New 965 - Is it a joke ?

In the first year after release I wouldn't buy a Garmin watch anymore, you get annoyed about a multitude of software bugs and you even pay a higher price. And don't believe the influencers like DesFit or DCR, they tell you positive things only so that they remain Top Garmin influencers... I wrote some critical comments under their YT videos and now my comments are blocked i.e. invisble...

For me it is not a joke for me it will be my next device, the joke here is this all the while talking about how bad things garmin does but it does not take into account that when the 955 came out it had no power on the wrist, sat iq, and many more metrics. It is a device that is gradually improving for the same initial price you have more things. The reviews are not very fair in general. The 955 is a great device that will continue to improve. Compare what other brands offer for the same price.

as a 955 Solar owner, i'm a bit surprised by the release of the 965, but it makes sense for Garmin to do so. they don't owe us 955 owners anything except a product that does what it was promised to do when it shipped. on that front, the bugs have been annoying, but i have been relatively fortunate in that the ones that affected me have been addressed and i'm content with the 955 in its current firmware for my use case. the 955 was about as buggy as the awful 945LTE was, but definitely worse than the 935 which i locked the firmware on at version 13.30 about a year in and never changed it because battery life and performance were so good.

i agree that the fragmented software team approach is nonsensical and i still can't fathom why Garmin hasn't revisited this issue...

from a comparison perspective, in comparison to my 955 Solar, the biggest thing i notice is the thinner case and 1.4" screen. the latter is something i covet more than the AMOLED display with my 54 year old eyes.  the 1.3" screen was a nice boost from the 1.2" of my prior watches and i can only imagine how nice it would be go have a 1.4" screen.

if i were in the market today, i'd be torn a little between battery endurance and the the pretty display. i would likely choose the 965 with the larger display and slightly less GPS endurance as it would fit my general use and be enough for my 5 day backpacking trips if i used SatIQ or lower resolution GPS.

Mine, Forerunner 955 has worked excellent, no complaints, Running, Cycling, HIT, Indoor row etc...

My view on dcrainmaker (and desfit is the same): he is very good at summing up the featurelist and not so at telling how useful those features are. I don’t think he gets laid by garmin but his target audience is fanboys who first buy the watch of their beloved brand and then read reviews to be confirmed in their choice. Fanboys don’t wanna hear negative things about their loved devices. So dcr isn’t going to tell something negative.

About garmin. Garmin is loosing customers in cheaper models and gaining in more expensive models. So they make more expensive models. Adding amoled makes watches more expensive and people who buy expensive watches expect pretty displays (and really have no clue  the metrics aren’t accurate or useful) they hardly use their watches so don’t experience bugs.

Both are driven by marketing and know this is the way to make money. Nothing is going to change here.

Meh...

1. Once you buy a product it's almost already obsolete... Can't blame a product for pushing out new releases. As long as they properly support the more recently released devices

2. The only difference is basically OLED vs MIPS. While I would like the higher resolution and larger display, I don't think I want OLED. But could be wrong. So all in all, it's more a variation then a completely new watch. Again, can't blame them for releasing it. They release about 1 model a week anyway.

3. The key is, they need to fix the issues with the 955. If they do, and keep supporting it... who cares about a new 965. You buy, and I bought, the 955 or whatever watch based on what is out and what you know might be out. Based on what it is said it would do. The 965 doesn't change that

4. Warranty... yeah, indeed easy when it;s a hardware defect but good luck proving with these sw things. You (at least where i live) have a 2 week or one month 'try out' and after that you'll have to keep it.

5. Even IF I could return it, there is no real alternative. I bought the 955 for a very specific set of features. Maps, MIPS display/great battery life, form factor, touch, garmin featureset, etc. There simply is no alternative for me... epix, fenix, they are too bulky, have amoled, etc. Other brands, often don't have maps or not the features I look for.

So it's all easy to say, but Garmin should start by fixing the clear and apparent issues with this top tier watch which isn't even out for a year (which means it should be properly supported) but also already out for a year (which means you would expect a polished sw base).

But that's all seperate from the 965 release so this thread, for me, feels like unfounded bashing. I completely understand the frustrations, have them myself, but lets at least try to be constructive a bit because otherwise I can imagine the mods completely thinking 'screw this'

It's not they simple, I purchased mine directly from Garmin website and called them for a refund or even upgrade to more stable Fenix 7x and willing to pay the difference, they came back right away, sorry you passed the 30 day return window, terrible, I wished I purchased from retailer which cares about customer satisfaction.  So in short, no you can't refund as falsely believe.  Just like falsely believe that we got a working product.  The way I look at it the 955 was delayed due to Covid and should have been released years ago and 965 is the one on time.

This depends on your country and the consumer laws. If the device is not fit for purpose, you can argue that it can be returned. Garmin replied like you had changed your mind, it dealing with a faulty device. In the UK, the consumer rights act protects the buyer from goods not fit for purpose, or not as described. 

I do videos on products, because that's what people search for and ask for. But I also do videos on solutions when it's something that's interesting to me. Just like I do long-form guide videos on how to use a product.

I don't do "Here's how I went about cutting 15s off my 5k" videos because there's rarely any value I'm going to bring there. Most of those types of videos are garbage clickbait, and the rest don't have much factual basis to how they actually saved that time. Just like I'm not covering nutrition, training strategies, or whatever else in that realm. From time to time I'll talk about how I do something if I think it might be interesting, but I've long found that most of the time when I try and create videos on that type of content, they don't do well (view-wise), and take away from time I can spend doing other product reviews from other companies. There's only so many hours in the day. Last night I had two hours sleep, and still haven't finished the FR265 reviews yet.

I call out good products and bad products, from all companies - including Garmin. If you want examples of that look no further than the Garmin Varia RCT715 released last year. Or, even my Instinct 2 review.

There's ultimately the reality here that Garmin products have thousands of features/combinations, and finding every last bug in a product combination is impossible - no matter how many runs/rides I do. I cover the things I run into (as I did here on the FR965 with the VO2Max impacting Training Status bits, as well the battery issues).

As for the FR955 issues, I've also been flagging that to Garmin exec teams for the past month+. But I've also been using the FR955 as my daily driver for much of that past month (plus as a secondary workout recording device since release), and simply aren't having all the issues people have (e.g. zero crashes). Doesn't mean folks aren't having issues, just means I'm not running into whatever exact issue people are having, in my day to day training.