Why did Garmin implement an AMOLED on a sportwatch?

Yea it took some people 10 years to admit that and some still think it’s not the case. 

Folks on this thread are acting as if the arrival of models with an AMOLED screen is somehow the death knell for MIP...when there is no evidence of that. It's simply an option. If you want MIP, get a 255 or 955. If you want AMOLED, get a 265 or 295. There was a comment earlier that said Garmin is "making" them buy an AMOLED screen, which is just bizarre. It's simply opening up a choice. Nothing but respect for the passion that people are showing to their style of preference, but let's keep this in perspective. Nothing is going away. 

955 AMOLED vs. 965. First would tell that it's just another edition, latter makes me think that's the future. Of course they can revert the AMOLED for 975 if 965 sells badly, but I don't agree your on "Nothing is going away". Also there's no evidence that the future Forerunner 9xx would have MIP screens.

There is no evidence that MIP is going away. There IS evidence that Garmin is expanding their lineup to try and gain more customers by offering different choices for buyers who have different values.

If your evidence-free fears are true, though, let's meet back here in 18 months after Garmin removes all MIP watches from their lineup and I'll admit I was wrong.

I'm not saying removing ALL. I'm saying what the screen is in the high end Forerunner model, the watch that I'm interested in and used since kind of 310XT. The option if there's some entry level XX Forerunner with MIP screen does not help there.

Again, there is zero evidence for your fear. Garmin still has the 955, which is feature-for-feature the same as the 965. Nobody anywhere has said that future high-end Forerunners will be AMOLED-only except for a handful of fearful users here and on reddit.

Zero evidence? 965 is the evidence. It's 965, not 955 AMOLED. Feature parity isn't promised to the future, rather opposite. Quote from Ray's in-depth review:

"the Forerunner 965 and Forerunner 955 will reach parity within the next quarter, but, when asked whether that would remain the case going forward (in effect having an AMOLED and non-AMOLED version of the same watch), Garmin was less confident. They said that for the meantime that was going to be the case, but longer term they’d probably diverge."

But this is pointless. There's isn't proof in any direction. There is just that the newest gen is AMOLED only, so why would the future gens would have different screen options? Only think I can come is that people aren't happy with 965 and Garmin needs to give options or revert that. And you disagree on that, so let's just disagree.

Have to agree that it's pretty obvious that Garmin is signaling an AMOLED-only future, at least for mid to high end running watches. Don't see how MIP would return unless there's significant backlash. (Kinda like how Vivoactive 3 had only one button, but Vivoactive 4 has two buttons.)

I'll just throw out a couple of anecdotes:

2015: I wore my Garmin to a bar and the server said it "doesn't look real". I tried to explain that the screen is like an ereader's screen and it works real good in sunlight, but her eyes glazed over

2019: New coworker who's training for a marathon with an apple watch asks me and other coworker why we wear Garmins.

Garmin coworker: "well garmin came out first..."

Me: "these screens aren't pretty but they work great in sunlight!"

AW coworker: "I don't have any problems seeing my AW in sunlight"

He ended up making a joke about the two of us were running snobs who think he's a loser for not wearing a garmin.

I personally think Garmin has to compete with Apple just to survive (yeah, I know they don't make the same kind of products), and we've already seen this kind of thing in the past with music and touch.

If AMOLED is worse than MIP in some respects, it probably doesn't matter, as long as the perceived benefits cause enough customers to buy in. Same kind of thing has happened in the past - e.g. the shift from wired to wireless earbuds (even though it was basically forced on consumers). Wireless earbuds used to suck, and now the user experience is good enough that almost nobody wants wired except for certain niche use cases (gaming, music production.)

The big difference here is that MIP is a niche technology for niche market.

Personally I'll be sad if my next forerunner requires a wrist turn to make the AMOLED display work at full brightness during the day, but as others pointed out, MIP displays have the same problem at night. Then again, a higher res screen might be nicer for maps. And I def think the AW display is a lot prettier than a Garmin MIP display, but that's a no-brainer.

At least it's not like AW where the screen goes to sleep for 3rd party apps, and when this happens, certain gestures don't work, which means a bunch of functions can't be used without looking. (First party apps don't have this limitation.)

If that is the case, I'll just buy two durable Fenixes 7 and rock em for another 10 years. I just hope they won't leave MIP only on large Enduro. I prefer S models for their size and weight.