Garmin - Fenix 6X Pro

I’m actually going the other way: Fenix 6X Pro Solar to Apple Watch Ultra 3. I’ve always disliked the Garmin connect app interface, it’s just gross to navigate and use. There’s been a ton of bugs I’ve experienced with my 6X both on the watch itself and with the connection to the Garmin Connect app. In general the software experience with Garmin feels clunky and buggy. Most people don’t care I suppose since it (usually) works for just tracking workouts. The new Fenix line is way overpriced in my opinion, where the AWU is looking much more appealing. For the same price as a Fenix 8, I’m rocking an Oura Ring 4 for sleep tracking and AW Ultra 3 for everything else. It is far nicer to track your sleep with an unobtrusive ring rather than a bulky and uncomfortable sports watch (whether Garmin or Apple Watch). The AW also has satellite and cellular, which is even more expensive with the Fenix 8 Pro. It’s a goodbye to Garmin for me. I’ll keep my Fenix 6X if I ever need to do a super long gps recording, still works.

As the title says, after about 2.5 years with the Fenix 6x pro (51mm) I'm switching from my Garmin (looking for something a little more modern and AMOLED), I am thinking of moving over to a competitor. I mainly use my 6x pro for weight training, running, and other cardio. I also enjoy tracking my sleep and getting a body battery score daily. I used to run a lot when I first got the watch, but now my activities are more even between weights and cardio. I may getting back into running, and try and do some half marathons and 1 marathon (similar to what I did in 2023). But my watch is on my wrist 24/7. I have been researching the **Race S** quite a bit recently. Sounds like at the price points they are at, they are quite an appealing proposition. Other watches I have been looking at are the **Coros Pace Pro** (not a fan of the all plastic body) and the **Amazefit T Rex 3**, which seems to have made quite a splash recently. Seemingly, nothing even comes close to the latter at the moment in terms value for money, and sheer number of features, but I hear many features that exist are half baked. As someone who is just trying to stay healthy (lose more weight and keep/gain some muscle) in his late 40s, I am not looking for the priciest piece of kit out there. In other words, I do not want 1000$ Garmin. Also, while the Apple Watch U2 sounds great, I know coming from the Fenix 6x pro and its insane battery life, I would get immediately frustrated by the 1-2 life on the AW2. I have seen a ton of video reviews on these products including the Race S, but I also wanted some inputs from fellow Redditors about these specific pieces: 1) My biggest concern is HR accuracy. This is the one thing that makes me hesitate about the Race S. I am trying to do a lot of Zone 2 cardio both in the gym and on weekend runs, and I think this is a key metric for me. I run in a suburban setting and don't need to have maps on board, but nice to have. 2) How decent is sleep tracking? 3) I am assuming that no watch really does a good job at strength training tracking, so I am not too fussed about it, and use an app to track reps/sets etc. However, again, a good measure of HR would probably be good here to estimate calories burned. 4) Is the 'resources' metric useful as a measure of daily energy? I'm a little weary about the Race S, as I have a 7 inch (177.8 mm) wrist and this may be on the smaller side? Thanks in advance for your time and inputs!

Sounds like you don't need the best and newest to get all the features you need here. Most of the watches you're being recommended will be perfect for you, yes. But any older Fenix/Tactix will work for you too. In fact, I'm still using my Fenix 6x Solar, does literally everything you outlined here besides the stealth mode, jump master, etc. A Tactix 7 or event Tactix Delta will achieve all you need. Just a side note, best battery = MIP display. Don't think you can get a stealth mode (night vision) with an MIP display, that's reserved for the amoled versions. Good luck on your search!

I would say it is not correct comparison. You need to compare Apple Watch with Garmin Fenix. Standard model (not AMOLED) last 24 days. X version - from 30 days. I'm using 6X Pro Solar Titanium and even after 2 years of using it is keeping 30 days on one charge. Neither Apple nor Samsung can bring me the same experience

I would say it is not correct comparison. You need to compare Apple Watch with Garmin Fenix. Standard model (not AMOLED) last 24 days. X version - from 30 days. I'm using 6X Pro Solar Titanium and even after 2 years of using it is keeping 30 days on one charge. Neither Apple nor Samsung can bring me the same experience

Fenix 6x Pro. Has probably missed about ten 25m lengths in the last six months, and is pretty good in open water. Not bad when you consider that’s about 140km of swimming. If it breaks I’ll upgrade to the Fenix 8 but I’m still torn between the screens. 

