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

And did you look at the Suunto Race review? How Polar burned battery? Suunto's battery with AMOLED was just WOW.

I find it interesting that two companies arrive to a similar complaint from two opposite directions.

For amoled watches, Garmin doesn't give the option to prevent dimming. And now it seems Polar doesn't give the option to not burn the battery on brigth conditions (with always-on).

Coming from the software world, I fully understand why developers don't want to add a user-configurable option to every possible feature, because that leads to combinatorial explosion, which increases the chance of subtle bugs and makes testing much harder (and their testing is already so-so). But in this case, I agree that both Garmin and Polar should give an option (of course in Garmin's case, their reluctance is also driven by the fear that people would first over-use the always-full-brightness option, and then request a replacement watch because of self-inflicted burn-in).

And finally, yes, MIP doesn't have these problems, it has its own, different, problems.

Curious, what problems does MIP have during activities? 

None in my opinion  for sports watches the MIP is still the best, but if you want a nice smartwatch that turns on randomly by moving your arm even unintentionally, Amoled is fine

I had a Fenix 5+ for a long time (without sapphire glass, so readability was top-class for a MIP watch). And at least here in Finland, the MIP screen was most problematic outside while hiking. Under forest foliage, maps were too often really difficult to read on the watch, because the screen was too dark even with backlight (with my eyes adapted to ambient brightness, and bright blotchy reflections of the sky over the foliage). And at least for me, in general MIP is great when the sun is high in the sky, but not so great when it's lower near the horizon. I noticed that problem somewhat also during trail running, but there I rarely need to see the map, and big numbers are still readable even in the forest.

I've now had (as I've mentioned in this thread, sorry for the repetition) a Forerunner 965 for almost half a year. It's amoled display is way better outside (for me), and surprisingly also the battery life is better when always-on-display is off (of course Fenix 5+ wasn't comparable in battery life to start with, being older technology).

"because the screen was too dark even with backlight"

That does not sound right. Sounds like you had a defective watch with a faulty backlight.

No I didn't. The problem for me was that the backlight doesn't improve the contrast of the MIP screen enough, which (together with lower color contrast of MIP) affects especially maps with small details. But again, that was Fenix 5+, I'm sure MIP has improved in the 6 and 7 generations.

Aslam said:

This is nice, but it substantially reduces battery life. MIP displays can offer the same without reducing battery life. They will even stay on all day with full color watch faces without sacrificing battery life.

I agree but the industry has obviously moved on from MIP, whether we like it or not.

Bitti said:

I find it interesting that two companies arrive to a similar complaint from two opposite directions.

Bitti said:

For amoled watches, Garmin doesn't give the option to prevent dimming. And now it seems Polar doesn't give the option to not burn the battery on brigth conditions (with always-on).

I also find it funny that DCR says he told Polar this is an awesome feature, while reiterating his previous stance that most people don't need it, except maybe for cyclists. Of course he had to point out that the most popular smartwatch (Apple Watch) requires you to turn your wrist to make the display go to full brightness and nobody has a problem with that. While that may be true, I feel like Apple's gesture detection works a lot better than Garmin's. And he just reviewed a watch (Suunto) where raise-to-wake takes like 2 seconds (compared to less than a second for Apple and Garmin), which maybe demonstrates that this stuff isn't universally simple for manufacturers to implement.

Bitti said:

And finally, yes, MIP doesn't have these problems, it has its own, different, problems.

Yeah, like the fact that you need to turn on the backlight to see the display at night. (I do run a lot at night). But at least you have the option to leave the backlight on indefinitely, at the expense of battery life.

I also think that the dull colors and low resolution of MIP are a problem for maps, but for anything else it's not a huge deal. (Given that Garmin isn't a fully-fledged smartwatch like Apple Watch or Wear OS).

Have been running with always on backlight since 2017. Wouldn't say that it affects battery life dramatically except 235 (it turned off during winter workouts is temperature was below -15c )..

You can always use turn-on-by-gesture settings, but for me always on for backlight is so better (just set up manual on/off backlight during workouts). 

Totally agree that maps is the only weak point.Also for some people contrast matters (a friend of mine had had eyesight and he is totally happy with his 965). I don't use maps (really rare use) and by sight is okay (although short-sighted). 

Ps I think that amoled stuff is just a company drift from sports devices to smartwatch