CPU Fenix 8 and enduro

Visually, they both looked to have the same processor as the Fenix 7 based upon the videos that are out there. NXP haven't announced a new i.MX processor either (which is what the Fenix line uses). We'll soon see teardowns and performance benchmarks to confirm. Bit of a shame if true as the Fenix 7 "feels" like it hasn't been given enough RAM as new map times are often pretty slow to load when scrolling around.

I'm guessing the Enduro simply has a bigger battery based upon the polycarbonate back (probably being thinner than metal), plus the battery can encroach on the space the microphone and speaker are occupying in the Fenix 8 which accounts for the longer runtime.

2529455 said:

We'll soon see teardowns

Have you ever seen a teardown of an Enduro ?

Yes it seems that case size diffenrence means bigger battery for the enduro 3. 
But that would be great from garmin to be open about hardware inside the watch, soc, ram etc... That should be mandatory for all computer device asking for 1k$... 

My enduro 2 is also slow when Im scrolling the map, I am use to it but it still is painful sometimes. And only a real upgrade in hardware would make me thing of a switch to the new watches. 

Garmin probably won't tell you the CPU specs.  I have the Epix 2 non-pro and really for topo maps, it is dog slow.  I bought the Outdoor+ Maps and it was just unusable when satellite view.  So laggy.  I hope the CPU is faster on the F8.  Not that would still have be buy one though.

Yah, it's not great when panning the map and having to wait many seconds for tiles to load. It's the one specific thing that I'm not particularly happy about. Ive always felt that it was under spec'd in terms of memory. If you look at Suunto's latest offerings, they come with 37 MB of RAM to help with those blazingly fast map renders. 37MB is a very odd number until you realise that they're likely using the same RT500 with 5MB, plus an external 32MB chip.

I'm not sure what impact that would have in terms of battery consumption (probably pretty significant unless you could power down most of it when it wasn't being used), but Garmin have opted against it, at least in the Fenix 7 and 7 Pro. The few brief videos that I've seen of maps being rendered on the 8 have me believing that they're using the same SOC without any additional memory. Performance looks pretty much the same.

I don't know if Garmin are a big enough customer to demand custom silicon. My guess is that they're not, and that Garmin, Suunto and Coros are all using the same SOCs with different combos of storage and RAM to keep costs down. Maybe they collectively petition NXP for new silicon every few years.

Very interesting thank you.

Yes its pretty niche demand, but for those like net1994 and me who notice lag in the map screen,  I know I want to update when the hardware will be different than my actual watch... And not the usual marketing *** of "unlimited battery life with ultratrac and desert sun" xD

it is pretty sure that F8 Series (F8,  E and E3) use the same CPU

Something we don't know if this the same like Venu 2 plus and all models since 2021 (F7/E2 Pro, Venu3, etc.)

Well, geeks would like to know the real tech specs, even they don't matter much. I don't know who benefits from withholding that information. Just hide it somewhere where almost no one would look at it. Like some manual page.

It's kind of good information to balance do you want to upgrade.. Like I usually upgrade my GoPro when they have new GP processor. Like hopefully next one has new new CPU and reasons to upgrade. 

Granted it doesn't matter here so much as with GoPro but it's just another dataset to balance when one would like to upgrade and to what. Also with these prices the latest and greatest might be out of reach for more and more people and then when to get the some last gen watch as the new upgrade is not so big. 

2529455 said:

Choan said:

But that would be great from garmin to be open about hardware inside the watch, soc, ram etc... That should be mandatory for all computer device asking for 1k$...

Maybe if you're Apple and you're selling watches based upon figures like a "30% faster NPU", much of which is meaningless to the consumer unless you can explain to them how it's going to affect their experience.

2529455 said:

In my mind, the Fenix is just an appliance

Isn't Apple the company that pioneered "giving zero fs about telling users what's actually in their phone or laptop?" Pretty sure they never officially reveal the amount of RAM in an iPhone or iPad. I thought it was their philosophy in the first place to not obsess over meaningless specs (except ofc for the meaningless specs that everyone competes on, such as camera megapixels.)

I agree that sports watches and smart watches are more like appliances/gadgets and that is absolutely how the general public thinks of them. Nobody thinks of a smartwatch as a computer you wear on your wrist except us nerds, and if they did, they wouldn't buy one. And even with Garmin's fairly old school device paradigm (you can do almost everything without ever syncing to the Connect app), nobody would ever mistake a Garmin device for a general computing device like a desktop or laptop (or even a severely locked-down computer replacement, like an iPad or phone.)

jmto said:

Well, geeks would like to know the real tech specs, even they don't matter much. I don't know who benefits from withholding that information. Just hide it somewhere where almost no one would look at it. Like some manual page.

Don't see what Garmin has to gain either. They compete on selected marketing specs (like battery life) and features, not super technical specs like the exact processor and amount of RAM. Anyone who cares about that stuff would probably be annoyed that Fenix 5X had 32 MB of RAM, Fenix 6X Pro had 16 MB and Fenix 7 has 5 MB, even if it made absolutely no difference in the day-to-day usage of the watch (except for annoyances like slow rendering of map tiles.)