Increased power efficiency of the base unit compared to Fenix 6 Series, which in turn increases battery life 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. 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: In standard smartwatch mode, the smallest watch in the range, the Fenix 7S, is rated up to 11 days, with the solar model boosting that up to a potential 14 days. Continuous GPS and heart-rate use for this watch is rated at 26 hours (30 hours with solar) if you use the multi-system GNSS setting, and it rises to 37 hours (46 hours with solar) if you opt for GPS only.

Just like its predecessor, the Fenix 6, this is a watch so stuffed with technology and features that even the keenest of athletes are unlikely to utilise everything it offers. For super simple context compared to the other top-dog in the battery space, the COROS Vertix 2, their key claims are: These models are then further split into three further variants: standard, Solar and Sapphire Solar. Or at least the 7S and 7 are; the 7X is only available in Solar and Sapphire Solar. Sapphire denotes the fact that the watch comes with scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass, while Solar indicates it’s able to harvest top-up energy from the sun, courtesy of a slim ring sandwiched between the bezel and the watch face. As for the standard variant, this comes with Corning Gorilla Glass DX and no solar charging. As you can see, it’s quite significant – again, assuming you have the solar power. But this is only showing that 3 hours. So imagine you’re hiking in the summer across a mountain range. In that case, you’ll likely have both far more than 3 hours a day in the sun, and depending on the weather, you’ll also have way more than 50K lux conditions. Garmin says that in none of these scenarios are they claiming ‘forever power’, but the reality is, if you turn off certain features, then you can basically get there with even just a few more hours of summer sun conditions. Inversely, if you’re hammering offline music + multiband GPS in a winter snowstorm with the optical HR sensor enabled doing PulseOx 24×7, then solar isn’t gonna net you much. The Flashlight (7X Only):The Fenix 7 series significantly increases the solar capabilities over the Fenix 6. It accomplishes this in three basic ways: For the first time, the Fenix 7S is the same price as the standard 47mm Fenix 7 – so there's no cost saving by opting for the smaller version. With a full complement of VO2 Max and performance analytics, Fenix 7S is still a natural home for runners. And with longevity the name of the game, it’s distance runners that will get the most value. As for positional accuracy, that’s just as impressive. I was initially sent a Fenix 7s Solar to test, which didn’t have multiband GPS support – one of the watch’s much-touted new features at the launch – but even without multiband GNSS, positional accuracy was phenomenal. With single-band, all-systems GNSS enabled, I found the distances matched those reported by my Stryd pod to within 1.1%. That’s a stunning result, and examination of the GPS traces show very little wandering or corner-cutting. Optimise your body’s energy reserves, using heart rate variability, stress, sleep and other data to gauge when you’re ready to be active or when you may need to rest.

The Garmin Fenix 7 has the same five-button interface as the 6, but is matched with a new touchscreen interface so you can choose between the two – an upgrade designed to improve daily smartwatch interaction and map navigation. It’s even more durable and robust All Systems: This confusingly named option is dealers choice between GLONASS and GALILEO, and Garmin is the dealer. As a user you can’t choose which one to use, but instead, Garmin is now switching between GPS< GLONASS, GALILEO, BeiDou, and QZSS based on the quality of the satellites from each, determining “which to prioritize”

Why is Garmin Fenix 7S Solar better than Garmin Fenix 7S Sapphire Solar?

But, inversely, everyone’s 2-5% features are different. I use sports features every day that others never use, and vice versa. It’s fundamentally why they lead this category. And perhaps more importantly, over the last few years the software quality has increased substantially, largely through open firmware beta programs that go on for months. Within the Connect IQ app store app, in addition to the 3rd party free watch faces, you can also create your own watch face, such as with photos or the like: After ten runs totalling 81km, the difference in the average heart-rate reading was a mere 1.36%, and for all but two of the runs it was below 1%, which is the best result I’ve seen for an optical heart-rate sensor versus a chest belt. The same goes for Body Battery. On days we felt tired, we did see lower Body Battery scores. And we saw a strong correlation between good/bad Body Battery scores and Daily Readiness percentages on our Whoop 4.0. So clearly there are these scores are grounded in science. Remember also that you can change the map sets shown. Within the TopoActive map, there are different map layers, including high contrast ones, night ones, even popularity routing (heatmap) ones. I find I tend to prefer the popularity one the most, but the one titled ‘System’ is the default.

All of this is spot on. However, it’s not as if they’re on the correct side of the road (or consistently on any given side of the road). So that’s where we need to park the Holy Grail GPS Bus, and remember that hasn’t arrived yet: Over a 40-minute steady run, the two produced identical average heart rate readings, although the optical sensor on the Fenix 7S did report a slightly higher peak HR for the session. And that’s the exact same way the FDA certifies blood oxygen medical-grade devices: Sitting still. If you swagger around, you’ll either not get good devices, or, Garmin these days won’t even give a reading. They (and others) have gotten smarter with just giving you a warning that there’s too much movement for a valid result. So, here’s that data set, and at a high level, things look pretty similar. All Fenix 7/Epix/Vertix 2 units were set for multiband GPS, and the FR745 was set for GPS+GLONASS. All the units had no problems in the openness sections:

Price comparison

So, we’re going to start with a feast of watches on a route that’s both easy and extremely challenging. I start off along some canals and farms, and then eventually wind my way down through a long skinny street of 12-18 story buildings on both sides. For this test I had the Fenix 7S on my left wrist, and the Fenix 7X on my right wrist. Then, in each hand I was carrying a COROS Vertix 2 (right hand), and an Epix (left hand), plus also a FR745 in the right hand. All these were separated and stable, as to not impact each other. I carry them the exact same way companies themselves do GPS testing:

The one thing I would change about the touchscreen mode is to add a bit more fine control as to where it’s enabled and where it isn’t. For instance, if I’m out on a long run, touch isn’t useful to me on most workout screens, but it is if I want to browse the map when I wander off course – so why not have a mode where touch is enabled only for maps on workout screens? This combination of being extremely rugged, yet accessible, makes it the perfect place to test GPS-enabled fitness watches. On a recent Sunday afternoon, I parked at a trailhead, got out, and started recording a trail run. Unlike other low-end watches I’ve tried, Garmin's new Fenix 7S Sapphire Solar connected to GPS instantly, even under dense tree cover. As expected, the Fenix 7’s optical heart-rate monitor lags behind the chest belt for short bursts of intense activity, and its performance for maximum heart rate isn’t quite as good, either, with a difference of 4.3% over those same runs. It’s certainly good enough for most workouts, however. 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. In terms of GPS accuracy, we found the Fenix 7S to enjoy better accuracy and less wandering than older Fenix devices – especially in built-up areas.It comes in three sizes – 42mm ( Fenix 7S), 47mm ( Fenix 7) and 51mm ( Fenix 7X) – each of which has a different screen size and resolution. The smallest (the Fenix 7S) has a screen that’s 1.2in in size and a resolution of 240 x 240. The Fenix 7’s display is 1.3in and 260 x 260 pixels. Finally, the Fenix 7X’s screen is 1.4in and 280 x 280 pixels. The notification support for us worked just fine. They're well optimized to the screen and it's easy to dismiss them as well when you're done reading them. And you can also have them muted when exercising if you desire. 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: