Forerunner with Elevate 5

Stick it out. I refuse to invest in brand new models just to beta test the amount of bugs they release into production over the following 12 months+.

Actually I always had a good time with Garmin watches, since the Forerunner 245, even in the first weeks.

It sounds like you’re really just fishing for inside information to base a purchasing decision on. All you’re going to get is unvalidated speculation which leaves you in the same predicament, decision wise..

I'd love to be wrong, but my crystal ball says there will be no more FR with MIP!

There have been no rumours around that I have seen, and I think a month a way from a release the rumour mill would be hot with something. Buy what there is now if you need something now. There are reasonable deals on 955 normally and also good second hand ones if one wants to go that route.

Forerunner 9xx series tend to release on a 2 year cycle (955 was delayed a year due to covid, hence 955 - 2022 and 965 - 2023) so I wouldn't expect a 975 until 2025. I'd also be surprised if there was another MIPS released, I think OLED is the way forward now. Just my thoughts so don't take any of it as gospel. 

Well, obviously Garmin is not going to post in this thread, so you are asking us to speculate. 

Let’s look at the anecdotal evidence:

- The latest model of every Garmin watch not named Fenix or Enduro has an AMOLED screen

- DC Rainmaker has speculated multiple times that AMOLED is the way forward for Garmin, except for Fenix and Enduro. With the release of the Forerunner 165 (AMOLED screen), he declared that MIP is basically dead for the Forerunner lineup. Given that DCR has a pretty close relationship with Garmin, I would take his speculation pretty seriously

- DCR also offhandedly mentioned that the demand for MIP doesn’t exist in numbers that would convince Garmin to change course or (IIRC) for a company like Apple to make a MIP watch. (Regardless of demand, imo there’s no way Apple would ever make something as uncool as a MIP watch. Same reason they don’t make 5 button sports watches. As far back as 10 years ago, ppl made comments that Garmin watches didn’t “look real” and that their screens sucked.)

- Other brands such as Polar and Suunto are also moving to AMOLED

- No brand/model which was previously OLED (such as Apple Watch) has released a MIP variant

- Every company which has switched from MIP to AMOLED has marketed it as a huge upgrade which, on its own, should convince you to buy the latest model (according to them)

- The two arguably biggest Garmin/sportswatch bloggers have both toed the company line where “AMOLED is amazing!!!!1!” and “MIP is old and outdated”

- On the Garmin subreddit, if someone mentions they prefer MIP, everyone accuses them of being a luddite or a grandpa

How would Garmin market a hypothetical 975 MIP variant?

”Last year we told you to buy a 965 because AMOLED is exponentially better than MIP, now we’re giving you the option for MIP because…reasons?”

They can’t say “battery life”, because they’ve already convinced people that the battery life of the 965 is good enough for a running watch. Obviously Fenix and Enduro have different use cases where they can use the battery life argument for marketing purposes,

They can’t say “AMOLED sucks because you don’t get a truly always on display, and you have to use the gesture to make the screen go to full brightness, so it’s visible in sunlight”, because they want ppl to buy their other AMOLED products, so they can’t very well say that AMOLED has major flaws X and Y which necessitate a MIP option.

As far as the gesture thing goes, DCR (for example) has repeatedly said that the gesture is no big deal once you get used to it, and that the only use case which might truly suffer from this issue is if you’re a cyclist and you mount your watch on your handlebar. I’ve also seen ppl in the Garmin forums and subreddit echoing his sentiment: “you just have to get used to doing things a different way” (whether you like it or not.)

Personally I hate this trend of forcing users to conform to tech instead of vice versa, but I’m obviously swimming against the tide here.

5818384 said:

I know there are updates every 2 years but the update last year only was the display, so this doenst really count as a "new" Forerunner.

Even if “doesn’t count” to you, I’m sure Garmin’s engineering and marketing departments count the 965 as a new Forerunner.

You’re implying that the new display doesn’t matter (or is actually unwanted), which is valid for you and others as individuals. But that’s not how Garmin wants the public to see it. They’re sure not going around telling people that 965 is “just a 955 with AMOLED”, so don’t bother upgrading. On the contrary, all of their marketing material touts AMOLED as a killer feature now. (As opposed to the past, when they marketed MIP as being free from “distracting color and brightness” — hilariously enough, color and brightness is the selling point of AMOLED.)

And regardless of whether 975 will have a MIP display variant (it won’t), Garmin is not going to mess with their release cycle just because some users don’t think the 965 was a true upgrade. They don’t want to release a new product too soon, because that would cannibalize sales of the existing product.

I know what you’re thinking: 955 was released less than a year after 945 LTE. But that’s different, since the 945 LTE was never marketed as a completely new model compared to 945 (even if it actually was, as far as internals and software goes). And ppl probably didn’t buy 945 LTE unless they actually wanted the LTE feature (unless they were savvy enough to realize that the hardware and software would be improved compared to 945, and they thought it was worth the premium.)

If you're serious into training you should eather way use a chest strap for monitoring your heart during activities. For anything else the Elevate 4 seems just to be fine. Without any direct comparison you will never get to know any differences between the two.

Especially for the current price (at least in Germany) the 955 is an absolute bargain!

Garmin still lists MIP displays in their specs as "Sunlight-visible" lol.

I'd say there are plenty of MIP faithful among r/Garmin and r/GarminWatches. Enough to stand against the tide? Probably not. Big businesses take users where they want and not the other way around. 

I cringe every time DCR dismisses every concern raised about amoled with patronising platitudes though:  "I have no problems with visibility outdoors", "that only happened with old Amoled", "you get used to it", "no one really complains about it", "battery life is good enough".