First impressions

I got my Instinct yesterday, and thought I might post some of my first impressions. I've had a number of Garmin watches, including the Forerunner 210 and every fenix from the 2 through the 5X Plus. I really like the Instinct, and here are a few reasons why.

1. It was smaller than I expected. Very much Casio-watch sized.
2. Screen contrast is excellent. In low light, the screen is far more visible than the fenix 5X. In daylight, it sometimes feels like the backlight is on because the screen reflects so much ambient light.
3. The inset circle display is really well executed. It would be easy for it to be a gimmick, but Garmin has done a really good job utilizing it. For example, it provides an actually useful 4th data field on the 3-field layout that you'd be familiar with from the fenix. It's also used to display a progress bar and status icons on various screens and as a selection indicator on the controls menu or the on-screen keyboard (which is circular here instead of vertical as it is on the fenix line)
4. The screen is low resolution but the watch is extremely responsive and there are lots of subtle animations that make it feel like a modern watch rather than an old-school LCD.
5. The default hot-key configuration is extremely thoughtful and very well presented. Long-pressing the start button, for example, shows you the current GPS coordinates and allows you to save your current location. You could set this up on a fenix but there is some extra UI here that I haven't seen before. Long pressing the back button (SET) takes you to a sub-menu where you can set time with GPS and use the stopwatch and timer. The countdown timer also now has a memory of different values, which I haven't seen before. Long pressing the down button (ABC) takes you to a version of the altimeter-barometer-compass widget. Again, you could set this up on the fenix but the UI is slightly different here and feels more cohesive.
6. The vibration motor is really powerful.

The overall impression I've come away with is that the Outdoor group at Garmin has really put a lot of time and effort into creating a watch that in a lot of ways feels more tightly integrated than the fenix line. Yes, it has less functionality, but the functionality that it has is presented in a less confusing and more intuitive way.

0 Mistamb over 6 years ago

Here's a comparison walk I did this morning with the Instinct, my Fenix 5X Plus, Suunto 9 and my iPhone X:

https://analyze.dcrainmaker.com/#/public/c682ac9b-1289-4a7e-5314-e2bd5eb3f896

I don't know if I would draw any hard conclusions from one comparison. It seems like the pace is smoother on the 5X Plus, but it's had several GPS firmware updates recently specifically to address walking pace, so it might just have slightly more mature software. Optical HR didn't do well on the Suunto 9 or the Instinct this morning, but it was really cold and I've never personally gotten good results from optical HR in cold weather.

Hi jburchm1! thanks for sharing? is there such a drift on the 5XPlus in elevation? every other watch in your comparison startet and endet nearly at the same elevation! Thx for the info!

0 jburchm1 over 6 years ago

Mistamb in my experience the altimeter on the Fenix 5X Plus has been pretty accurate. I think the graph in my link makes the differences look bigger than they really are; that entire activity was very nearly flat and the scale of the graph is only a couple of meters.

Here's another Instinct vs Fenix 5X Plus comparison from this morning. The Instinct seems to have done better than the Fenix under the tree covered portion, and its pace overall is much smoother. It'd be nice to be able to do some running with both but unfortunately I'm limited to walking for at least another couple weeks.

0 jburchm1 over 6 years ago

Oops, forgot the link, here it is:

https://analyze.dcrainmaker.com/#/public/13156e87-6712-44b2-7df2-1a2d972ff5ef

0 jburchm1 over 6 years ago

Is tbt navigation available on the instinct?

It does not appear so. I created a round trip course with Garmin Connect iOS and synced it to both the Instinct and Fenix 5X Plus. When navigating the course, the Instinct showed only the finish position as the next point and did not give turn notifications, whereas the Fenix 5X Plus showed the distance to next turn and gave alerts when approaching the turns.

If there is a specific sort of route creation you'd like me to try I'd be happy to do so.

0 Volker over 6 years ago

I don´t know if it is by design or an issue, that there is no tbt navigation on the instinct. There have been tbt issues on other wearables in the past, so I think we have to wait for a clarification by garmin.

0 Mistamb over 6 years ago

Mistamb in my experience the altimeter on the Fenix 5X Plus has been pretty accurate. I think the graph in my link makes the differences look bigger than they really are; that entire activity was very nearly flat and the scale of the graph is only a couple of meters.

Here's another Instinct vs Fenix 5X Plus comparison from this morning. The Instinct seems to have done better than the Fenix under the tree covered portion, and its pace overall is much smoother. It'd be nice to be able to do some running with both but unfortunately I'm limited to walking for at least another couple weeks.

Ah ok! Thank you

0 bgrenda over 6 years ago

bgrenda after seeing your post I checked and was pleased to see that the iOS version of Garmin Explore had been released.

Thanks for sharing.

@1: I guess Garmin Explore is based on Earthmate app.
@2: I guess - phased release - hope Fenix line will be added later.
@3: Good to hear.
@4: This is disappointing - I was assuming that course creation is more-or-less, as in Garmin Connect web app.
@5: I hope there will be chance to import track from activities to further edit and save for future use as course.

Is there a option to import GPX on mobile app?

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Crispin_Ellisdon that makes sense, and it seems very comparable to the Earthmate app in that regard.

Here's another track comparison against my Fenix 5X Plus from this morning (walking again):

https://analyze.dcrainmaker.com/#/public/c1f50e8b-6431-4337-54b9-2185c1114c53

The optical HR on the Instinct really did not do well at all today, and I'm kind of concerned with the pace dropouts to 0. The track doesn't look as good either. Here's a couple other activities from the Instinct from Thursday that look better, IMO, but I wasn't comparing it head to head against anything.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3099453213
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3099455410

As for the Optical HR, bear in mind that two devices on the same wrist WILL interfere with each other and cause predictable results. Also an off chance the GPS will also as the local oscillator of one can be picked up on the other/ The GPS radios are AMAZINGLY sensitive.

Speaking of which, a cell phone near your device may also cause problems with reception of GPS signals.

0 jburchm1 over 6 years ago

bgrenda there is no option to import or export GPX in the Explore app, although it does Sync with the inReach website (explore.garmin.com) and you can import/export there. It wouldn't be very useful though as routes pushed from the Explore app to the Instinct are limited to 50 points. Garmin Connect on iOS can import GPX courses and push them to the Instinct as native Courses, which is a much better solution if you ask me.

After "using" the navigation features on the Instinct in conjunction with the Explore app I'd have to classify them as utterly broken. When navigating a route created on the device or in the Explore app the distance to the first waypoint is always shown on the map, and I haven't been able to ever get it to transition to the next waypoint. Additionally, the ETE, Distance to End and ETA fields always display "--:--". The elevation chart is always completely flat, and there are also some weird clipping errors on the breadcrumb trail page when the distance to waypoint field is displayed. The data takes up about 1/3rd of the page but the drawing of the map gets cut off to about 1/2 of the screen.

LiquidSquid in all of my comparisons I have worn only one watch per wrist. In the comparison with three watches I had the Instinct on my left wrist, Suunto 9 on my right wrist, held the fenix 5X Plus in my left hand and had the iPhone in my pocket.

0 jburchm1 over 6 years ago

One other interesting point that I discovered this weekend is that by default, all activities have the lap button disabled. Pressing the Back/SET button just takes you back to the watch face. You can change this behavior on an activity by activity basis by turning the "Lap Key" setting on.