Bought 5+ sapphire. Am I mad to return it?

Not sure what to do here. I have a 935 and now a 5+ sapphire. Just not sure it’s worth the premium over my 935. It looks great and weight is fine. Speed increases are welcome as is Garmin Pay (I’m with Satander UK). However, maps I’m sure I won’t use much, I will use my iPhone. I don’t listen to music when running and in any case people say BT doesn’t work unless you were the watch on your right wrist. I could sell my 935 for around £350 so this 5+ would cost me another £350. Is it worth it? I’m not sure now. Any help appreciated.

Should I return it and wait for the 6 and see what extras that brings?

Thanks

0 bfinary over 6 years ago

Only you can decide. Why would you have bought the 5+ in the first place given you've already made a case for not needing the additional features!

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

I prefer the look of the 5+, the extra speed and Garmin Pay will be useful. Just can’t decide now if that’s enough!

0 carl.andersson over 6 years ago

If you're asking other people to talk you into it then you've probably already answered the question yourself (e.g. you should return the 5+).

I had forgotten just how much faster my 5+ was until I was showing a friend how to use their 5X. But the thing about that is unless you have both to compare against you will quickly adjust to the speed (or lack of) fairly quickly.
I find Garmin Pay incredibly useful (contactless payments are pretty much everywhere in New Zealand) and I'm even now at the point where I often forget to take my wallet out with me. It's actually the killer feature for me versus the 5 (well that, and the fact that my sensors no longer have drop outs, which isn't an issue you have with the 935 anyway and it's a bit rich to refer to that as a "feature").

BT has worked fine for me with all 3 Bluetooth headphones that I have and I wear the watch on the left with all 3 headphones having right sided bt antennas, but I don't use it much as it kills the battery and one of my headphones has built in mp3 storage anyways.
Maps are meh. They'll be more useful when I travel and want to find a route to run but since most travel is overseas I don't think I'm going to pay the extortionate fees Garmin wants for out of region maps.

Unless you will use Garmin Pay every day there's no justification to keep the 5+. Wait for the "6" or whatever the "plus" version of the 935 will be.

0 Teriemer over 6 years ago

I returned my F5S+

I was very dissapointed with battery life. With only 2-3 shorter runs pr. week, I would get 3 (max) days on battery. That's just not good enough and far away from the advertised 7 days (minus training). But 3 days...!

Another thing - I had the sapphire edition. Yet the display on my FR645 is brighter and more black (F5S+ sapphire had a brown tint to black colors). I had a hard time trying to love my F5S+, but just couldn't accept that FR 645 had a better display and more battery life.

Maybe things get better in 6-8-10 months or so?! But to be honest and looking historically, there's a risk it will not happen. During the late years, Garmin seem to focus more on quantity rather than quality. Just take a look at Edge 1030, Edge 820, Vector 3 and now also Fenix 5+ series. All of these (still) have more or less serious issues that has not been solved yet. Just take a look in their respective forums.

Maybe it's just me, but it is very clear in my head. The F5 (the old one) had it's issues. So when updating to a new model, one would have to be very sure on quality. Yet the battery issues is introduced with the Plus series...!

Are Garmin slowly loosing it...?!

As a sidenote; Polar are about to release their V800 replacement, the Vantage V Pro or M. If the feature set and quality is good, I'd bet many serious athletes will make the jump.

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

I returned my F5S+

I was very dissapointed with battery life. With only 2-3 shorter runs pr. week, I would get 3 (max) days on battery. That's just not good enough and far away from the advertised 7 days (minus training). But 3 days...!

Another thing - I had the sapphire edition. Yet the display on my FR645 is brighter and more black (F5S+ sapphire had a brown tint to black colors). I had a hard time trying to love my F5S+, but just couldn't accept that FR 645 had a better display and more battery life.

Maybe things get better in 6-8-10 months or so?! But to be honest and looking historically, there's a risk it will not happen. During the late years, Garmin seem to focus more on quantity rather than quality. Just take a look at Edge 1030, Edge 820, Vector 3 and now also Fenix 5+ series. All of these (still) have more or less serious issues that has not been solved yet. Just take a look in their respective forums.

Maybe it's just me, but it is very clear in my head. The F5 (the old one) had it's issues. So when updating to a new model, one would have to be very sure on quality. Yet the battery issues is introduced with the Plus series...!

Are Garmin slowly loosing it...?!

As a sidenote; Polar are about to release their V800 replacement, the Vantage V Pro or M. If the feature set and quality is good, I'd bet many serious athletes will make the jump.

I haven't had the F5+ long enough yet to comment on battery life. The 935 has stellar battery life and reading some of the comments on here I agree Garmin don't seem to be prioritising the main bug fixes with their new Plus line. I don't care about the music player, sort the battery life and other issues first. I don't want to leave the Garmin ecosystem as I have years of data, but I think I will return the F5+ and keep my 935.

0 jimoestman over 6 years ago

I’m for one chose the 5+ for the maps and course/re-routing functionality and because is was smaller and faster than the previous 5x-model. I use navigation all the time as I normally run/ride on new trails in the woods. (breadcrumbs-solution just doesn’t cut it for me)

Can’t speak for the 5s+ , but I have no complaints about the battery life (charge once per week with 4-5 activities recorded.)

0 AllanOlesen67 over 6 years ago

Another thing - I had the sapphire edition. Yet the display on my FR645 is brighter and more black (F5S+ sapphire had a brown tint to black colors). I had a hard time trying to love my F5S+, but just couldn't accept that FR 645 had a better display and more battery life.

Your usage of the word "yet" indicates that you expect the sapphire edition to have a better display. But it is actually opposite.

Garmin watches with sapphire glass are known to have a less readable display in exchange for the better scratch resistance. If you don't like that, just buy a version without sapphire and save some money.

Since the 5+ models exist in versions both with and without sapphire glass, it doesn't really limit your choice much (unless of course you want a DLC casing which probably doesn't exist without sapphire glass).

0 Gr4z over 6 years ago

I’m for one chose the 5+ for the maps and course/re-routing functionality and because is was smaller and faster than the previous 5x-model. I use navigation all the time as I normally run/ride on new trails in the woods. (breadcrumbs-solution just doesn’t cut it for me)

Can’t speak for the 5s+ , but I have no complaints about the battery life (charge once per week with 4-5 activities recorded.)

Did you upgrade from a previous Fenix or a Forerunner? Do you feel the upgrade was worth it?

0 jimoestman over 6 years ago

I upgraded from a Fenix 5x, and I'm pleased with that decision.

Because of
- Smaller size. Even though I liked the size and how it looked on my wrist, I did feel it was uncomfortable to wear in the winter etc. The sleeve of the jacket and sweather would press it against the wrist and I would struggle to "dig it out". The 5+ is more comfortable in this respect.
- Map and routing work the same, but the maps load/update faster, which is nice when on the move.
- Climbpro. This is a great feature for when climbing. On previous models you only get the complete elevation profile. It is not perfect yet, because it usually show what I think are separate climbs as one big climb. So I wish that they in the future will introduce some settings for controlling how it split them up.
- Garmin pay I will use when my bank supports it in Norway.