UKC

Earlier this year, I started idly looking for a new new GPS watch - original thread here:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/gear/new_gps_watch_recommendation-756780

For various reasons, I didn't really make a decision back then, but it's my birthday later this month, which seems a good opportunity to commit to something - not least because I expect there's a few new models out since February.

So, with that in mind, what's the hot choice at the moment?

TIA

Don't buy a Suunto.

A pox on their house.

If you don’t mind remortgaging your house the fenix 7 is pretty good - with talkytoaster maps it’s not a bad device for navigating in the hills too.  But expensive.

is it worth it?  Depends on your use case I guess 

I've got a 955 which is over specced for my purposes and I'd probably by a 255/265 or an Instinct 2X.

If you're not wedded to the Garmin ecosystem Coros have a good rep and have just bought out the Pace 3, which is good value with excellent battery life by all accounts.  

You really need to give us more information on that

Their customer/product support is dreadful. 

Oh, I don't know, my Suunto turned me into Killian overnight when the altimeter went bonkers and every activity logged 25,000m of ascent

I had an Ambit 3 peak. I actually really liked it. Rugged, simple, accurate. Good battery life too!

The software on my phone worked well with the watch it all synced fine and have me the data I wanted.

Then Suunto bought out new software. Suunto advised me to port my data to the new app and remove the old app. I did this.

The new software didn't support a significant amount of the functions the original software did. 

I spent a long time dealing with Suunto customer service. The eventual solution was an offer of 20% off a brand new watch. 

I could not go back to the original app as it was no longer downloadable.

Note, whilst this was going on the Ambit 3 Peak was still being sold, direct from Suunto advertising mobile connectivity. 

I won't go near a company that sells a product and then removes the support! I had the watch just over a year. 

#NeverSuunto

i’ve got an old Suunto Traverse and originally used the Moves Count app. The transition to the new Suunto app was initially fraught with bugs but now works fine. I found customer support to be helpful during the process

I echo what Kevin said. The transition from Movescount to Suunto app was poorly handled and initially the app was buggy with limited functionality. However they incrementally added features to the app and now it is pretty good. You don’t have to take my word for it but you can read DC Rainmakers review of it and the recent watches. I have an ambit 3 peak but I am thinking of upgrading to a Peak Pro. Granted if you are not wedded to the Suunto ecosystem you can get a good watch from Garmin or Coros. I’m not on Strava so I am staying with Suunto to keep my workout history 

I'll throw my hat into the fenix ring... very good watch, looks stylish and does the activity side as good as any watch on the market. Very expensive but hey ho, sometimes a vanity purchase is worth it. 

Fenix ones look great, but I can't justify the cost for my usage.

If you're limited on budget, or just a tight arse like me, then Decathlon have a rebadged Coros for 150 quid and it gets good reviews for what it is:

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/gps-500-by-coros-smart-watch/_/R-p-338704?mc=...

£130...

Picked up Fenix 6 last year for a good price, been very impressed with the whole experience, coming from Suunto and their complete mess of the software changeover. The Suunto watch unit was pretty durable, but their straps were very weak (even the silicone ones), even lost it once paddle boarding when the buckle failed, fortunately recovered at low tide. Fenix feels bomb proof by comparison.

I did look at upgrading my Suunto Traverse, mainly to get a longer battery life and faster synch. I looked at all the options and ordered a Suunto 9 Peak pro on special offer now that the latest Suunto Vertical is out. I didn’t like it and sent it back. Main use is for sea kayaking and it was less easy than even with my Traverse to access lat and long position display when recording. This was compounded by Suunto now only having 3 buttons rather than 5 on the Traverse (and also on the Garmin). I could have gone for a Garmin Fenix instead but decided to stay with my Suunto Traverse; after trying the Suunto Peak Pro I realised that the latest Garmin and Suunto offerings are too complex for my needs. I don’t want wrist heart rate (i prefer a chest strap for cycling and kayaking) nor all the data on sleep monitoring etc, map displays, music etc and certainly not keen on paying the extra. Strava gives me all the training data I want after an exercise, I don’t need more than basic data (eg Heart Rate etc) while on the move. I’ll keep my Traverse and rely on a powerbank for recharging on multi day trips.

There do seem to be some good value older watches available second hand from those who always want the latest tech.

I would go with a second hand Fenix 6. Less than £300 and pretty much does everything that the newest 7 version does so you're still getting a top end watch.

Did consider 2nd hand, but as it's mainly a birthday present, I'll probably go new...

+1. Got a used Fenix 6 Pro from Cex a couple years ago. Great watch. New one doesn't do anything but bump the price tag.

Fair enough. I got my 6X Pro second hand. Think it was £285 6 months ago. It was a birthday present, just found a good example on eBay and sent my wife a link and said, this one please.

It will be interesting to see that the Fenix 8 can do when it's released. My plan is to update from the 6 straight to the 8 second hand, but only when the 9 comes out so it's affordable. I'm cheap, or efficient perhaps. 

They come with Garmin Maps preloaded now. As does the 6 Pro, which is much cheaper and has fewer unnecessary functions. 

Presumably nothing else new that anyone actually wants - it feels a lot like watch tech has reached the point where it already does more than you could actually want.

Yea - the garmin maps are lacking detail though whereas with the talkytoaster topo maps you can navigate fairly well despite the small screen size.  (Though it does mean I must remember to bring my reading glasses!) 

I can think of a few things I would like adding to my watch.

I'm an occasional diver, so justifying a dive watch has always been out of the question, but if they added a depth sensor then it would make a pretty decent shallow water diver watch.

