The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED. All photographs: iRunFar/Craig Randall
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED ($1,000 to $1,200 relying on options, $1,100 as examined in 51-millimeter chrome steel model) is rather more than a easy GPS operating watch; it’s in an analogous class as challengers just like the Coros Vertix 2S and Suunto Vertical. These are watches with usually 30 or extra completely different sport and exercise choices, fabricated from rugged titanium or sapphire supplies with a giant emphasis on mapping and navigation. But the one watch on this class up to now to supply an AMOLED possibility is the Garmin fēnix 8.
The yr 2024 was the yr of AMOLED for the most important manufacturers and legacy watch collection within the GPS operating and outside classes. All the main gamers — Coros, Suunto, and Garmin — unveiled new watches boasting the attractive and high-definition AMOLED shows, previously reserved for the favored Garmin Epix.
Within the Garmin fēnix 8, Garmin has added an AMOLED model to certainly one of its hottest and highly effective gadgets. Take a look again to our Garmin fēnix 7 assessment to match this new version with the prior within the fēnix line.
AMOLED requires loads of battery energy in comparison with its Reminiscence in Pixel (MIP) counterparts, so whereas the development in GPS operating watches is to supply longer and longer life — largely with MIP shows — Garmin, and to a lesser extent Coros and Suunto, with the Coros Tempo Professional and Suunto Race and Suunto Race S, are discovering methods to supply greatest in school mapping, optical coronary heart fee and oxygen sensors, and excessive efficiency GPS recording with out sacrificing a lot battery longevity whereas nonetheless delivering the AMOLED show enhancements.
What I’ve lengthy appreciated concerning the Garmin fēnix collection although is its skill to exchange my telephone. It syncs to streaming service Spotify, comes totally loaded with labeled maps, and has one of the best, most intuitive consumer interface of any watch I’ve examined.
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED stays aggressive with the Coros Vertix 2S and Suunto Vertical in battery life, but it surely comes at a reasonably giant value improve. The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED is about $300 greater than its class opponents, with roughly the identical battery life, however a greater show and singularly supplied options.
Learn on to search out out if the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED is value the additional value whenever you’re contemplating a purchase order of a really well-rounded outside sports activities watch that can be utilized for ultrarunning. We additionally suggest you take a look at our greatest GPS operating watch information, the place we rated this watch among the many different high watches.
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Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED Show
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED in use.
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED display screen is further brilliant, and paired with an anti-glare coating, it’s simpler to learn, even when the solar is immediately overhead. That is essential whenever you’re out within the mountains or deep in a canyon and don’t need to be fiddling along with your watch to see the info. That brightness degree is adaptive too, so it adjusts relying in your atmosphere, whether or not you’re within the shade or immediately beneath the solar.
The display screen is sharp, clear, and readable in nearly any situation. The upper decision makes textual content and icons pop, so that you’re not left squinting at small particulars whenever you want them most. One of many challenges with any watch in brilliant daylight is glare and this has been a specific knock towards AMOLED shows traditionally.
For prime output sport watches for ultrarunners, AMOLED shows was a difficult proposition. Certain, it appears to be like lovely and makes your previous watch seem like a relic, but it surely comes at an enormous value to battery life. Or it used to.
AMOLED tech produces richer, extra vibrant colours and deeper blacks — the form of distinction you don’t get with a conventional MIP display screen. If you happen to’ve used the Garmin fēnix collection previously, or watches from the opposite main manufacturers within the GPS operating watch class, you’ll instantly discover the distinction.
This adjustment out of the field may be considerably annoying although. Usually, you need to maximize battery life, which suggests using inner battery saving options, like dialing again the display screen brightness and limiting power-hungry options when you should stretch that final little bit of juice, but it surely’s the adaptive brightness that may typically hinder your expertise.
Take into consideration when doing intervals, monitor reps, or actually any exercise situation whenever you need to examine your tempo or another information rapidly. There may be critical lag between turning your wrist upward and the display screen changing into totally illuminated. This may be abated by turning on the always-on show possibility on your particular exercise, so that you simply gained’t should faucet the display screen or increase to wake the machine each time you need to examine your time, tempo, or altitude. However, particularly on lengthy runs, this will likely be a significant battery hog.
The display screen alone might warrant runners buying the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED over the still-exceptional Garmin fēnix 7, however the fēnix 8 AMOLED in addition to the Garmin fēnix 8 Photo voltaic ($1,100 to 1,200) additionally get some spectacular new options. I’ve all the time appreciated how shut the fēnix line involves killing off my smartphone dependence whereas operating, providing great options like offline Spotify streaming and one of the best mapping of any sports activities watch, making it simpler to simply depart your telephone behind totally — a minimum of on daylight runs in public locations, the place you don’t really feel such as you want a telephone for security.
Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED Measurement, Weight, Look, and Really feel
A aspect view of the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED.
The earlier two variations within the fēnix line weren’t slight gadgets, however the 51-millimeter Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED by comparability appears much more gargantuan. Happily, the watch can also be supplied in 43- and 47-millimeter circumstances, however I examined the 51-millimeter model. This does appear higher suited to my body at 6 ft, 4 inches in peak, however even I wrestle to search out it completely comfy for all-day put on. The burden of my stainless-steel check unit is 102 grams.
Garmin has by no means had the panache of Suunto from a design and consumer interface perspective, however, particularly with an AMOLED model, Garmin’s feel and look is way improved, veering away from the Android/open supply comparisons of previous to a barely extra trendy and complicated shade palette throughout the customizable shows and menus.
