Watch Face Display

Not a defect. I put the brightness on the lowest setting because it does wash out the colors at higher brightness setting. This is not an OLED display so you cannot compare it to those displays. I like the the display of the Garmin watches because it is always on and in direct sunlight it is far superior. As far as I know you can’t get an OLED display smart watch with always on display enabled lasting almost a week without a charge. 

Thank you.  

Carol, as others wrote this is by design, which make these kind of displays to be easy to read in sunglight, if you really want more vivid colors you can always try Garmin Venu which has similar display to Fitbit and Apple Watch. Myself I specially opted for this kind of display as don't mind washed out colors but love possibility to see it whenever light is present.

I was also seriously disappointed with the display when I first got my VA4. The screen works ok, and I've gotten used to it, but the bigger issue here is that Garmin blatantly falsely advertises the Vivoactive watches as having a bright, clear, high-contrast screen.

Whether people love the VA watches or Garmin in general is beside the point, and it irks me that they make excuses for the false advertising and try to blame (even mock) us new users for "not doing our research" or lecturing us about how we should have bought a $600 watch instead of a $350 watch if we want a clear screen, etc etc.

Tbh, the simple fact is Garmin heavily photoshops the Vivoactive product photos to intentionally make the screen appear much brighter and higher contrast than reality. In fact if you look across their marketing, Garmin makes pretty much all of their watch faces look bright and high-contrast, and you can't really even discern that the $1000 watches have COMPLETELY different screens than the $150 watches. In their product photos, ads, and videos, they look the same.

I love my VA4 but feel like I was lied to by their ads. And I wish other Garmin customers would just acknowledge this openly rather than trying to make us feel foolish for being deceived by the false advertising.

The Vivo is pretty much a Vivoactive 4 with a different display type. Garmin should probably explain this better, because they have rather different properties. I definitely prefer the Vivoactive display over the Vivo display. It really sets the watch apart from most other watches on the market.

I have a vivoactive and just bought the vivoactive S4 and the backlighting, screen type, etc. is supposed to be the same. Truth be told it is not. The original is much clearer and brighter. I agree there seems to be some not do truth in advertising. Sad because i loved my vivoactive. 

I upgraded my Vivo 4 for a Venu 2. The display is amazing. Battery life is less but not dramatically. If you have the option to return I highly recommend it.

I am going to try. My vivoactive screen is exactly as dark as the pictures. Its not amoled. They either changed something or they dropped quality big time.  Sadly, I am not sure I trust Garmin anymore.