Another thing, which may be unique to me, is when on long runs, my mind goes to some strange places, and I usually think of something I want to look into when I get home, but I just can't remember what it is. I remember wanting to look something up, but not what it is. So if I could talk into the watch to create a simple list, that would be really handy.

I wouldn't mind a light also.

And a more energy dense battery with solar that actually works wouldn't be a bad thing.

Sounds like you need a dive watch - this isn't really justifiable on a multisport watch IMO, the hardware is expensive and the user base small. Will add marked bulk to any device. 

So you want to add a microphone and voice recognition. These are pretty bulky (relative to a watch) and require quite a bit of processing power, and an internet connection (see Siri/Google Assistant), so you're also adding a SIM card (well an eSIM) and an antenna. Quite a lot of hardware for a very niche thing.

Probably the most feasible on your list I would guess - I think this would however be very annoying to actually use.

Battery tech is always evolving I guess, but again there are chemistry limits. Unless you want a bigger battery and associated bulkier watch. As for solar - it's never going to work well on a watch, it's a gimmick. For solar to work well you need to a) maximise surface area, b) maximise energy absorbance, and c) point it as directly at the sun as possible. None of these are watch friendly: a) watches are small, b) the solution to a is a semitransparent solar panel over the screen, any efficiency improvement will be more difficult to see through, and c) you hardly walk around pointing your forearm at the sun.

I find the talky toaster maps incredibly cluttered - if I need the degree of information they are offering, I'm not navigating with my watch, because I want the real estate of a larger device (or maybe even a paper map!)

Some of the Garmin ones now have a built-in light - Instinct, Fenix and Epix.

How good it is and how much it hammers the battery would depend on your use cases.

Fenix 5 has a water depth sensor and that was a similar size, so I don't believe packaging is the issue. I believe they prevented the depth sensor working below 3m on the 6 and 7 because the watch is only rated to 10atm so they don't want to encourage that type of use. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be possible in future versions. Garmin sell dive watches, and they do support their marketing strategy through software limitations, so I believe it's a marketing (and possibly warranty) issue, rather than a technical one (other than 100 atm limitation).

I don't have a 5, but I believe you can add the Apnea app to it to effectively turn it into a dive watch.

https://www.apnea.me/dyn/

You just need a microphone. It can store the audioclip for processing later on when it has a wifi connection, or bluetooth to your phone. I suspect they will add a microphone anyway to allow call answering, so my niche problem could then be solved with just software. 

oooh, didn't know that.

A simple voice-recorder app would do - you'd just need a microphone. Spare memory might be an issue, depending on what else you've got loaded.

Interesting to know, I didn't realise this. My experience of the 5 is that it was quite a bit bulkier than the 6, but that could be my brain playing tricks on me.

Good point, no need to process on the move! 

I think it's a couple of mm thicker, just like the 7 is  mm or two thicker than the 6.

The torch on the 7x is actually really useful, I use mine most days, the new versions of the fenix and epix all have the torch and it's even brighter than the 7x one. 

was that in the mountains also btw? i was initially disappointed with TT after install when i looked at the map where i live (city). on the hill however the lack of clutter made it much more readable

I tried TT in both mountains and the town when I had a 5 with no Garmin maps on. I was going to put them on the 6, but gave the Garmin ones a chance - a found them, much cleaner. Personal preference here for sure, just wanted to pointed out to the OP that a map purchase on top of a watch purchase is not necessarily essential!

Actually, having had a bit of a look round, I'm coming round to the idea of a re-furbed Fenix 6.

My "vanity watch" is Swiss and does nothing more than tell the time and date!

Has anyone got any experience of the difference between the Fenix 5 and 6? Is there "really" much advantage in going the the 6?

Not sure a microphone would be compatible with Garmin that doubles as a 10atm dive watch.

That is a very fair point. Probably.

See the DC Rainmaker review of when the 6 came out, he documents in great detail all the changes from the 5 in the "What's New" section

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/08/garmin-fenix6-pro-solar-series-review.h...

 One of the Apple Watches (the Ultra) is specifically advertised as being suitable for Scuba diving (down to 40m) and definitely has microphones, so I don't think there's any fundamental incompatibility. It also has Apple's standard voice assistant, Siri, which would allow adding items to notes or capturing voice memos. An internet connection would be required for that but it's capable of making its own internet connection (as are some Garmins already). It also has a depth sensor and torch.

It's an expensive device at £700 but that's not wildly different from top-end Garmins. I think the people suggesting that montyjohn's wishlist isn't feasible are mostly mistaken. Almost the entire package already exists in the Apple Watch Ultra. The only feature missing from his list is the solar charging (which wouldn't make sense in a device this high-powered).

Garmin certainly view Apple, and the Ultra in particular, as a major competitor so it wouldn't be at all surprising to see features crossing over.

Probably depends on what features you need.

I’m on a fairly tight budget and treated myself to a Garmin Forerunner 255 earlier in the year and it does all the things I need (and probably lots of stuff I still have not found).

It doesn’t do detailed maps, but it earned its keep on a recent Ultra using a downloaded gpx file.  There were a couple of bits where waymarking could have been better, and it was accurate enough to keep me (and two other runners who were checking in with me as they weren’t sure either) on the right path.  It seems to be very accurate and would ping me a warning if I went wrong.

Otherwise, it works well for day to day training, fitness, sleep etc

Thanks for all your input.

Based on this and having read quite a lot of DC Rainmaker's reviews and looked in a couple of shops over the weekend, I think I'm going to order an Epix.

In a nut shell, the concensus seems to be that it has the superior display over the Fenix 7, although Fenix has much better battery life if you need that (which I don't).

Cheers,