So I've installed firmware 19.34 on my old Fenix 7X SS and immediately noticed that the map experience has been ruined.
1) Panning the map with touch is borderline impossible now because this darn menu docker keeps popping up every time I swipe from right to left. Has anyone at Garmin actually tried using this new UI when on a trail? 99% of the time, all I need is a maximally easy and efficient way to zoom and pan. It is OK to make it a bit harder to open the menu because that is very infrequently needed. Making that easily available with a touch swipe is a wrong choice because now that stands in a way of what we need 99% of the time!
2) I had a carefully chosen custom map theme to maximize the contrast - that is because the contrast of the original 7X SS is very poor due to the combination of sapphire and solar layer. I made the custom theme by editing the high contrast theme and then further maximizing the use of black and white. What I see now is there is no longer a way to customize map theme and that the high contrast choice is simply gone. There is no such choice in the map layers. I am stuck with the map having a lot of unnecessary visual noice that isn't useful at all when trail running. This proves yet again that Fenix is not a watch for high paced endurance sports and that trail running is never even considered when design choices are made. What special about trail running is that the maps have to be maximally easy to glance at when running fast, when the vision may be a bit blurry and when lighting conditions may be suboptimal when running in a forest on an overcast day. So the map has to be very simple with bold lines and high contrast. What existed before was sub-optimal and what we have now is even worse!
3) Map seems to be even more laggy than before. That's probably because before I had a reduced level of details and a simpler high contrast theme. But now I can no longer select that, so rendering is more complex. Furthermore, I suppose the battery use will be higher because there is more content to redraw.
Seeing this has reinforced my decision to skip Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. Garmin seems to have wrong priorities for me as a user. I don't see trail ultrarunning experience being a priority and influencing the UX design. That is despite Garmin pretending like they do care about trail ultrarunning by choosing the start of UTMB in Chamonix to launch Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. I just don't see these watches being optimized in any way for that!
