I have a Garmin Fenix 5X and it does not make the Apple Watch look like a toy. The Apple Watch integration is seamless, the Garmin Connect integration is a joke.
Moreover the Fenix has a clunky user interface, and is bulky and ugly.
The Apple Watch absolutely trounces the Garmin in every aspect, functional and aesthetic, except for two:
1) Water resistance: it's hard to argue with the Garmin's 100M water resistance.
2) Battery life, but it only does better here by being massive (ref. previous comment about bulkiness).
Seriously, unless you're spending a lot of time in the water, and if you're able to put the watch on charge every night, buy the Apple.
Quite true. I bought it for the GPS, mapping, and battery life, but this was really a mistake.
I have 8.5 inch wrists, and even though that's relatively chunky, the Garmin looks absolutely ridiculous.
The thing about fitness and sleep tracking is it's only useful if you're wearing the device pretty much all the time, particularly for things like daily calorie burn.
Whereas I found that there are so many contexts where it either wasn't appropriate, or I didn't want to, wear a gigantic activity watch. I slugged it out for a few months, but in the end gave up on it because it wasn't really practical or stylish.
The maps are something of a wash as well, because the screen is so tiny.
My other arguments stand, to the point where I wouldn't even recommend buying one of the smaller ones unless you really need the water resistance. I imagine even the smaller models still have better battery life than the Apple Watch, so that's another consideration.
This was a legitimate question. If it turns out it's pretty useless without an iphone (that is not clear to me, hence the question) then that's another consideration. Something from Garmin (or the other competitors) will work fully regardless of what mobile phone / computer you've already invested in.
While not yet there, Apple seems to be moving towards making the Apple Watch more stand-alone; their newest update, for instance, allows completely stand-alone apps to be downloaded from the App Store on-device.
No, but they are subjective anyway. But I do personally agree the Apple integration and UI is much nicer, they know what they are doing in that department. I would be interested to know how the multisport features compare on the apple watch. In my eyes the fenix series is for triathletes/endurance athletes and if you don't have excellent battery life it's a non-starter. And last I heard it doesn't have ANT+ support which is another blocker for me since none of my bike stuff has BLE.
I have a Garmin Fenix 5X and it does not make the Apple Watch look like a toy. The Apple Watch integration is seamless, the Garmin Connect integration is a joke.
Moreover the Fenix has a clunky user interface, and is bulky and ugly.
The Apple Watch absolutely trounces the Garmin in every aspect, functional and aesthetic, except for two:
1) Water resistance: it's hard to argue with the Garmin's 100M water resistance.
2) Battery life, but it only does better here by being massive (ref. previous comment about bulkiness).
Seriously, unless you're spending a lot of time in the water, and if you're able to put the watch on charge every night, buy the Apple.