Quatix 6 Solar vs Tactix Solar

I have a Tactix Delta Solar - moved from a 5X Plus and before that a Suunto Ambit 3 Peak Sapphire.

The Tactix solar comes with 2 bands - silicon & nylon, but I have a Ti band from when I first had the 5X plus, and that was bought from a guy that had a D2 but didn't like the Ti band, so I got lucky with that. It's a much darker grey than the Quatix. The Garmin Ti bands are pretty expensive if you want that, but there are cheaper alternatives on Amazon.

From what I can see most of the apps will be similar though there are some fancy 'military' style apps on the Tactix (other than the Applied Ballistics which only comes with at version) like Night Vision, Kill Switch and a few others that I'd have no intention of using!! I just love the bezel. Also the Tactix has Sapphire Solar Glass, and AFAIK is the only Solar model that has Sapphire. And there is only one size for the Tactix - 51mm. The Quatix looks like it comes in 47mm & 51mm, and has its own special Marine apps.

For my usage, I turn off all notifications and only pair to my iPhone to transfer runs/walks. The PulseOX is also off, but the HRM is always on, 30% backlight, 3rd party watchface and with the current 19.2 FW, I'm getting around 3 weeks between charges with 4-5 runs/walks per week. However if you read some of the other posts about 19.2 a lot of people are having issues with battery drain. That 3 weeks also doesn't account for any solar charging, since I work from home and run at night. But living in a sunny part of the world, Solar is always an option if I do get out.   

I did have a glitch recently after updating languages and the watch kept complaining about not being able to unlock maps, even though maps still worked. It's logged with support but I ended up wiping the watch and reloading with only the included Garmin maps (for your region), and that seems to clear the issue. I have since loaded another OSM map and it's still fine. There are others that I have and may load those some point in the future.

I intend to keep this for quite a while and Garmin are quite good about updating FW for their older watches.

Hope this helps some. Good luck with your choice - very kind of your childhood bestie btw 

My first big question is, do you actually have a use for the ballistics function? Because there's a Tactix Solar without it, that is exactly the same watch with exactly the same functions, minus ballistics, for like $200 or $300 cheaper. So if you're not actually a long-range rifle shooter, then there's zero value in buying the ballistics version.

Honestly, I do shoot long-range rifles and hunt sometimes, and even I don't see the value in the ballistics function (at least, not at THAT price), but that's subjective. Some people might use it and see value in it.

Personally, since I'm not much of a boater, and more of a land dweller, I would prefer the Tactix Solar over the Quatix. But it's hard to make that decision for you, my recommendation would be to use the comparison tool on the garmin website to compare each watch's features side-by-side to see what the differences are, and decide from there.

Note that Quatix, Tactix, and Fenix are all the same family of watches, so there aren't major differences between them, they are all very similar and even have exactly the same underlying underlying software and electronics inside. The primary differences are just appearance, and some additional software features. As yinyang76 mentions above, Tactix Solar is the only member of the this watch family that offers Sapphire with Solar.

Hello Mate, appreciate your detailed response which is very helpful. I spoke to Garmin support and after custom configuring a Fenix 6x with Titanium band it’s coming upto 999$ (Not a huge saving compared to Quatix 6x solar). And, the hassle of returning and performing a new transaction for 50$ wasn't worth so decided to keep the Quatix 6 :) . Thank you again.