I had the same experience with the F8. My F6X Pro does it faster...

Watches are good. Issues are / were: 1000 Usd watches with bugs even after a year 1000-2000 Usd watch needing a 10 usd / month for Connect+, and 10 Usd/month for LTE LTE is locked to Garmin software and Garmin provider MIP Screen visibility got worse, Amoled is not always on Since the Fenix 6X Pro generation, price has doubled, new features are minuscule, production/quality issues. And compared to 5 years ago, when the 6X Pro generation came out, niw there is competition. Cheaper, faster, or both. If you are new, you don't care. If you had been with Garmin for many years, it feels a lot of things are taken away, and the asking price is higher.

That price range works well for older models. Watches that came out after Fenix 8 (Sep 2024) cost significantly more than before, Garmin just increased prices. Best is to get an older model on discount, as in the past years not much significant new was added. They track the same way, and bugs are still corrected. For sports, any of these fitness watch type of devices excel for running, cycling, swimming. Other sports kinda work, but for example to detect repetitions can have mistakes, treadmil relies on distance data entered, etc. For payment, you need NFC among the watch features. I prefer full button control, especially during sports. Almost all Garmin watches can control music on your phone. The "Music" models can download music onto your phone, and play offline from the watch to your earbuds. My 5 year old Fenix 6X Pro can do this, and I never used it. For good heart rate, get a Polar H10 strap. The best wrist heart rate will never be as good as a poor strap. For more sport oriented: Garmin Foreunner 255 can do all you want, except touchscreen. It has also an 255S version, smaller. Forerunner 955 has maps. Maps are useful for creating courses, running circuits on your phone, and the watch navigates you along. This is most useful for running in nature. If you want a more smartwatch style: Venu 3S or Vivoactive 5 can work. They are more touch screen operated. They are less practical to start stop exercise, as they need using the touchscreen. But they have a nice amoled screen. You can also have a look at Garmin Instinct 2 non-solar version. It is a Casio G-style look, has no NFC. You can get probably 2-3 years out of your watch before it fails, or battery gets poor. 4 years is not uncommon, and several people on reddit are using 5-6 without issues. Garmin usually offers a discount on a new watch, if the warranty expired, and you want repair (they dont really repair watches). Our Venu 2S died after 3 years, 6X Pro after 3.5 years, my colleague's FR945 after 2.5 years. For cycling, most people get a dedicated head unit for cycling, to complement the watch.

I had a F6XPro switched to AWU2 and was so underwhelmed. Waiting for a slight price drop in new F8Pro and will be heading back to Garmin as soon as I can. AWU2 looks nice but the battery is such a huge let down.

This will be me soon. Moved from F6xPro to AWU2 and apart from looking pretty it is dreadful. Hoping to pick up F8pro in the near future.

It’s more battery related than aesthetics. The AWU2 looks nice but is massively let down by battery and what I feel to be a dependence on purchasing 3rd party apps to come close to Garmin. The F6xPro I have is bomb proof in terms of durability, and whilst the UI is a bit clunky compared to Apple, works just fine for fitness tracking. To be truthful, I thought I would use the smart phone features on AWU2 more, but notifications quickly become annoying.

Hands down Garmin Fenix series. Currently, the 8 is the latest version. You can pick up a 6x pro solar on Amazon for about 500 bucks or less. The standalone GPS function has bailed me out more than once, and the battery life is absolutely amazing!

Funnily enough, I have exactly the opposite experience with Apple vs Garmin. I find my Apple Watch (AW10) to be accurate, and my Garmin Watch (Fenix 6x Pro) to be less accurate (but useful in other ways). My Apple Watch will reliably count my lengths correctly if I’m training. Garmin will occasionally drop a length. My Apple Watch will reliably measure my OWS distance accurately - if I’m doing a swim that has a known distance - point to point along a river or across a lake - my Apple Watch will show a plausible distance and the map will not show anything unexpected, but the Garmin watch will often show a higher distance (normally about 10% higher, but occasionally more) and the GPS track will often show zig-zags on the track, or will have unbelievable straight line segments (sometimes cutting across land). On the other hand, the Garmin watch has physical buttons that can be used while swimming, even when wearing gloves, the battery life is amazing (over 24h of swim tracking, whilst the Apple Watch can only do about 6 hours - but up to maybe 9 hours in power save mode), and the display is much larger and thus much easier to read. I’ve not noticed a difference in heart rate readings, but both watches seem to show similar readings

