Fenix 5x sapphire - what use does it have?

Former Member over 5 years ago

Wife just bought me a Fenix 5x sapphire but am having difficulty doing anything useful with it apart from essentially using it as an expensive stopwatch and pedometer. Is there a course offered anywhere to teach you any valuable features? Surely there are some useful features for the price these watches sell for.

0 bglover11 over 5 years ago

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/03/garmin-fenix5-5s-5x-review.html

0 outlaw24 over 5 years ago in reply to bglover11

You beat me to it! I was going to post the same thing!

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/03/garmin-fenix5-5s-5x-review.html

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

I use it as a fitness/sport tracker, synced with myfitnespal calories in and out, move more one can eat more, yesterday I burned more than 4000 calories. I really like the firstbeat metrics mostly the stress widget, HRV readings are very powerfull when one understand it. Firstbeat metrics here https://www.firstbeat.com/en/consumer-product/garmin/fenix-5/ and HRV here (stress widget) https://www.firstbeat.com/en/blog/beyond-heart-rate-heart-rate-variability/

0 magohn over 5 years ago

I'm always amused on forums when "askers" ask device users to justify why the asker should (or has) purchase a device - or to defend its features.

It's similar to those other posts "Persuade me to buy device x" - why would I care if you buy or not? I dont own stock in the company.

If you didn't want a Fenix from Santa, take it up with Santa.

0 aprades over 5 years ago

It seems that it's not for you. Maybe your wife is telling you to do same fitness? Just guessing. If it's not the case, talk to her and return the gift.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Maps and navigation features are great for using when hiking or running (once you get used to what actually works and how to change settings) The maps are a bit small and navigating around on them using the buttons is a bit clunky but in general it works very well to show you on the map where you are and where you are pointing and moving toward.

There is a fairly steep learning curve though if you haven't ever used a GPS enabled device before...

And you need to master Garmin Basecamp or Connect to get courses onto the watch.

Similarly if you want to use it to record activities and upload them to something like Strava, you have to work out how to set it up.

The online manual (just Google for Garmin Fenix 5x user manual) is useful, accurate but sometimes doesn't explain why things aren't working as expected and of course you need to understand what each button does and the context of when and how to use them. Not trivial.

Read (and ask detailed questions) on this forum really helps.

Keep in mind that there are all sorts of issues reported by many people but that not everybody sees the same problems so don't assume that your watch suffers from every possible bug. But there definitely are some persistent problems and there are also some that come and go and a good power-cycle (turn it off then on again) often 'fixes' problems.

Good luck.