Fenix 6X Pro Up To Speed?

WRT Coros- the company's marketing arm in the US pretends it's a US-based, small, grassroots firm, but they actively hide a megadevelopment firm in China behind it that's essentially making bad Garmin knockoffs.  I know because I had a Vertix and the watches are beta at best.  I also did some researching and saw the US office is little more than a marketing team there to make it look like an American company when it's actually a huge Chinese conglomerate.  In their case, the connection the US office has to getting to the developers is problematic at best and the office does its best to cover up all the bugs and problems in nearly every aspect.

Anyhow, you're still comparing uncomparable things.  You're comparing an entire car which is a collection of modules, wiring, data transfer networks, and mechanical devices all together when a watch may be akin to one of those modules.  The comparison simply doesn't work and this is one of those cases where it's just better to talk about the subject at hand rather than do the comparison thing that falls apart.

Replying to myself just to add a reminder of this piece by DC Rainmaker over two years ago.....

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/06/competitor-software-instability.html

Sadly, where Garmin (and the Fenix line-up at least) is concerned, some things never change.

He calls out Garmin, yet pretty much only praises Coros while people are screaming daily in the Coros-controlled Facebook group for the company to finally fix its watches that are failing due to battery bugs and have serious usability problems due to nearly everything having a bug that they suggest workarounds for rather than fixing or otherwise try to cover up?

I'm not up to speed on Coros, but at the time of the article, if I understand correctly, the only Coros watch was the Apex, only a few months old and generally reviewed favourably. I don't think you can hold Ray accountable for subsequent history. But here the topic of conversation is Garmin and he was not wrong to call them out for software quality two years ago and it's as true today.

That's kind of a creative way of looking at it, but obviously, no one is talking about a revision of history in print, but the history that played out later and is continuing to play out.  There's an increasing contingent of angry Coros customers essentially begging for fixes, particularly for the battery bugs that likely are leading to the failing batteries (and dangerous overheating which Coros actually tells you to allow in their recalibration procedure).  Despite this, Ray hasn't done much more than praise the company, but that is what happens when you get exclusive, pre-release access and your review is part of the Coros introduction party for the Vertix 2 that is sharing numerous problems and bugs from the V.1.  As good as Ray's reviews might be, there is definitely favoritism and/or some level of protectionism.  If you go to the Coros Facebook, the employees are there constantly while ignoring CS emails which people are complaining about and many are on edge because the company bans people who complain, so there are posts like "I'm not complaining or bashing the company" in their introduction before listing all the problems, usually batteries and the various bugs.  Seriously, for every problem, the company tells you a workaround or deactivate and WILL NOT tell the developers in China to fix it.  At best, these are knockoff Garmins that they are marketing in a way so they don't look like knockoffs.  They simply never work right and there's now even a splinter group without Coros' where owners who have problems are assembling to discuss them without the threat of being banned from the group or Dan and Lewis flipping out or Darien lying and pretending the suggestions are being taken seriously just to shut everyone up.

This is basically why I don't trust a lot of reviewers.  I bought into Coros being a smaller company, being closer to the consumers, and one that takes suggestions.  What I found in the Vertix was a completely beta product and I was the beta tester who luckily didn't burn my house down while using their overcharging "calibration" procedure.  The altimeter didn't work right and they can't figure out why, but they defend it not working (not a joke).  other complain about the same thing and depending on who from the company explains it away, there's a different reasoning. They refuse to fix displays and make them more visible.  They refuse to fix the rotary dials (which fail anyway) so that when scrolling to unlock, it doesn't always land on the wrong screen because the watch is still counting turns while locked.  They refuse to fix other GPS problems and problems with swimming, the breadcrumb maps problem, the lack of access to data (ie: barometer) during tracking.  All of these problems and more have appeared in the Vertix 2.  This is why it was a dream to go to the Instinct Solar Tac- once configured in ways that aren't even remotely possible in Coros because all of that is locked down, the watch simply works and I have access to all my data and it's fast to access.  With Coros, due to due poor programming and testing and the bugs, it was always fighting with the watch and the workarounds and things that simply don't make sense.  Like I said, at least one splinter group is now running so we can discuss the problems without Dan and Lewis threatening to ban us and their fanboy minions harassing us.  The problems are serious and in the case of overcharging the batteries to where they overheat according to their published workaround for the battery meters going haywire, it can be dangerous to own one of these watches.  Luckily, I got my money back some six months later (thanks to Amazon to whom I sent the correspondences from Coros).

