A general conversation about the future of MIP for our watches..

Maurice said:

A garmin watch is a training tool not a gimmick with fancy colour screen like an apple watch. It should be functional! I don’t see how amoled is more functional than a MIP screen. 

I agree with you but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the general public thinks. Ppl don't buy consumer goods for rational reasons. Even Garmin has/had a marketing page which explained that people make purchasing decisions based on emotion. (I think it may have been a marketing agency that Garmin used, whose website was aimed at companies like Garmin, not the end user.)

Also, AMOLED is more functional for maps.

I would also point out that elites don't really need a GPS watch (nor they do want one, in some cases.) A hobby jogger like me def doesn't actually need a Garmin or an Apple Watch to do anything. In my case it's a nice to have for some things (like navigation and/or recording my long run routes), but I'm pretty sure people were able to exercise before smartwatches existed.

Nice pun there, you don't see.. Well just look at the image in my previous post: A general conversation about the future of MIP for our watches.. - Forerunner 955 Series - Running/Multisport - Garmin Forums

That is pretty functional difference what you can see from the maps.

Jacquers said:

There's also tech like this, which could be an option? https://www.azumotech.com/ (formerly Flex)

If we think how late Garmin was in AMOLED train, I would think that cost has been factor. New display technologies can of course replace AMOLED, but they need to be better and for the same price, or not much premium. I'm pretty sure Garmin has their eyes open if there is display that combines MIP+AMOLED benefits and goes to the battery usage constraints and price constrains. 

jmto said:

If we think how late Garmin was in AMOLED train, I would think that cost has been factor.

I think they also wanted to get the battery life to be "good enough" for their purposes, as one of the main selling points of garmin over other brands is comparatively long battery life.

Another thing they apparently worked on was improving their anti-burn in algorithms (as some of the earlier Garmin AMOLED devices supposedly had worse problems with burn-in than the newer models.) For example, devs have noticed that the lines on data pages are constantly shifting during an activity, presumably to avoid burn-in.

There could also be the fact that Garmin is probably an inherently conservative and old-school company. I wouldn't have expected them to be the first to adopt AMOLED, for example. I feel like a lot of the changes to Garmin devices in the past few years are due to the pressure from Apple Watch (and from my POV, it's a good thing in most cases).

Yeah, competition is good :) There's no denying that Amoled looks better than MIP in most cases, it's just the drawbacks that put me off. Even shifting lines will lead to burn in in the long term as pixels wear out. Of course the tech has improved but for now I'm willing to have ugly old mip. Maybe someday we'll get a display tech that has all the pros without the cons.

IGZO also looks like an interesting option. To the Future...｜IGZO:SHARP (global.sharp)

the amoled screens are raised above he bezel. i've seen a lot of posts online where people have scratched the screens or smashed them... you're paying more money for somehting thats more easiy damaged.... hopefully the fenix doesnt end up with a raised screen

When touchscreens were introduced to Garmin watches the Fenix line already reduced how much the screen is sunk below the bezel. My old Fenix 5+ screen was about 2 mm below the bezel border, allowing to install a glass screen protector and still have its surface below the bezel. The current Fenix/Epix watches have their screen under 1 mm below the bezel, reducing its protection.

But I admit that it would have been really impractical to have a Fenix 5+ type bezel and touchscreen, swiping just wouldn't have worked, etc.

(I personally moved from Fenix 5+ to Forerunner 965 and haven't looked back. Maps are way better, and I solved the screen protection issue by installing a screen protector film and using a cheap TPU case protector with rised bezel when hiking or doing something else that might risk the screen. After a year, no scratches, no burn-in, no complaints. )

FlowState said:

I think they also wanted to get the battery life to be "good enough" for their purposes

For sure. but that's somewhat hard to guess what has been the improvement there as it's still like normally off.

I think they wanted to give more competition for others, outside of like their normal rivals and more to the smart watch people and for that sector AMOLED was so de-facto, that MIP would have not made it.

Yeah, taking notes from Apple isn't bad, if one selects the things smartly.

jmto said:

For sure. but that's somewhat hard to guess what has been the improvement there as it's still like normally off.

As long as they can say it's better than Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy and Fitbit....

I would guess the battery life comes mostly from the SoC-solution and not from the screen. I would guess the same kind of AMOLED display's are available to all of them. It's not like Garmin designs and manufacturers the screens itself.