Garmin Fenix 7X Sapphire Solar - Carbon Grey DLC Titanium

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Enabling multiband on the Fenix 7X Sapphire Solar does make a difference to accuracy but it isn’t huge. Over the course of another 80.5km of running I saw the distances come 0.5% closer to what the Stryd pod was reporting, with the watch generally reporting longer distances. Music streaming and continuous blood oxygen monitoring has a notable drain on battery life like other Garmin watches too. The fēnix® 7X watch features Garmin’s unique, scratch-resistant Power Sapphire™ lens which uses the sun’s energy to extend battery life. The watch has an extensive battery life with 28 days of battery indoors, when in smartwatch mode, and up to 37 days of battery life when solar charging in smartwatch mode (solar charging, assuming all-day wear with 3 hours per day outside in 50,000 lux conditions).

To access it, you’ll go into the sports menu (I know, it’s technically the apps menu, but honesty, this doesn’t make much sense for it – it should probably be in the widgets area). Once opened it will load up some recommended apps. Five at the moment, plus showing the two music apps I already have installed (allowing me to uninstall those): Like all Garmin watches, the Fenix 7 syncs with the Garmin Connect app for iOS and Android. Connecting the watch is a breeze, and the watch syncs data automatically whenever you complete a workout, or open the app.

The Fenix 7 is the best multi-sports wearable money can buy, but it is very expensive

Lactate Threshold: Through analysis of your pace and heart rate, estimates the point where your muscles start to rapidly fatigue (only with compatible accessory – sold separately) Again, this is super basic at this point. But as Garmin outlined previously, it’s merely the starting point here.

I could see the GPS knew where were every step of the way as I was using the map screen to stay on the path as it was a bit vague on the ground and easy to loose. We didn’t want to end up too much in the deep bog!. We tested the standard 47mm Sapphire Solar edition, which is the first watch that combines the advantages of its sunlight-harvesting Power Glass with tough crystal.

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But we’ll get into all those details and plenty more throughout this review. I’ve been testing the Fenix 7 for quite some time, and have put in countless hours to figure out what works well…and what still might need some love. This includes all three core models, as well as its Epix sibling. And this includes a wide variety of conditions from riding and running up volcanos, runs in freezing temps, openwater swims, cities to mountain passes, and everything in between. Oceans, forests, deserts, and more. Mapping and navigation related tasks are a big part of the Fenix series, which contains far more mapping/navigation features than you’d likely ever use. For example, there are common ones like following routes, then semi-common ones like creating one-off spontaneous routes, and then lesser-used features like calculating the area of a plot of land. For this review, I’m going to focus on the core route following components including features like the new Up Ahead function, map manager, ClimbPro, and map/route-following practical stuff. The thin stripe around the edge of the display can collect 100% of the sun’s rays. Well, technically it’s of course less than that, but in terms of simple relativity here, we’ll go with that being 100% from a Garmin spec standpoint. Meanwhile, the portion under the glass can only receive 7% – but the surface area of course is massive. Note that the 7% figure is down from a 10% claim on the Fenix 6, which Garmin explains is because Sapphire is normally less clear than regular glass, so by reducing the solar layer, it increases overall clarity (compared to keeping it at 10%). And of course, the under the glass portion (officially called Power Sapphire, now) is the entire display surface. We’ll start off with something relatively basic to get warmed up, in this case an indoor 45-minute treadmill workout, compared to a Polar H10 and the Fenix 7. As you can see, it’s virtually identical. The only bobble actually comes from the Polar H10 in the first 30-40 seconds, with what appears to be an incorrect half-hearted spike ahead of the warm-up, and then it corrects. Here’s that data: Now there isn’t in theory a good reason for this, given that these are identical sensors in virtually identical casings. But, this can just go to show some of the challenges of measuring optical HR even on different wrists of the same person.

Ultimately though, that’s no different than any other coaching relationship. Some coaches push athletes closer to that edge, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. The results range from winning a race to getting injured. Everyone has different things that do or don’t work for them. Then the next night, I threw the same pairing on her again. This time for her indoor bike workout, also then followed by another lift. Here’s the indoor bike: So, then out of curiosity, I equipped my (much smaller wristed) wife with the same setup again just a few hours later for a workout she was doing later that night. This included the Fenix 7S on her left wrist, a Polar H10 chest strap, and then the Fenix 7X on her right wrist. Keeping in mind, the Fenix 7X is hilariously too big for her tiny wrists. She normally wears a blend of a Fenix 5S (yes, 5S, non-Plus) and a FR945. Here’s that data set: Like any product series, the longer the product is in the market, the less revolutionary the changes to each iteration become. As the product, or even product category, matures – the step-up in changes tends to decrease. While the Fenix 7 is theoretically the 7th generation, in reality, it’s closer to the 8th or 9th generation. There was no Fenix 4, but there was both a Fenix 3HR and Fenix 5 Plus, which were both substantially new generations of devices under the previous generation’s name.

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The watch can detect climbs automatically as well; its ClimbPro feature identifies when you've begun an ascent and presents you with info on the gradient, distance, and elevation gain of the entire hill so you can manage your effort and avoid setting out too hard or keeping too much in reserve. Garmin Fenix 7: The Garmin Connect app I don’t listen to music so 16GO should be enough. I have a stryd for running so multiband gps would be on only on small hike (and for geeking) because of battery usage. So this all comes down to the screen and which one would last more. And I’m not interested in buying the sapphire model only because it’s “the higher model”. Navigate the outdoors with a higher level of positioning accuracy, thanks to new multi-band frequency and GNSS network support (GPS, GLONASS and Galileo) plus built-in sensors for 3-axis compass, gyroscope and barometric altimeter

But as good as the Fenix 7 may be, it’s not what I’d buy for myself. I’d buy Epix: Any day, every day. The Fenix 7X contains a three-LED flashlight at the top of the unit. Two of those LEDs are white, and the third is red. There are basically four core scenarios for the flashlight here:Garmin is hardly the first company here in this space. While Garmin did roll-out multi-band GPS to some of their hand-held devices a year ago, the Fenix 7 & Epix are the first wearables to have it (despite rumors to the contrary, Garmin says the Tactix Delta nor any other wearable from them had multiband prior to this). In any case, the first endurance sports watch to add it was the COROS Vertix 2 this past summer, and then more recently Huawei has touted it in their GT 3. In my testing of the COROS Vertix 2, I didn’t see holy-grail-like results. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the promised land either. Of course, the tech is new, and thus we’re likely to see (and have seen) firmware updates rapidly that’ll improve that. More on that in a minute. In the case of COROS, they’re using the MediaTek/Airoha chipset ( AG3335M), and Garmin confirmed they are also using Airoha as their supplier. Prior to confirmation from Garmin, this made sense in my testing, as in almost every scenario over the last 6-7 weeks, the Vertix 2 and Epix/Fenix 7 units made the exact same errors in virtually identical ways (and inversely, did things correctly in near-identical ways). Garmin also confirmed that both Sapphire and Non-Sapphire units across all Fenix 7 and Epix units are using the same chipset supplier (Airoha). You can pair/save multiple headphones/Bluetooth audio devices if you want, such as a pair of sporty headphones and then non-sporty ones. The music menu will automatically prompt you to do this, or you can always manage headphones in the sensors menu (the same place you’d manage heart rate straps). Now as I mentioned, there’s the new Health Snapshot feature. Well, new to the Fenix 7 series that is. This was introduced on the Venu 2 last year, and it takes five core metrics and distills them down into a single 2-minute measurement period. All you need to do is sit down and relax.