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Alternatives??

NinjaJedi25
5 months ago

Hey folks, I am a faithful Garmin fan. My first GPS watch was the 310XT and have been using Garmin since then. But now? $1200 for the F8X? That is in a bracket I cannot afford. I have been considering alternatives to Garmin. Take for example the Amazfit T-Rex 3, on sale right now for $235. That price is way better and appears to have all the features I would need. Am I right to leave Garmin behind and try another brand?  

  • 0 5 months ago

    Currently there are very good alternatives for Garmin watches. Here are just a few: Amazfit T-Rex 3 (quite ugly, but very capable and great battery), Suunto Race S (good looking, fluent, great GPS and fluent maps), Coros Pace Pro (new and improved Coros Pace 3 with better CPU and display, somewhat limited mapping experience currently).

    With Coros Pace Pro receiveing in Q1 2025 POIs on maps, it will have even better mapping usefullness. Suunto has excellent GPS and fluent mapping. Amazfit has excellent track record of adding big new features to watches through software updates, which is something I appreciate a lot. However, none of them can create routes on the watch and have such detailed maps as Fenix, if that is what you need. On the other hand, they are noticeably faster and more user friendly. 

    I see other people suggesting cheaper Garmin watches (965, 955, etc) but those watches although cheaper than Fenix are still significantly more expensive than alternatives. 

    Also, it is important to note that Garmin has real problems with software development and maintenance of Fenix, which makes it even worse for other lesser Garmin watches. It also is important to notice that for some Garmin watches auto-update cannot be disabled, so that you get new firmware although you do not want it, and new bugs with it. Since beta bug reports are constantly being ignored, this is very important point and significantly affect usability of the watch sometimes.  

    Regarding ecosystem, only you know whether that should mean anything to you. Personally, ecosystem does not tie me to the brand, and I find Garmin ecosystem still obsolete and no user friendly (options spread out inconsistently throughout app, and latest "update" of the app is just visual redesign of home page, everything else remained exactly as obsolete and cumbersome as it was before). Not to mention Garmin Explore which should be a huge plus for Garmin watches, but their latest update made the app less capable. Also, there should not be a separate app for that at all, those features should be included into existing Garmin Connect.

    To top it all, in last 2 years there are even frequent outage of Garmin servers meaning you cannot sync your data at that time.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to Vizi
    Vizi said:
    in last 2 years there are even frequent outage of Garmin servers

    How frequent? I can recall only one.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to Data

    Every few months. And few times it took several days to get back on. Even today there was some outage, and it came back up several hours ago. 

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to Vizi

    You need to provide some support for that claim because, other than the ransomware attack, I have had any issues with servers being down in the last two years. 

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to kstate1980

    Here is for the most recent one: https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/1gvkgx9/garmin_is_down_again/

    For others look for yourself, you will obviously be surprised since you did not notice the most recent one either. 

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to Vizi

    Not that reddit is a reliable source but, I did a search for Garmin Servers down, there are indeed times when the server has gone down. However, I did not see that the servers were down for several days. There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth that this is a huge problem with Garmin. Your red herrings are getting tiresome.

  • 0 5 months ago in reply to kstate1980

    Your previous post stated that you have seen only 1 servers-down occurrence. Now you claim you have seen some more but do not consider it big deal. Fair enough. But if you really explored a bit, you would see more. 

    Who said servers down was wailing and gnashing of teeth problem? You obviously took it that way, but I did not say it. 

  • 0 5 months ago

    How about getting a Epix Pro on sale now for about ~$550-650? Why pay twice as much for a watch (F8) that offers just incremental improvements.  Certainly not worth twice the price of a Epix 2 Pro.  With the E2Pro, you get the flashlight, which for me is huge and my #1 must have!  My current Epix 2 non-pro doesn't have it and will get the F8.  I got a work discount and will then sell my Epix 2 non-pro to bring the F8 cost down.  You could also get a used Epix 2 non-pro for around $300-$350.  It's still a very relevant watch with LED screen, but no flashlight.

    For me, moving away from the garmin system I'd lose garmin pay, and super detailed maps/navigation and other metrics only Garmin watches have and built in flashlight.  But honeslty, I don't workout that much to really warrant a $1100 watch.  If you are okay giving up some features others don't have (built in flashlight, garmin pay etc) then it's totally worth looking at sub $500 watches.  If anything, get the Amazfit (and possibly Epix 2 pro or non-pro or Fenix 7 pro or non-pro for MIPS screen).  If you don't like either watch you order, return them or a full refund.