Any GPS swim watch should do. I get very good results with my Apple Watch and less good (but still ok) results with my Garmin watch. If you want an “extra” device to track your swim you could try the free Strava app on your phone - I’ve used this on longer swims where I wasn’t sure if the watch would last. I’ve since worked out how to extend the recording time on my Apple Watch, so this isn’t an issue for me any more.

I’ve been using an Apple Watch for pool and open water swimming for about 6 years. You hear people doing the “Apple Watch Isn’t Waterproof” thing every now and then (also the “Apple wont repair water damaged watches”, which is also untrue). Try the thing that you have and see if it suits you. I’ve used AW4, AW6 and currently have an AW10, they’ve all worked well for me. I recently started used a Garmin watch too (Fenix 6x Pro) - it has some significant advantages (better battery life for really long swims) but also some disadvantages (sometimes comical inaccuracy).

At the moment I’m comparing my Apple Watch with a Garmin Fenix 6x Pro that I bought recently. On most swims the Garmin will record a distance about 20-25% higher than the Apple Watch. There are a few swims that I do that I can easily verify the distance on a map (eg where we swim along a river from one bridge to another) and for those, the Apple Watch normally gets the distance about right, so I think generally the Garmin overestimates distance. I don’t see why the watches should give different distance though - like someone else commented, GPS is easily accurate enough to measure distances like this to within a few feet. Both watches might be trying to measure some kind of “effective distance”, eg swimming 1 mile upstream should count for more than 1 mile downstream, but I’ve never seen that written down anywhere. If you really care how far you’ve swum, record your swim with a watch, but then manually measure the GPS track on a real map.

I have a Garmin Watch (Fenix 6x Pro) and an Apple Watch (Series 10) and they both have pros and cons. The Garmin watch has amazing battery life (over a week of wearing it, over 24 hours of GPS recording), and it’s easy to read, and it has physical buttons that you can use with wet hands. It’s not very accurate though - for me it often adds 10% or more to my distance, snd and a swimming buddy often sees 50% to 100% extra on his Garmin watch - so it reports a 1500m swim as 3000m. It’s also quite a heavy/bulky watch. The Apple Watch has a shorter battery life (less than 24h of normal use, less than 6 hours of GPS recording). The touch screen is almost unusable with wet hands, the only reliable action is pause/resume (by pressing both buttons simultaneously). However, the GPS is almost always spot on - any time that I’ve been able to verify the distance, like on a river swim, or point to point along the coast, it’s been very close to the distance as measured on the map. If I was buying a new watch right now I’d probably look at an Apple Watch Ultra, but they’re pretty expensive and I’m going to hang on to my existing watches for now.

I have a Garmin Watch (Fenix 6x Pro) and an Apple Watch (Series 10) and they both have pros and cons. The Garmin watch has amazing battery life (over a week of wearing it, over 24 hours of GPS recording), and it’s easy to read, and it has physical buttons that you can use with wet hands. It’s not very accurate though - for me it often adds 10% or more to my distance, snd and a swimming buddy often sees 50% to 100% extra on his Garmin watch - so it reports a 1500m swim as 3000m. It’s also quite a heavy/bulky watch. The Apple Watch has a shorter battery life (less than 24h of normal use, less than 6 hours of GPS recording). The touch screen is almost unusable with wet hands, the only reliable action is pause/resume (by pressing both buttons simultaneously). However, the GPS is almost always spot on - any time that I’ve been able to verify the distance, like on a river swim, or point to point along the coast, it’s been very close to the distance as measured on the map. If I was buying a new watch right now I’d probably look at an Apple Watch Ultra, but they’re pretty expensive and I’m going to hang on to my existing watches for now.

I have a Fenix 6X pro solar, battery still lasts for weeks, does a pretty good job for tracking. I’m sure you could pick a second hand one up cheaply and get a HRM.