I ’ve been reviewing wearables for a solid decade now , and in that time , the Garmin Fenix line has emerged as the best multi - sport sentinel and activeness tracker . twelvemonth after year , the Fenix has managed to stay either a little or a lot ahead of the competition , and when I hear the Fenix 7 was coming down the pipeline , I was sure it was go to be my new pet fitness lookout . But it isn’t — the newGarmin Epixis .
The Epix is basically a Fenix 7 but with a sensational AMOLED screen , which intend you do have to sacrifice some battery life . Other than that , the two Modern watches are effectively identical . I tested both the Fenix 7 and the Epix ( lazuline editions for both ) , so we ’ll get into the fuzz - splitting differences , but for now know that in almost every way they are the same sentry . It ’s deserving note that Garmin made a watch called the Epix back in 2015 that was a morsel gawky . It ’s an odd choice for the caller to have revived that name , rather than call it the Fenix 7 AMOLED edition or something , but whatever . The Epix we ’re blab out about here may be referred to as Gen 2 , but since basically nobody remembers the original one we ’re just last to call it the Epix for this revue .
Garmin Epix
Photo: Brent Rose/Gizmodo
feature an first-class projection screen , peachy wellness - tracking , and all the GPS sport feature article you ’ve come to love from Garmin .
What is it ?
Garmin ’s unexampled flagship watch
Photo: Brent Rose/Gizmodo
Price
$ 900 ( or $ 1,000 for Sapphire variant )
Like
Photo: Brent Rose/Gizmodo
Absolutely gorgeous display , which finally has trace , making mapping and navigate a lot easier ; fresh nerve rate sensors and GPS technology for improved truth ; ski maps even show the names of run ; lower - profile than previous generation
Do n’t like
Battery life accept a hit because of sieve ; Garmin Connect app has lots of details , but it ’s still not intuitive to use ; confound to add music , workouts , and routes to watch
Photo: Brent Rose/Gizmodo
A Health-Tracking Machine
For those unfamiliar with the Fenix line , it ’s essentially Garmin ’s “ track everything ” GPS sport watch . It can track more than 60 unlike sport and body process out of the box — everything from running to open water swimming to snowboarding to pickleball . If your prefer activity is n’t in that list there ’s a comely chance a third - company developer has made an app for it that you could download from the Garmin Connect store ( a special version of which is now built into the picket , in addition to the full version on your headphone ) .
The Fenix also excels at the 24/7 wellness - monitor stuff we have a bun in the oven from Fitbits and other smartwatches . This includes perpetually monitoring your heart pace , your step , floors climbed , stress spirit level , Body Battery ( which measures recuperation , alike to Whoop ) , sleep , and even blood oxygen levels . For go and cycling there ’s a unexampled real - time Stamina feature , which essentially shows you how much energy the watch thinks you have going into a physical exertion , and it unendingly updates as you go , basically depict you how much push you ’ve still got left in you . you may practice this to endeavor to keep from over - extend ( or under - expand ) yourself , at least from a cardiovascular view ( your juncture may say otherwise ) .
All of the heart rate - related metrics are tracked with Garmin ’s new Elevate 4 sensor cortege , which debuted last class on the Venu 2 lookout man ( which I did n’t particularly care for ) . The cortege is now encased in glass instead of plastic , which should increase durability and keep it precise over sentence . The Fenix now has four infrared sensors , up from two , to go along with the two light-green and one red light-emitting diode lights . The reddish lights are for pulse oximetry , which I just test manually from time to clip , but you’re able to choose to have it on all nighttime while you sleep ( if you ’re disquieted about thing like sleep apnea ) or 24/7 , but stamp battery life history will take a striking . Generally , I found my heart pace tracking to be highly exact ( compared to a Wahoo chest strap I wore , too ) , even during rigorous action , and the beat ox was correct in line with the medical - grade finger - clip equipment I own .
Photo: Brent Rose/Gizmodo
Improved GPS
While all of the Epix and Fenix picket can access multiple global navigation artificial satellite systems ( GPS , GLONASS , and Galileo planet system ) , the Sapphire editions are among the first watches to support multi - band GNSS .
What this mean is that each of those artificial satellite circularize in multiple frequence , and typically your watch only find fault up one of them . Multi - band think that your spotter is picking up multiple frequency from each individual satellite , which in theory will give you the undecomposed possible accuracy . In practice , I did n’t see a huge amount of departure from the stock GNSS organization , but I was n’t hiking through any canyon or running between skyscrapers . Multi - band is also a very new organisation and will continue to improve with time . I will say , however , that I found orbiter acquisition to be faster than it is on any sportsman watch I ’ve tested before . It ’s not rare for me to dilute up the run app , and then have to wait a mo for it to find satellites . With the Epix ( and Fenix ) , it almost always had me locked in and ready to go in under 10 seconds .
