I am considering an upgrade from the FR230 to the Fenix 5 (47mm). Is there any good reason to choose the sapphire version ? What does really bring the wi-fi ?
I had been fretting over this decision as well. Anecdotes of people NOT scratching regular glass are tempting. But then I remembered a) I am very clumsy, b) I have never liked screen protectors, c) I have a Vivoactive 3 that has a big scratch after 2 months - no idea how I did that. My phone (Kyocera Duraforce Pro) has a Sapphire screen without a scratch in over a year. I am a major phone dropper, and bought this one because I was tired of delicate phones falling apart and looking like they went through a war zone. Yesterday it had the biggest test yet, fell out of my pocket on the bike and bounced and slid on the street for several yards/meters. Got a tiny ding on one corner, and screen is pristine. Another anecdote, because the screen possibly didn't contact the road. But I do feel this watch will be a huge investment to risk getting scratched and I plan to keep it a long time. (or resell it if it is inaccurate like the Vivoactive 3 has been.) A scratch on the screen would drive me crazy, but scratched bezel doesn't. And I like the idea of a classy domed screen. What I would like to see is someone actually testing the two screens with some abrasive and stabby items and show the difference. My phone had a video of a guy stabbing it with a knife and throwing it onto rocks, which was reassuring to see. haha.
I am surprised to see the photo from gchris7. Are these at 100% brightness? Even with the difference, do you have trouble reading the screen outside? In other words, if we didn't have them side by side, would it be noticeable? (My phone has a very bright screen, and I never thought the Sapphire detracted at all.) I have my Vivoactive 3 screen brightness set at 10% (!!) because it is so bright and to save battery. I am going to assume this reduced transparency won't be a problem for me.
Back light is not used in his pictures.Its just that sapphire is not as clear as normal glass. But as he said, you cant really tell the difference until you set them side by side.
Both the sapphire and normal glass will eventually scratch at some point and don't expect it to happen after an accidental knock or drop. A tiny dust particle inside a cleaning cloth is enough to do the job...
The threshold for sapphire to scratch is much, much higher. One of the reasons I went for the 5x in the first place was that it included sapphire by default. I know someone that put a small scratch in a Fenix 5 screen after less than a few days of ownership.
So common sense tells me I should buy saphire, just to minimise the risk...until I started looking around.
So I am after a Fenix 5s Plus, and I am not keen on the saphire model all in black as my gut feeling is the bezel will get scuffed up pretty quick. But,...the nice looking models with a silver bezel do not have saphire glass. This led me down the rabbit hole of internet searches.
So to cut out all the bulls**t I watched a real life video... and you can clearly see the non saphire glass is much clearer than the murkier saphire.
Check it out if you don't belive me. The vid is for Fenix 3 but the point is about the glass, not the watch.
In a perfect world all watches would have saphire so there would be no choice. But given I prefer the looks of the non saphire, and also that modern screen protectors a very good quality....and I have a Forerunner 235 with a plastic screen and almost no scratches...decision is easy.
Go with the nicer looking watch and maybe put a protector on it..
