Too low brightness in low ambient light.

FlowState said:

It’s also interesting to me when DCR reviews a Polar watch which manages to keep the AMOLED display bright continuously during an activity, at the expense of battery life

MIP is the obvious choice for folks like us who want to quickly glance down at a map every so often during 12+ hour activities without losing half the battery life due to the display remaining on at full brightness or having to use an overt arm movement to wake the display up. We're in the minority unfortunately and it'll be sad to see eventually disappear due an arguably more inferior technology (for outdoor adventures).

Yeah. It’s a triumph of form over function, style over substance, and aesthetics over utility. Then again, some ppl may just want that tiny bump in social status that comes with having the same beautiful screen on their wrist as everyone else. (But why wouldn’t they just get an Apple Watch? Yes, obviously this is appealing to the crowd that hates Garmin screens but likes Garmins — maybe bc all their runner, cyclist or triathlete friends use Garmin.)

I think one of problems here is excessively binary thinking (“X is better than Y, period.”). Someone said that MIP may not be the best tech, but they still like it for an outdoor watch.

But how can you say that X is the “best tech” without qualifying that statement with a use case? It’s like when touchscreens replaced tactile controls in cars, bc everyone loves touchscreens on phones, tablets and kiosks, so therefore it must be the best input device in every single circumstance, right? (Gotta wonder why modern Playstation / Xbox controllers, keyboards and mice are nothing more than refinements of decades-old tech tho — touch elements have been added in some cases, but the tactile buttons and keys are still there. Even switch joycons, arguably the most innovative gaming controllers currently in mainstream use, still have physical tactile buttons.)

But now the car industry is seeing a backlash and some manufacturers are proudly announcing a return to tactile controls for the important stuff.

Similarly, nobody would say that e-ink is the best display tech for ALL purposes. But it’s obviously the best screen for ereaders (yeah, I know it’s a tiny niche market.) Lots of ppl, including college-age zoomers, still prefer paper books or ereaders (bc it’s the closest digital equivalent to a paper book).

I always said that MIP (Garmin) is to AMOLED (Apple Watch) as Kindle is to iPad. But unfortunately, ppl don’t stare at their watches for hours on end like they do when they read a book, so obviously most ppl just don’t see the utility of an always-on, instantly glanceable screen on a “sports watch”. How many ppl are even looking at their watch as they run? (I can only speak from the perspective of runners.) Lots of ppl, including fast runners, only use their Garmin as a Strava syncing machine. From that POV, why not get a Garmin with a screen that looks nice?

The Garmin consumer shift away from MIP will only accelerate as more and more existing Garmin users get a new AMOLED Garmin, and the remaining holdouts get FOMO.

I’m fairly proud that I convinced my fast cousin — fast enough to win a 3 miler — to get an FR255 instead of a 265 to replace his 235. He agreed that he didn’t want to change anything about his training, especially something as crucial as glancing at his watch while he does laps on the track. 

FlowState said:

some ppl may just want that tiny bump in social status that comes with having the same beautiful screen

I think it might even be more primitive than that - i.e. brighter lights release more dopamine and more wow. Then the actual real world outdoor use scenarios start demonstrating that's not better in every way. Both MIP and OLED come with some pretty serious compromises.

FlowState said:

But why wouldn’t they just get an Apple Watch?

Some people dislike the square watch style, others love the 2 weeks of battery life from the Fenix and the rest might have an Android phone rather than an iPhone (and they won't buy the Samsung smartwatches as they're pretty crippled if you're not a Galaxy owner).

FlowState said:

Lots of ppl, including fast runners, only use their Garmin as a Strava syncing machine. From that POV, why not get a Garmin with a screen that looks nice?

Totally, and that's why we're seeing OLED take over. Seems like a small number of customers use their Fenix for navigation or activities longer than a couple of hours. 

FlowState said:

nobody would say that e-ink is the best display tech for ALL purposes

I would absolutely love a fast e-ink gallery (color) display on a Fenix! It'd be slightly slower than MIP,  but it'd be brighter and the battery life would like get a slight bump as well.

