Garmin Fenix 7X Sapphire Solar - Carbon Grey DLC Titanium

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About this point, you’re probably trying to decide which watch might make the most sense for you (if either). I’ve got an entire dedicated video on that above, but an even more crazy-detailed post that’s constantly updated with all the silly differences that might be discovered down the road. Per-Sport/Activity Profile: This allows you to increase (or decrease) GPS accuracy on a given sport, likely in exchange for battery life. It’s no spoiler to say it so early in this review but the Fenix 7 is the best sports wearable you can buy right now: it’s streets ahead of the competition. Speaking of widgets, these show all manner of data from your watch, such as steps, the weather, your sleep, training status, and so forth. You can also install 3rd party ones too. You’ll simply swipe or press down from the watch face to access the widget glances: A) Day-to-day usage where you just want a flashlight: For example, getting around in darkness, illuminating a small space, surprising someone in the middle of the night with a bright light to their eyes, etc…Basically, the same scenarios you’d use your phone’s flashlight for, except you don’t have to hold your phone

With that set, we’ll get out to the trail and load up the course. You can choose any GPS sport mode you want (hiking in my case), and then from there choose Navigation and Courses. This allows me to load up my course. When I do so I’ll see map options, elevation, as well as ClimbPro. Note that ClimbPro isn’t enabled by default on all sport profiles, so you may want to enable that within the sport settings (I do – it’s one of my favorite features). This next section is specific to only the Solar editions of the Fenix 7, as only those editions have solar panels in them. Solar capabilities was first introduced on the Fenix 6 series, and then later added to the Garmin Instinct and Enduro series. In the case of the Fenix 6, it added almost negligible battery life for most users. Whereas in the Instinct series in particular, the impact could be quite significant. Keep in mind that while many watches, like Casio, have had solar for years, those watches tend to be super basic in their functionality, and thus in turn, require less power to operate.This ultimately means it comes down to what you prefer: Significant battery, or better display. And ironically enough, that’s pretty much been the same choice consumers have been trying to decide for the last few years, the only difference is this time the battery trade-offs are far less drastic (or far more acceptable) for most athletes. Notably missing from that list is the new Stamina and Up Ahead features. Both of which I’d imagine could easily run just fine on Fenix 6 hardware, so it’s a shame to see those not being added. I suppose on the bright side, Garmin does seem to slowly be getting better about adding features to older watches. Baby steps…I guess. In the Box: And not only is the Fenix 7 rammed with training and sports capabilities, it’s also a highly impressive performer when it comes to general heart rate and GNSS accuracy. 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.

This is one of those things that at first glance didn’t make a ton of sense to me. I mean, yes, it was spot-on accurate, but why bother to spend the time on this was quirky to me. In asking Garmin, they said the intention was that for certain racing/training, such as steeper incline training, it allowed folks to start to analyze whether or not the pace/HR tradeoffs were worth it on walking versus running. Since you can overlay all those stats atop it, I can see the logic there. Find freedom and adventure with preloaded TopoActive maps — plus maps for thousands of golf courses and ski resorts worldwideYou can see your seven-day training load at a glance on the watch face, with advice on whether you need to dial up the intensity, take your foot off the gas, or stay where you are for optimal results. Whereas the middle-left one is your Potential, which is your long-term potential. How long can you maintain this interval workout for, or, in an endurance event – how much gas is in the tank for the entire day. This will steadily decrease over the course of the workout. You can then look at the 4-week load focus is to see how those numbers trend, where it also shows your breakout of the core workout type areas (anaerobic, high aerobic, and low aerobic), with optimal target ranges for each: Meanwhile, while descending, things separate pretty considerably, which is pretty much my experience across most wrist-based optical heart rate sensors. Especially given this was an hour-long descent in relatively cold conditions up top.

I want to zoom in though on one of the longer sustained climbs of about an hour or so. Here you can see the Epix has a bit more wobbliness than I’d ideally like to see. Notice how that green line spikes and drops a bit here and there, whereas the yellow line of the Fenix 7 is far more tame. For context, here’s the current sizes of these maps. These will undoubtedly change slightly over time, but shouldn’t change too dramatically over the years: Got all that? Good. Here’s some charts to help you make sense of it. First up is the battery comparison chart: I have been using a fenix 6 Sapphire for about 2 years and had 2 units both with problems measuring elevation. They would calibrate before an activity correctly but the activity would report 20-60% increased elevation. Garmin replaced the first one unit after my reporting of this issue, but the second unit they sent me had the same issue. 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:

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So how close was that to reality? Well, reasonably close. In my case the ride finished on a 1.5KM 12% climb, which I dutifully hammered. So by the time I got to the finish point, I was baked. But was I absolutely 0%-1%? Probably not. As any endurance athlete will tell you, much of sport is mental as much as physical. In my case, I was shot, but I suspect if push came to shove I could have done another 5-10KM (after doing 118KM with 10,000ft of climbing). Probably not at any meaningful intensity though. Still, I was beyond-done mentally, and certainly in most other respects too. So to that end, it got things more than close enough. Battery Life: Up to 28 days/37 days with Solar (Smartwatch Mode), up to 90 days/1+ year with Solar (Batter Saver Water Mode), up to 89 hours/122 hours with Solar (GPS Only), up to 63 hours/77 hours with Solar (All Satellite Systems), up to 36 hours/41 hours (All Satellite Systems and Multi-band), up to 16 hours (All Satellite Systems and Music), up to 213 hours/578 hours with Solar (Max Battery GPS), up to 62 days/139 days with solar (Expedition GPS) The Fenix 7 series significantly increases the solar capabilities over the Fenix 6. It accomplishes this in three basic ways: 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) Continue doing that till you’re done. Garmin says that they’ll soon support enumeration within Up Ahead (explainer in a second) from 3rd party files. But in the meantime, you need to use either Garmin Connect or Garmin Connect Mobile to tag these locations.

Performance Condition: After running 6–20 minutes, compares your real-time condition to your average fitness level And then you can also see this in Garmin Connect Mobile afterwards, which is where you can spit out a PDF copy if you like: Again, zero issues. I don’t quite know why the 7S struggled for me on the interval workout while the 7X did perfectly fine. I’m reasonably certain there was no light leakage coming in, as it was plenty snug. As with any testing, with so many models and so many potential workout scenarios (indoors, outdoors, differing sports, night vs daylight, etc…), you can go in circles trying to figure out which scenarios might be gaps. A big issue for us walkers, Garmin don’t seem at all interested in fixing this, it’s been known about for a long time. 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.Open-Water Swim Metrics: Distance, pace, stroke count/rate, stroke distance, swim efficiency (SWOLF), calories The watch has the same five-button setup as the Fenix 6, but adds a touchscreen (Image credit: Future) 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. Now, I’m going to add a few waypoints here. Waypoints in files of course aren’t new. They’ve been around for a decade or two. In this case, Garmin calls them Course Points, but it’s effectively the same. You can tap on your route and add these points from a list of about 50 different standardized icons.