Comment by microtonal
13 hours ago
The Coros watches are less than half the price, have 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode (in the Nomad) and render maps extremely fast. If they added solar, they could probably also last a month (the Coros Apex 4 does 24 days, also without solar).
The funniest thing is that earlier versions of the Coros even used the Garmin map format (though as many small files and not a single/small number of .img). Though they have switched to the open PMTiles format in later versions.
BTW, I had a Fenix 7x solar (before a Fenix 8 AMOLED) and it would usually 'only' last about two weeks. I think you can only reach Garmin's stated time if you disable a lot of functionality.
> The Coros watches are less than half the price, have 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode
Garmin gets almost 30% more battery life in exchange of not being as fast (30 days)
> I think you can only reach Garmin's stated time if you disable a lot of functionality.
Turning off always-on Pulse ox gets you there. Turning everything off except telling time gets you 2.5x the battery life (69-71 days)
My Fenix 8 only gets two weeks at most with pulse ox off. Yes, it's the AMOLED version, but I have the screen off by default (which should be similar to MIP). I got similar runtimes on my 7 Pro Solar without pulse ox.
Err.. my 2yo Fenix 7 Solar definitely lasts 3-4 weeks. Not AMOLED (because.. that's why), but MiP. In summer.. it can last >month. Pulse on, GPS is generally only on in solar. Screen is never off. I can obviously make it a worse UX/last longer, but I'm not sure I see the need.. even when I'm back country.