Back at the end of August, which feels like far longer than only 4 months ago, I decided to upgrade my Garmin.. It was one of those ‘I feel like trying something new’ moments, and I really didn’t need to swap it out, but the new Fenix 8 series had launched, and I was intrigued by some of the full mapping options on a different type of display. I opted for the middle of the road in size 47mm AMOLED option, and I ordered it the day of the announcement. I believe that was a Tuesday, and it was at my doorstep on Friday to open and set up after getting home from work..
This was the first time that I’d ever changed Garmin devices before, so I’m not sure if it’s because the Fenix 8 had the newer, Gen 5 Heart Rate Sensor, or it’s just how their process is, but it completely reset my HRV, and therefore couldn’t establish the ‘Training Status’ metrics for another few weeks after getting it despite my 2 year long usage of the Forerunner 955 beforehand. This was a little irritating, but not a big deal. I’d gone out for a run that morning, so the first day I didn’t do much more than a dog walk with it, which wasn’t very informative in how the watch operates, but it did give me a little insight into the difference in appearance of data screens, and just what the AMOLED display looks like in an activity.
The next morning though I decided to get out for a 13 miler. Over the course of the run, I had to make some adjustments – mostly to customization in data screens, lap markers, and swapping it from Imperial to Metric (yes… the American likes to run in KM’s – I set my lap alarms to 5k’s). Out of the box on this first run I noticed some battery drain that seemed uncharacteristic of a Garmin device – in the total 13.4 mile run, I’d used about 15% of my battery. In comparison, my Forerunner 955 would have used likely around 5%, and the Apple Watches that I’d used for years beforehand would typically use between 30-50% in this time, depending on pace. Not horrible, but not great – I chalked it up to the difference in AMOLED vs. MIP displays.
Battery Improvements came with software updates, I’m assuming this is due to inefficiencies in the updated OS on a new device. Not uncommon for any device in all honesty – for example, my Google Pixel 9 XL was pretty optimized out of the box, but a day with minimal drain it would drop about 50%. Now, after some steady improvements to the software, a workday where I’m busy in meetings and not listening to music all day, the battery will often only have dropped 15% by the time I’m heading to bed.
There were a few other glitches out of the box, such as cold water causing it to shut off, but that one never hit me as I’m not a frequent cold plunger. An unfortunate issue that I did have, however, was relating to an update pushed in mid-September. I was out for a training run, and I’d arrived home and hit the stop workout button. The watch seemingly started to save the activity, but after the loading circle spun a few times, it would reboot. It would save the activity, however it wouldn’t contribute the activity towards your metrics. This was uber frustrating in early October, when I was completing the Can Lake 50 Ultramarathon event. After almost 11 1/2 straight hours of running, and a noted activity load of 576 reset, it contributed none of this to my training status. It still kept the GPS details, and had all of my split information, so that’s fine, but part of the reason for using Garmin is the training metrics information it puts together.
Monday following this event I actually reached out to Garmin not really to express frustration in this, but to point out that this is a pretty big bug to have floating around in the software – funny enough they were aware of it, and were in the process of rolling out an update to fix it. They were able to push it to my account, and within 15 mins my watch had the new update, which was the last time I had this problem.
All in all, was it worth the update? It depends – I sort of treated it as a ‘I got a new job’ present to myself at the time, so in that sense, sure; but was it worth the price tag on the device itself? From a Forerunner 955 to this, not really. The full color mapping was available to an extent on the Forerunner 955, which was (at the time) the top tier running watch that offers a lot of additional features from the more sport specific watches such as the Approach Golf Series. The AMOLED display is more touch responsive than the MIP on the 955, however I turn the touchscreen off for most activities, and rarely use it except when typing. The Gen 5 HR sensor offers a few more metrics that I don’t necessarily use, and when the Gen 4 was already as good as it was, I don’t really see the perks for myself – which is probably why they’re still using it in new releases, such as the Instinct 3 recently released. Maybe your use case will vary.
Roving On 