Help me to choose, garmin 955 vs fenix 7s

You didn't mention wich Fenix 7s model is available to you. Even if it's the standard model, you are looking at $700 fenix vs $500 955. 

If you can have either for the same price, go for the Fenix7! 

There is another topic comparing both where I list some of the many disadvantages of the 955 vs the fenix. When you buy the 955, Garmin throws at your face every day the fact that you bought the "cheap" product so you don't deserve to have all they can offer. 

Fenix has many more sport modes. Specially water sports. More apps widgets too.

More interface and UI options like charts and graphs panning history.

The fenix watch face is complete with lots of data and you can long touch any data to go to the widget. 955 face is useless so you have to go for old iq store watch faces and keep using the same face as 5 years old models.

Also fenix has widget groups which they haven't implemented to forerunner. 

Fenix has power modes you can configure per activity. 

Fenix line have faster and more complete firmware updates. 

The worst of all in my case is the 955 gps tracking is rubbish for anything other than running or walking. The case is been treated by technical support but no perspective of being solved. 

I had a Fenix 7 47mm standard. It was stolen so i bought a 955 since it's cheaper, lighter, newer and I would now have multi band + 32gb. Now I miss my fenix everyday and been in constant frustration with the 955 not working properly for anything other than running and walking.

Today I discovered there is an Auto Lap option called "Auto Position" which counts laps every time you pass the start point. This option was on all Garmin devices back in the day but later got dropped.

Now it seems to be back starting with Forerunner 745 and Fenix 7 also has this feature. My 955 doesn't have this option. Following photo is of FR745 and the screenshot is of the Fenix 7 Owners Manual:

for anwers like yours, is one of the reasons I love to ask in forums. you mention the typical things that we need to know but we won't find on any review.

much appreciated and sorry to hear about your stole. that sucks..

finally I will pick the fenix 7s standard as the solar seems to have problem with the screen, as the protection used on it makes it darker than gorilla victus

As far as I know, the sapphire is what makes the screen darker and less visible. But solar screen also has some cons.

I got the 955 standard and solar to compare. Chose to keep the standard.

Solar screen has tiny red dots between pixels. Screen gets a more redish look instead of plain black. And the glass is more reflective. 

But it all depends on the environment light and angle. Sometimes both screen looks the same.

Garmin loves spending resources to build 10 things of the same kind, with a vast variety of bugs. 

7366278 said:

I dont know why they really dont update the watches at same time with same software as they all are esentially the same

Garmin doesn’t understand software and quite frankly, they don’t care.

It’s far more simple, more cost effective and more rewarding for their customers to have 1 firmware for all their watches and depending on hardware or configuration, some features are enabled or disabled.

That prevents that the same features has different bugs on different watches. Or features just work in an other odd way on different watches. Especially with touch it’s a total mess.

But they don’t care. They sell enough watches, just because a lot of people select a watch based on the length of the featurelist and garmin has the longest of them all. (And people never discover that a lot of those features are useless or not working properly, because they only use a fraction of it)

Given how full of bugs my 955 is (and each 'update' fixes some but not all and adds a load of other new bugs to then go through the same process until the stop providing updates)... I'd buy a Polar. The GritX Pro looks nice.

That's it. Garmin should just use one firmware base for all products and focus programming efforts on making this single firmware work properly. 

I just got an opportunity and bought a F7 solar for a good price. Now I have access to better firmware, UI and apps but I'm already disappointed because the solar screen is really crap. Less visibility and too reflective. 

Not to mention the F7 solar is too heavy and no multiband.

All I want is my 955 standard to have the same firmware as the F7 to make it the best Garmin watch to date.

Garmin could do it, but they don't want to. They choose to keep a mess of product lines where I can't find a satisfying product. If you want complete functionality you are forced to buy a bulky watch and if you want multiband you are forced to buy gimmick solar + sapphire screen. If you want a lightweight watch with complete hardware functionality but no gimmick screen they give you crap software. In the end the customers spend a lot just to end up unsatisfied.

If they keep going this path, Garmin will become the new Nokia in the next 2 or 3 years.

That's it. Garmin makes great hardware and have great health / sports tech, data and resources feeding their products. 

But they are terrible at executing it and are unable to deliver a polished software and user experience. Also their products are too much locked and sport modes should be more customizable. 

The way they work splitting different watch lines into separated software development teams are so dumb. 

They clearly are above their heads with bugs and malfunction. Joining efforts and focus on a single base firmware with small differences like map / non map, touch / non touch devices would make it so much better. 

All I want now is a 955 hardware (lightweight, good screen and multiband) but with Fenix7 software functionality. I don't want terrible solar and sapphire reflective and dark screens. 

Garmin could deliver a complete product like this. But they don't want to. So they end up with customers who paid fortunes just to end up unsatisfied with incomplete products.

This way they are going to be the new Nokia in the next 2 or 3 years.