses considerably more power than the Fenix 7's MIP display – especially when used in always-on mode. Watches in the Fenix 7 range have color MIP displays, which are less vivid but use less power than AMOLED (Image credit: Garmin) Battery life Watches in the Epix and Garmin Fenix 7 series let you see your seven-day training load on your wrist (Image credit: Garmin)

For this review, however, we'll be reviewing the Fenix 7 Solar. It's the middle-size or 'regular' model, but with added solar charging. Material and design-wise it's identical to the Fenix 7, it just has longer battery life thanks to the addition of the Power Glass and a solar charging ring inside the display's bezel. Real-time settings sync – Make changes to watch settings on the Connect app, ability to configure and hide groups of settings on the smartphone app. #Sweet was the original fenix size until the fenix 5 redefined it as the 5X size. The f5 being smaller was a big marketing feature but it also messed up the RF — you may recall Stryd dropout and other accessories not working. The motherboard is connected by pins to the bezel which is part of the antenna system. They used to talk about the EXO antenna design and the diameter of the antenna was tuned for GPS reception. See absolutely nothing worth to upgrade, will wait for Fenix8. In general it looks like OHR technology and HRV based metrics reached its limits and there is nothing more to offer for better training… 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. Sports Usage:

Now that’s the basic flashlight mode. However, in all sport profiles you can then assign a specific always-on or blinking pattern instead, which can be configured to be either always-on in the sport mode, or only after sunset: Finally, those of you with Fenix 6 series watches are getting many, but not all, of the new software features in “an upcoming update”. Many of these were actually released over the weekend, but some are still outstanding. The specific list of features coming to the Fenix 6 series devices is: Need a Bluetooth connection to some brand of smart glasses, or better yet, smart goggles. Who actually reads maps and other information from a tiny watch face while running/hiking/biking/swimming/…?? I use TrainingPeaks LT2 estimate (not Garmin’s) and the Joe Friel zone calculations, not Garmin’s. I have decided that Garmin is much better at collecting data than giving training advice. I think Polar is better as a first party but TP is the gold standard, unless you are going down the rabbit hole of Golden Cheetah and Kubios. The Fenix 7 boasts impressive mapping tools, which are ideal for everyday navigation as well as during training (Image credit: Future)

Garmin Fenix 7 specs

It doesn’t work as well with the connected smarts of your phone but it’s a sports tool first and foremost.