Classic Design With an Incredible Display
Out in the real world , the Epix is a pleasure to use . The 1.3 - in AMOLED show is smart and vibrant . I had zero difficulty read it even in blinding sunlight . It was well-to-do to read than the Fenix 7 in all condition , but even more so as the sunlight set . The Fenix 7 has the classic transflective MIPS exhibit ( also 1.3 - inches ) with a backlight you could sprain on , and compared to other transflective scout it ’s middling good , but next to the Epix it looks slow and flat . The Epix can display 65,000 colors . The Fenix 7 can exhibit 64 ( yes , 1,000x fewer ) . The Epix ’s display comes in at 326 pel per inch ( ppi ) , versus just 200 ppi on the Fenix 7 . you’re able to really see the difference when you ’re looking at maps . Trails on the Epix become visible at lower zoom levels because it has the pixel denseness to expose those thin lines .
Both the Epix and the Fenix 7 now have touchscreens , which are a welcome addition . It piss the built - in , offline topographical maps ( which are free ) a million times easy to pilot . It ’s also much easy to enter in your PIN if you ’re using Garmin Pay ( the sentinel ’ NFC defrayment system ) or quickly adjust configurations . At the same time , the watches feature the same five push that have become stock on the Fenix line , which is just a grotesque implementation . If you ’re in the water or using chummy , snow - cover gloves , you do n’t need to interest about the touchscreen ( it ’s invalid by default when you start activity , though you may easily change that ) . You just use the buttons and you ’re proficient to go . The start / stop button also now has a safeguard around it which does a not bad job of eliminating inadvertent button presses — an issue with Garmin watches for geezerhood . It ’s a slight thing , but it ’s nice .
The watches can all expose notifications from your phone , and if you utilize Android you could even beam quick response ( some come pre - installed , but you could customize your own ) to text messages and such . Unfortunately Apple does n’t allow third political party to access message , so spry replies do n’t work with iPhones , but I would n’t call that a dealbreaker . All of the Epix and Fenix 7 version have wifi , Garmin Pay , and music . If you have save mp3s you could just transfer them over , but it also supports playlists from Amazon Music and Spotify ( paid variation only ) . I almost alwayslisten to music when I run , and being able to just couple my earbuds with my watch and leave my phone at home has been really gracious . If I want to grab a drink while I ’m out , I can swing by a 7 - 11 or any other store that bear out pat - to - pay off , bump my watch against the screen and get whatever I require . It ’s pretty slick . The unconstipated version of these watch have 16 GB of onboard storage , while the Sapphire editions have 32 GB ( in summation to slightly more scratch resistant cover , Ti bezel , and again , the multi - band GPS ) . The vigil do n’t have microphone , so voice bid do n’t do work , and passably amazingly there are no LTE interpretation available , despite that being an option on some of Garmin ’s other watches .
The Deciding Factor: Battery Life
I keep alluding to other versions of these ticker , it must be noted that the Fenix 7 line has a ton of selection . Most obviously there ’s the three sizes : the 42 millimeter 7S , the 47 mm 7 , and the 51 mm 7X. They also derive in standard , Solar , and Sapphire Solar editions ( except the 7X which does n’t have a standard version ) . The Epix just add up in received and Sapphire and is the same size as the 47 mm Fenix 7 . This devote the solar variant a definitive leg up in battery living , as you would expect . The solar part of the screen have been lucubrate and made more effective from last twelvemonth ’s Fenix 6 personal line of credit , and if you pass a bonnie amount of time outside on sanely vivid days you will definitely notice an improvement .
And that brings us to the one ( and it ’s really the only ) reason why you might want a Fenix 7 over an Epix : stamp battery life . The Epix will last six days in always - on mode ( i.e. the display always at least shows the time of day , except when you ’re slumber ) . That ’s really not uncollectible , specially if you liken it to the Apple Watch , which will seldom last two days . That being said , if you equate that to the Fenix 7 ’s 18 day , or the 7X ’s 28 day , you might think twice , and that ’s before you element in likely solar charging , which could convey the 7 up to 22 days , and the 7X to a walloping 37 days . Those are just the routine for standard smartwatch mood ( i.e. 24/7 health trailing , notifications , etc . ) , but it does n’t account for GPS activities , which are very onerous . Now , if you switch the Epix to gesture mode — where the screen stays off until you tilt your wrist to look at it — battery life increases to 16 days in smartwatch mode , which is wildly good for a lookout man with an AMOLED display . Significantly , Garmin has really improved this motion . It did n’t work well on the Venu 2 , but it works almost flawlessly on the Epix , and even a tenuous tilt would perch it up instantly .