2529455 said:

I think it might even be more primitive than that - i.e. brighter lights release more dopamine and more wow. Then the actual real world outdoor use scenarios start demonstrating that's not better in every way. Both MIP and OLED come with some pretty serious compromises.

Yeah plus anyone who’s trying out a Garmin (or any another smartwatch) is gonna be looking at it in an electronics / big box store, running store or running expo (all indoor venues), where AMOLED really shines. Nobody is gonna take the store’s display model to the outdoor track to do some hard laps.

Also goes back to that Garmin advertising site which said that customers make purchasing decisions based on emotion and rationalize them later. Pretty sure that AMOLED and MIP trigger polar opposite emotions (joy vs boredom/disgust/indifference). Nobody ever said that an AMOLED screen “doesn’t look real.” I know a guy who said that the OLED screen on his iPhone literally changed his life (he really loves those inky perfect blacks.) Tbf I think OLED is great for a lot of use cases. 

2529455 said:

Some people dislike the square watch style

Fair, I’ve seen that comment. But ofc Garmin “mysteriously” released the Venu Sq a while ago after years of not having a watch with a square form factor lol.

I’m sure nobody *ever* mistakes Venu Sq for an Apple Watch from a distance, and if that were to happen, it would just be a happy coincidence for the wearer (and Garmin.)

I do think that for ppl who aren’t already lifelong Garmin customers (and aren’t stuck in ecosystem), battery life is Garmin’s ace in the hole. (Although many ppl say they don’t care abt that bc they just charge their watch every night, just like their phone.)

2529455 said:

Both MIP and OLED come with some pretty serious compromises.

That’s why I think we can only look to the future for the next display revolution that will let us have our cake and eat it too (except for ppl who really like reflective displays, unless someone invents an amazing reflective display that somehow looks nicer than OLED.)

7343684 said:

It’s not an amoled or technology problem it’s Garmin being too aggressive with the dimming on the software side.

Going back to the omnipresent Garmin versus Apple comparison, usability is where Garmin often falls short. DCR says that needing a wrist turn gesture to light up your Garmin AMOLED display is no problem bc millions of Apple Watch users are ok with it. And that’s fair. But what he doesn’t mention is that some ppl complain that Garmin’s wrist gesture detection is just too flakey and/or not sensitive enough.

The same could be said of so many little Garmin features that sound great on paper. Voice notes for programmed workout steps? Great, just what I wanted for years! Oh wait, I tried that feature and the playback volume is just too low for the voice notes, making it useless for me. As far as I’m concerned, that feature may as well not exist.

Aren’t ppl already complaining that the Fenix 8 speaker is too weak? I saw the DCR video where he records a voice note, presses play, and immediately leans over the table and turns his head so his ear is right up against the watch, bc the audio is obviously too soft to hear otherwise.

7343684 said:

If you want a mips device it’s literally there to buy and you don’t need to compare anything.

MIP has already been deleted from Garmin’s Vivoactive and Forerunner lines. You should see the Forerunner forum threads where ppl have been coping for a year and half that Garmin will maintain MIP and AMOLED side-by-side for the Forerunner line, despite all evidence to the contrary. Ppl make this argument even now, when no new MIP Forerunners have been released, all the MIP Forerunner models have been moved to the “old and busted” product section of the Garmin website, and a new AMOLED Forerunner has been released at every price range (165, 265, 965). AMOLED literally replaced MIP for every Forerunner model, but some ppl don’t want to believe it.

Imo it’s only a matter of time before Fenix loses MIP. Then Instinct and Enduro will be the only non-AMOLED watches left.

As a runner, Fenix is too big and heavy for me anyway. (inb4 “but why are you even here in the Fenix 8 boards?????”)

EDIT: sorry for derailing the thread :/

This thread got completely hijacked, but I see the original issue too. Compared to Epix 2, the screen brightness on Fenix 8 AMOLED in low light is abysmally. Even with brightness set to high, it's much dimmer than the Epix. And I shouldn't need to set brightness to high to be able to see the display. 

Yeah, sorry for doing so.

But may I return to topic and ask about the other end of spectrum? How does the AMOLED perform in strong sunshine? I had no chance in seeing that live, but I know that my smartphone display is hardly readable in strong sunshine with 1500 nits peak.