Poll: smaller device or bigger screen?

i'm not sure i understand your question because in the current world, Garmin has said they can't put a 1.3" screen in a 44.5mm diameter watch, but they can do it in a 47mm watch. with that in mind, here is my response...

i had told myself that my 935 was going to be a 4 year watch, so i eagerly awaited the presumed FR955. i had expected it would be the same 47mm watch with a 1.3" display. so, needless to say, i was disappointed, like many when the 945LTE came out. yet i bought it... admittedly much as a "consumer therapy" purchase, but practically, i had been wanting the maps (since the 945 came out) for backpacking and it seemed like the processor upgrades were worthwhile for the overall experience.

now that i have it, beyond some of the bugs which i hope Garmin will iron out, i'm more pleased than i expected to be with the format. i don't have huge wrists, so the slightly smaller diameter looks a bit better on my arm (not that i can too much about it). but the overall screen to watch bezel ratio is also a noticeable improvement over the 935/945.

in the end, if i've done my math correctly,

Fenix 6 Pro 47mm diameter : 33mm screen, 7mm border

FR945LTE: 44.5m diameter: 30.5mm screen, 7mm border

so essentially the same border width. i guess taht still means the Fenix 6 Pro has higher screen:bezel ratio, but they have a similar border. i think from a design aesthetic, if it were possible, i would reduce the "dead glass area" and have a slightly wider plastic bezel border.

coming back to your question from a different angle. i would definitely like a 1.3" screen on the 44.5mm body, and as i noted above, i was already hoping for a 1.3" screen on a 47mm body like the Fenix 6. i definitely value battery life, so that's another reason to say i would take a bigger body and bigger screen which likely would leave more room for an even bigger battery.

The nice thing is the smaller LTE has similar day to day battery life to the 945 while battery life with gps saw a slight improvement. Maybe I am wrong but from the looks of blank space maybe a 1.3" could have fit. But if anything I kind of wish the 945 LTE's display had dark blacks & whiter whites. I compared the 6s(regular) display to the LTE & the 6s white looks whiter. My father thinks the LTE's display is a bit sharper than the 6s, but the 6s has the better contrast. Garmin should have also worked on contrast & tuning of the display a bit.

very interesting PizzaQueen... i find that in daylight, the 945 LTE seems to have slightly better contrast than the 935 i previously owned. yet, when it comes to backlight being on, the 945 LTE is a huge improvement over the 935 which much deeper blacks and clearer colors at night. it's not OLED quality mind you, but coming from the 935, it's a big step up. check out the picture shown in the Arstechnica review. it's even more noticeable than this to me:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Garmin-Forerunner-945-LTE-55-Hands-on-Ars-Technica-3-640x480.jpg

Okay better contrast would be neat. Is that possible to do via a firmware update or is there so much that could be done before a new display is needed?  

i would think this is a hardware issue...

If I had to take a guess, some tweaking in the software could help, but that also depends on how it was tuned it was from the start. 

My regular 945 looks better than both of them