In regular Global Positioning System mode you get 30 hours of tracking on the Epix , which is fantabulous … it ’s just not as secure as the 57 hours you get from the 7 or 89 hours you get from the 7X ( and that ’s before solar ! ) , though , using gesture style on the Epix bring that routine up to 42 hours , which is majuscule . On the far extreme , if you ’re using Max Battery GPS , you could squeeze 75 hour of tracking out of the Epix , which is really good , but then you compare it to 136 hours on the Fenix 7 ( 289 hours with solar ) or 213 hours on the Fenix 7X ( 578 with solar ! ) and suddenly it feels kind of wimpy .
It starts to get pretty apples to oranges , and there are a ton of different modes to factor in , but really what you have to ask yourself is : How are you going to employ this sentinel ? I in person am not trying to do any ultra - length races . I was able-bodied to track two full days of snowboarding with the Epix , with plenty of smartwatch usance before and after , and had plenty of juice leave over . I do n’t beware using the gesture musical mode , and so charging my vigil for an hour once every two weeks is fantastic . If , however , you are more draw to doing super - long trek that last hebdomad on end ( and you wo n’t be carrying a portable charger ) , then you probably want to go with one of the Fenix 7 sentry . The 7X also has an external light-emitting diode flashlight . For me , though , that gorgeous screen on the Epix is deserving birth to institutionalise more often .
The One Downside: Software
To be light , the Epix is not perfect , and much of that is down to the software . Garmin ’s UI has get along a foresightful fashion , but there are still a lot of chemical element that are completely unintuitive . There is n’t a great tutorial for how to add euphony to the vigil , and I found myself having to Google it . Same with adding HIIT and posture workouts to the watch ( which have animation of each exercise ) . Your sentry tells you do add together them through the Garmin Connect app , but it does n’t take you to that part of the app or even say you where in that app you ’ll find those setting . The app had some strange connectivity return , too , which left me having to business leader cycle per second my telephone set to get it to stay connected with my lookout . Infuriatingly , it still requires jumping through a crowd of not - at - all - obvious basketball hoop to import routes ( i.e. trails with waypoints you require to follow while hiking , biking , or running ) onto your watch .
I ’ve also been possess a strange return where the lookout man get going rapidly link up and unplug from my Google Pixel 6 Pro . When it does that it will still synchronise data point , but you ca n’t make any changes to the watch in the Garmin Connect app . More annoyingly , the spotter vibrate every prison term it link up and disconnects . This morning it come out randomly happening at 6 a.m. , which woke me up . Very pesky . This seems to be a new germ and I ’ve asked Garmin for insight on what might be lead on . We will update when we have some uncloudedness .
Worth Buying?
Those issues apart , I ’ve enjoy using the Epix more than I have any other summercater sentinel , and by a huge leeway . While snowboarding , I was able to zoom in and see the existent name of a run I was on to I could tell my friends where to forgather me . While hiking , I used a trackback feature and was able to easily sail back to the trailhead , with a clear , colored mapping show me the fashion . It count my waves while surfboard . While running at crepuscle I could see all of my stats as clean as twenty-four hours . I ’ve find the Body Battery feature ( which measures recovery ) to be subjectively more precise thanWhoop ’s Whoop Score(and that ’s really all Whoop does ! ) , and its eternal rest - tracking is better , too . It ’s also dispirited - visibility enough that it does n’t overtake on my arm , and it reckon so good I can wear it with utterly anything .
Of of course , it most certainly is n’t cheap . The Epix starts at $ 900 for the standard version , and a cool $ 1,000 for the Sapphire . The Fenix 7 starts at $ 700 for the standard edition of the 7 and 7S , then goes to $ 800 for the solar editions of the 7 and 7S and $ 900 for the 7X Solar , and then top out at $ 900 for the Sapphire Solar 7 and 7S , and $ 1,000 for the Sapphire Solar 7X. Ouches all around . There ’s also the size of it offspring . multitude with minor articulatio radiocarpea may very well choose the 7S , which makes the 7 and the Epix attend pretty big ( though not as big as the gargantuan 7X , which will charm on every arm and backpack strap you have ) . Ultimately , all of these are great watch and you ’ll very likely love whichever one you choose , but if I had to pick just one , it would absolutely be the Epix ( ideally the Sapphire ) . A sieve that good on a watch that various makes it the best watch I ’ve ever used .
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