Could be very possible, but moving from training wheels Coros to Garmin was a night and day difference and I'm sold.  Maybe there are issues with the Fenix, BUT I tested units out and did not run into them.  My Instinct Solar is pretty solid so far and once configured, a dream to use compared to Coros' top offering.  I really have to stress that in your post, you don't seem to understand the level of problems in Coros- Garmin isn't even in that universe and again I'll point out they have a battery management problem and that is a serious safety issue because the company tells you to overcharge the watch when the monitoring goes haywire and doesn't know what the charge level is at.  At the very least, I don't have the issue where I'm standing in place on a mountain and my garmin altitude is going haywire like a slot machine like with Coros.  It's not perfect and could be better in some ways, but it's seriously very good for alpinism and trekking and climbing and the ABC functionality is damn good.

The way I look at it, is that you have 20 or so people moaning about issues - compare that to the hundreds/thousands that have bought the watch and don't have issues. Which brings it down to two issues: 1) bugs that crop up but don't necessarily affect everyone - that happens with every watch - go into every forum for every watch and you will see these posts; 2) users expectations - this is often the biggest issue and can be due to not doing reasearch properlly and or unreleastic expectations - to expect a consumer device to perform like a scientific device isn't realistic (its like expecting a Ford F150 to act like a Formula one car on a race track.

so yes for the vast majority there aren't any issues. Do issues crop up, yes they do and in my experience I find that Garmin deals with them in a fairly good manor. With the 4 issues I have raised, apart from one misunderstanding that was resolved with one email (and lets face it mis-communication with email is easy), all my issues to date have been resolved.

Did they much up 19.10/19.20 - yes a big mistake - that has pretty much affected the majority of users. Is it being fixed - yes based on the status of the latest beta it does seem as though a lot of the issues are being resolved. Is it taking time - yes it is, but wouldn't we rather it be that way than have 19.10/19.20 issue again.

Could they do better overall- sure, but then that is possibly and unrealistic expectation when you compare and contrast them against google, apple, samsung, coros, polar and suunto and the rest - as they seem better than most, and along with apple possibly the best.

I also wanted to state for the other poster that yes, few things posted here will be read by Garmin, but there is fact in that if you follow the garmin procedure to ask for a fix or improvement, they actually react.  I already have one fix that was implemented.  Again, I can't say emphatically enough, having been one that has jumped ship, rather than stay on longer, I gave Coros a chance.  The amount of broken in these watches is not even something only a small percentage will see and the company is eager to supply workarounds for large lists of issues, then claim later they are supposed to be like that.  People are now receiving their money back after finding a serious swimming bug.  Others are getting replacement watches due to sensor, dial, and battery problems and selling them off.  Having actually used Coros and being in the target group for the Vertix, having relayed valuable feedback on problems and how unsuitable the watch is for the exact advertised use and then the company providing an equally-sized list of workarounds for the issues rather than a fix basically told me right away that these are knockoff beta development watches made to look nice, intended to be targeted to less discerning people who want the look of being sporty and maybe tracking their steps during the day.  They simply don't work and it should tell a lot when I say users ended up having to create a third forum without Coros controlling it and unlike the second one, where Coros has huge influence.  The company is also not above encouraging and partaking in serious harassment, either.

As for the Coros thing as a comparison, it's not that a small number of people are seeing issues; it's an increasing number as the company seems to have wanted to originally put out knockoffs or Garmin for fashionistas, but then their marketing office decided to market to actual, ambitioned sports enthusiasts, and then the problems came up instantly.  The problems were so bad, Amazon gave me my money back right away and they couldn't even contact Coros themselves.  Eventually, one  of those watches is going to burn someone's house down.  They even have rolling recalls on some watch models and apparently, their watches age out.  Not to mention, the company doesn't want to reveal who it actually is in China, so they pretend it's the marketing office in the US.  That's some shady stuff going on right there.  And no fixes ever make their way to China.

I get that there will be bugs and they should and will be fixed. What I don't get is the sheer volume of bugs that continue to be fixed, and new ones created, more than two years since the watch was released.

The 6 series is not exactly Garmin's first time to market with a sports watch, yet you could be forgiven for thinking that it might be. Have they learned nothing and built no expertise in coding, code management, testing, regression testing, QA in general, in all the preceding years of development? The 6 is not revolutionary technology. It's a few more pixels on the display and a bit of solar stuff. Otherwise, OHR, barometer, GPS, yahdah yahdah yahdah.

Write APIs to interface with the hardware and the apps to interface with the APIs. If the hardware changes then change the APIs, once, when the watch is developed and first released. Then add as many features as you like in the apps to massage the data from those APIs and produce useful information. How hard can it be, especially when you've been doing it for years.

As for breaking things that were already working, WTF? Just leave it alone.