Possibly my greatest gripe concerning the watch’s really feel is the button sensitivity. The watch maintains a high and backside proper button structure, and a high, backside, and center button on the left. The issue is that they are often very mushy. They merely require an excessive amount of specificity for my liking and in comparison with different watches in related settings. With gloves over your palms, it may be further tough to begin and cease an exercise or navigate utilizing the buttons. However, the touchscreen performance when not carrying gloves may be very strong.
Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED Voice Instructions and Notes
In a nod to Siri and Alexa, the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED will get voice command capabilities, permitting you to begin a run, a nap, a timer, and lots of different choices by holding the beginning/cease button on the highest proper and talking into the machine. The voice recognition app opens in an analogous solution to Siri by listening then enabling your command. Among the key voice instructions are:
- Begin or cease an exercise;
- Pause your run;
- Modify settings like display screen brightness, don’t disturb mode, or music playback with out having to navigate via menus — I actually like this significantly when utilizing my Spotify playlists, so that you don’t should click on via the cumbersome screens; and
- Activate particular options, just like the flashlight or stopwatch.
A again view of the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED.
The fēnix 8 AMOLED additionally integrates along with your telephone’s voice assistant, resembling Siri for iOS or Google Assistant for Android. This implies you should utilize your watch to ship textual content messages or make calls, get climate updates, and set reminders or timers.
Whereas it’s not fairly a totally immersive voice assistant such as you get with a wise speaker in your house, it provides simply sufficient performance to make actions smoother, particularly whenever you want a fast adjustment or replace with out pulling out your telephone or twiddling with the watch’s buttons and menus.
Since voice instructions nonetheless require touching a button on the machine, it isn’t as seamless as maybe if it was all the time on and hands-free. However voice instructions and recognition know-how carry the fēnix 8 AMOLED ever nearer to its smartwatch counterparts from Apple and Google, and since I often put on the machine full time, I really take extra benefit of voice instructions throughout day by day life for options just like the flashlight or for nap timers and alarms.
Voice notes are one other very cool characteristic that syncs and saves along with your GPS location. On journey runs or whereas navigating new routes it is a worthwhile characteristic for leaving your self reminders about landmarks, obstacles, or variations to route-finding. It’s rather more seamless than pulling out your telephone and recording the main points there.
There may be the helpful new skill to make the most of the built-in speaker and mic to allow you to make and take telephone calls out of your wrist when your watch is paired to your telephone. Alongside these traces, some bank card corporations will will let you register your card and will let you use Garmin Pay for contactless funds at distributors — one other phone-killing perk!
Garmin Fēnix 8 AMOLED GPS Accuracy and Battery Life
One of many stand out options on the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED that carries over however is improved over the fēnix 7 is SatIQ, Garmin’s clever satellite tv for pc reception system. SatIQ is a GPS characteristic that adjusts how your watch interacts with satellites in actual time. As an alternative of utilizing a relentless, full-strength GPS sign which drains battery, SatIQ dynamically adjusts to the situations round you.
SatIQ runs within the background to offer probably the most correct place monitoring when it counts, and conserving battery whenever you don’t want excessive precision. For instance, when you’re out on a wide-open path or a comparatively flat part of a race, SatIQ may change to utilizing simply GPS. However, when you’re in an space with dense tree cowl, a valley, or rocky terrain, SatIQ will change to pulling in indicators from world navigation satellite tv for pc techniques GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo to enhance accuracy. By always monitoring the atmosphere, SatIQ routinely switches to one of the best satellite tv for pc configuration on your environment.
The end result? You get extra out of your watch, particularly on these lengthy days whenever you want each ounce of battery life to complete a race or coaching run. However it is best to nonetheless regulate your GPS-sampling fee (i.e. change between efficiency modes) when you already know you should get probably the most battery efficiency attainable, and also you’ll additionally need to flip off loads of different battery draining options resembling sensors or music playback when full battery life is required for monitor recording and navigation.
Actual world battery efficiency stats for the 51-millimeter model of the watch I examined, even with the AMOLED show, routinely offers me round 65 to 68 hours. This information got here via disabling SatIQ and with all satellite tv for pc techniques enabled and using the AMOLED battery saving options. On the opposite finish of the spectrum, in Expedition GPS mode, the fēnix 8 AMOLED ought to give about 31 full days of energy. AMOLED is just not out there in Photo voltaic variations of the fēnix 8, so in a direct comparability to earlier fēnix fashions with photo voltaic, battery efficiency may very well be slightly worse with the brand new fēnix 8 AMOLED.
Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED General Impressions
Some folks will discover that the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED is a consolidation of one of the best options from the Garmin Epix — the show — and the prevailing Garmin fēnix 7 — its unimaginable mapping, battery, well being, and sensors know-how. This could be so, though persevering with to construct on the muse of the SatIQ clever satellite tv for pc reception system to include and keep battery life along side AMOLED is an thrilling growth, proprietary to Garmin.
The true selection for a lot of will hinge on how essential show high quality is for you. I’ve to confess that it’s considerably laborious to return to different shows after spending loads of time with watches which have AMOLED shows.
There’s a big value for this know-how proper now although, so whether it is only a show dialogue, you can go for extra inexpensive AMOLED sports activities watches just like the Coros Tempo Professional or Suunto Race S. You’ll sacrifice so much from a options standpoint by turning to those different gadgets, and maybe most significantly, when you worth a watch that may put far between you and your telephone whereas providing loads of the identical options, the Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED is a really worthy funding.
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