965 vs 955? Advice Wanted

Thx!

I'd check out the beta reports forum. 15.09 hasn't introduced any egregious bugs, but there have been some which hopefully will get resolved. I think your decision to try it out depends on whether any of the added features or bug fixes included in 15.09 are important or of interest to you. I was interested in seeing if they fixed the long touch on the watch face feature and other mapping bugs. they seem have to have partially fixed both, but still some problems persist. the wrist based running dynamics are interesting but not important to me (and they aren't comparable to the ones you get from the Pro or Pro Plus chest strap.

SMR is the best to speak to it having used both, but here are my reflections:

965

+ nicer screen (if you like it crisp and bright)

+ thinner profile

+ slightly larger screen

955

+ potentially significantly longer battery life

+ subtle looking screen that is easier to use during activity in the sun (doesn't require gesture to be fully visible)

+ slightly less expensive (Solar is same price)

I think I'd be torn if I were buying new today and might end up with a 965. but since I already have a 955 Solar, I think it's a hard sell to upgrade for the reasons listed above since the 955 serves me well. I think the thinner profile and 1.4" screen would be nice to have, but I am pretty sure I will wait a couple of years for the next iteration where there will be more benefits to an upgrade.

to your original question: yes, the 955 appears (for now) to have the same feature set as the 965. (as evidenced by the beta)

Thank you,

Meanwhile, I translated and read SMT's post.
Really really good!
I think that the battery life, the more sports you do, will be more similar between the 965 and the 955 solar. At least that's how I understand the battery lists.

The display of the 965 I find much nicer, provided it is then readable by gestures in the sun.

However, I read no complaints with all other smartwatches from apple, Samsung or similar what concerns the readability in the sun.

from my understanding of SMR's experience/comments, if the gesture works reliably enough, then the 965 is very readable in the sun.

the GPS life is significantly less for my needs backpacking on the 955 vs 965. 42-47 hours (solar) vs 30 is a pretty big drop for my couple backpacking trips each year. that is of course solved by an external charging battery, but its nice for me to not worry about battery life on my typical 5 day trip with 20-30 hours of GPS logging + watch use.

I'm actually using a 955 standard and a Quatix7 amoled. 

Under direct strong sun, nothing can beat the MIP screen. But once you get in the shade (like when you look to the watch under your head's shade) the amoled is already better. 

So you only need MIP you have your watch attached to the front of your kayak, your bike or something under direct sun.

Even with always on enabled, the amoled screen dims (gets darker) during activity and only goes full brightness with gesture or touch/button.

I'm thinking of making a solution to create a sun cap to the watch holder on my kayaks. It will also prevent the sun overheating the watch. Maybe it will be visible even with dimmed screen that way. 

For daily use the amoled screen is great and beautiful. But the tradeoff is having to make gesture or interact to use it.

I'm also surprised that Garmin's assumptions for calculating the battery life are different for the watches.

For example, 320 more interactions are assumed for the 965 in smartwatch mode than for the 955.

But well, if the 965 creates about 5-6 hrs in SatiQ mode without music and 2 std without gps and then in smartwatch mode holds more than 5 days without always on display I would be very satisfied.
My vivosmart 4 (I know hardly comparable :)) creates under these conditions about 7 days.

I wonder how the comparison (as an FR955 owner) would look like against the 965 and than again the Fenix 7 SS or the Epix? 

On Youtube you could found a lot of reviews and comparisons like these.