Fenix 5s worth the upgrade over Fenix 3 (non-HR)?

There are many discussions in regard to GPS accuracy on the Fenix 5's, and you may want to review them.
I have no problem with GPS accuracy on the Fenix 5.

I have used the Fenix 5, Fenix 5s and the use the Fenix 5x daily as my watch. My partner uses the Fenix 5s and the GPS accuracy issues that people have reported have not been apparent to me. I am not saying they don't exist, but not had many issues and only find any issues in very built up areas or in wooded areas.

Back to wherever you should buy the Fenix 5s, at the current discount its a good buy, will you get benefits over the Fenix 3, yes you will. optical HR, training load and training status and other things. But you could also get the Fenix 3 HR at a good price

Should you wait for the Fenix 5 Plus, that's down to personal choice. Sounds like you just need a Fenix 5s tbh

You may find the GPS better on 1s recording rather than smart.

I have used the Fenix 5, Fenix 5s and the use the Fenix 5x daily as my watch. My partner uses the Fenix 5s and the GPS accuracy issues that people have reported have not been apparent to me. I am not saying they don't exist, but not had many issues and only find any issues in very built up areas or in wooded areas.

Back to wherever you should buy the Fenix 5s, at the current discount its a good buy, will you get benefits over the Fenix 3, yes you will. optical HR, training load and training status and other things. But you could also get the Fenix 3 HR at a good price

Should you wait for the Fenix 5 Plus, that's down to personal choice. Sounds like you just need a Fenix 5s tbh

I've recently upgraded from a Vivoactive 3 and glad to say the GPS is miles better on the F5, When I first played golf with my VA3 the GPS was often quite a few yards out when standing on yardage markers but happy to say that with the F5 the distances have all been within two yard from the same markers

In my opinion the 5s is not a good buy. You get a smaller screen and worse battery than the 5 and yet they cost the same. Doesn' make sense...
The f5 is much smaller than the f3 and since you are already used to wearing the f3, why don't you consider the F5 instead of f5s?
Either way I would wait until actual release of the plus line as the prices for the original 5 would probably go even lower then.

Smaller components cost more - makes perfect sense to me.

In a word, YES , it is a worthy upgrage and you’re getting a lot in your particular case.

I’m not going to comment on GPS accuracy as I think it is a tired subject and you’re never going to get 100% accuracy no matter what, it varies from person to person and from location to location. If you’re not happy with the GPS then consider not having a Garmin watch at all.

Now, that being said, I had the Fenix 3, the Fenix 3 HR and now the Fenix 5 and I would say for the size alone it is a worthy upgrade, like you I have a small wrist and the F3 always felt massive and heavy, the 5 feels right, I would assume the F5s feels even better.

You’re also obviously getting builtin HRM which for running and all day tracking is pretty good , other activities vary but it’s better than not having it.

There’s also another advantage over the F3 that doesn’t get talked about a lot but for me it was a major upgrade, the software, now you don’t get many amazing new features but everything you have works and looks a lot better, from the fonts that make messages, menus and general text that much easier to read, it looks way better than in the F3, to small things like the surprisingly useful circular quick access menu, the music controls (which were unusable on the F3), and just small changes that just make sense, like being able to change the settings of an activity directly from the activity rather than having to go to a general menu and navigate your way into the activity, in fact this conextual menus are all over the watch, long pressing the menu button no longer takes you to the general main menu but to a menu that is relevant to where you are.

One last thing, battery life, I’m not going to get into actual numbers because it varies from person to person, but for me personally the F5 has improved the already great battery life of both the F3 and F3HR.


In conclusion, it is a worthy upgrade because it is a much, much, much improved experience to both wear and use.

That’s my opinion.

Smaller components cost more - makes perfect sense to me.

Are you saying that less inches and lower resolution screens cost more than bigger and higher resolution screens? How is that reasonable? I can understand that they had to do that in order to fit them in smaller case but the pricing should have been lower too. Garmin themselves are basically admiting that as the 5s plus model is going to have a 1.2 screen.

Lots of great advice, but I would hold off until tomorrow... tomorrow will be an interesting day for

You may find the GPS better on 1s recording rather than smart.

Ehm, nope... The displayed track will be more detailed but it won't actually improve GPS. GPS is 'polled' the same way as with smart recording only less values are written to the .fit file. (This means smart or 1sec recording doesn't change tempo or anything, just how the track looks afterwards).