I like my F5 black saphire

I upgraded from a combo Apple watch - first generation and Garmin Approach X40. I like the looks of the F5, and the size is perfect for me. My use case for the F5 is daily activity monitoring, yes floor count is working for me, walking/running for fitness only, and golf. I have not golfed with it yet, and I do have some concern that the F5 does not have the Autoshot functionality that the X40 has. I could not find mention of it in the online manual, although the marketing materials mention that the F5 Golf app has autoshot tracking. We will find out this weekend when I hit the course. I use an Edge 1000 for cycling, no plans to use the watch for cycling unless I misplace the Edge.
I do wish the F5 had a touchscreen, maybe the next iteration.
I do wish the F5 had more watchface choices for digital faces, as it stands there is only one and that only has 3 SMALL data fields. COme on Garmin, get your designers on this, give us better watch faces.
For me the GPS is close enough and the all day HR is in the ballpark - no complaints on this. It is an expensive watch, and an argument could be made that GPS should be perfect, but smaller does not always equal better for antenna reception...
I would like to see a software update that supports Geocaching - or maybe a CIQ application.

All in all.. happy after only one day of having the watch, it meets my expectations.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I upgraded from a combo Apple watch - first generation and Garmin Approach X40. I like the looks of the F5, and the size is perfect for me. My use case for the F5 is daily activity monitoring, yes floor count is working for me, walking/running for fitness only, and golf. I have not golfed with it yet, and I do have some concern that the F5 does not have the Autoshot functionality that the X40 has. I could not find mention of it in the online manual, although the marketing materials mention that the F5 Golf app has autoshot tracking. We will find out this weekend when I hit the course. I use an Edge 1000 for cycling, no plans to use the watch for cycling unless I misplace the Edge.
I do wish the F5 had a touchscreen, maybe the next iteration.
I do wish the F5 had more watchface choices for digital faces, as it stands there is only one and that only has 3 SMALL data fields. COme on Garmin, get your designers on this, give us better watch faces.
For me the GPS is close enough and the all day HR is in the ballpark - no complaints on this. It is an expensive watch, and an argument could be made that GPS should be perfect, but smaller does not always equal better for antenna reception...
I would like to see a software update that supports Geocaching - or maybe a CIQ application.

All in all.. happy after only one day of having the watch, it meets my expectations.

The Connect IQ store will have tons and tons of digital watch faces with tons of visible data if you take a peek.

0 carl.andersson over 8 years ago

I do wish the F5 had a touchscreen, maybe the next iteration.
I do wish the F5 had more watchface choices for digital faces, as it stands there is only one and that only has 3 SMALL data fields. COme on Garmin, get your designers on this, give us better watch faces.

All in all.. happy after only one day of having the watch, it meets my expectations.

Garmin developers have enough things to worry about without providing more watch faces. There's a heap of really good ones available from third party developers
https://apps.garmin.com/en-GB/devices/fenix5/appTypes/watchface/apps?sortType=mostPopular
Personally I've always been a big fan of the designs by Stanislav.Bures

As for touch-screen - they're terrible when the watch gets wet/sweaty and the main target audience for the Fenix series of watches are people who get their watches wet. But yes hopefully one day we'll get touch-screen technology that works regardless of conditions :)

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

another main reason for me getting a F5 was no touch screen. The touch screen on my F630 was a complete pain in the bum! and was often effected by weather and wet clothing changing sceens or worse. Glad to be rid of it!

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Any scratches on the black bezel? I want to get the black watch but am hesitant because of what it may look like after a few months.

0 kottley over 8 years ago

Any scratches on the black bezel? I want to get the black watch but am hesitant because of what it may look like after a few months.

Day 4 no scratches, but have not had any bumps with hard objects yet.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Only had my Fenix 5 Sapphire for 2 days. Here are my first impressions.

HR monitor works a lot better than Apple Watch (1st Gen) - I don't have to have the band on too tight.
Battery seems great in watch mode - Used < 10% morning to bed time.
Need 15min to setup at the start - When I picked up my watch, I charged it and needed to dash out of the house. For the next hour, my watch face said, "English"! 😆
GPS takes 5min to acquire signal. I hope that's just the first use! I needed to walk down to the local shop so I started the activity (walking). After about 5 min of walking... maybe little more, it finally acquired the satellite signal. I was nearly at the shops! 😳
Physical buttons are logically laid out. Once you understand the logic of 3 buttons on the left (light, up, down), 2 on right (go forward, go backwards). By the way, it took me for ever to figure out how to get into Activities. It is the 'go forward' button. In the PDF manual, it kept saying to press 'up' button.
I think Garmin Connect app could be better laid out from user interface design point of view. Some options are hard to find.
Watch band adjustment notches are great. Often, one setting is too tight and another is too loose for HR monitor to work but with Fenix 5, found the perfect notch.
Very responsive. Never had to wait for a page to load... unlike 1st Gen Apple Watch.

I am yet to try out all the activities and see how well they work. Especially the indoor swim. But the watch side, happy with what I am seeing so far.

0 kottley over 8 years ago

I upgraded from a combo Apple watch - first generation and Garmin Approach X40. I like the looks of the F5, and the size is perfect for me. My use case for the F5 is daily activity monitoring, yes floor count is working for me, walking/running for fitness only, and golf. I have not golfed with it yet, and I do have some concern that the F5 does not have the Autoshot functionality that the X40 has. I could not find mention of it in the online manual, although the marketing materials mention that the F5 Golf app has autoshot tracking. We will find out this weekend when I hit the course. I use an Edge 1000 for cycling, no plans to use the watch for cycling unless I misplace the Edge.
I do wish the F5 had a touchscreen, maybe the next iteration.
I do wish the F5 had more watchface choices for digital faces, as it stands there is only one and that only has 3 SMALL data fields. COme on Garmin, get your designers on this, give us better watch faces.
For me the GPS is close enough and the all day HR is in the ballpark - no complaints on this. It is an expensive watch, and an argument could be made that GPS should be perfect, but smaller does not always equal better for antenna reception...
I would like to see a software update that supports Geocaching - or maybe a CIQ application.

All in all.. happy after only one day of having the watch, it meets my expectations.

The F5 is my first GPS watch, my finding this week, the GPS track is quite blockey as compared to my Edge 1000 or iPhone, but still usable. I get the comments regarding the touchscreen, wet screen/sweat. I have had this problem from time to time with the Apple watch. It only takes a couple of days to learn the 5 buttoned interface, once you have that down, using the F5 to its fullest capabilities is attainable and bordering on easy. Day 6 and still pleased with the purchase.