This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

First impressions

Watch arrived this morning, first impressions are great. Screen is big and bright, build quality is good, yes it’s plastic but that means it’s light. Buttons are clicky unlike my previous mushy 945 buttons. 

it arrived with 70% battery, after setting it up, faffing with watch faces and then a software update I was left with 68%. Just back from 40min trail run and it’s down to 65%

A good start, interesting to see how we get along over the week!

  • I used the watch at my local parkrun this morning, all looks good. It recorded 5.05k vs 5.03k for my 945 last week so pretty much identical. Maybe the 965 track looks a small bit better but fairly marginal. 

  • Haven’t sent my second 965 back to Garmin yet, as they are doing a remote logging thing…that said, since my second full charge cycle it’s started to perform as expected battery wise. Several different activities, gps and external sensors, since Friday, I’ve dropped 15% which is less than half of what I was getting before. So, closer to advertised…

  • Yeah, the first charge cycle or two on a new device will almost always be worse than what's to come. Especially with these types of devices that are doing extra work to learn your body/fitness baselines in addition to performing updates, defining it's battery knowledge, and going through various stages of setup. If you are always trading it in, you will always be in the "new watch" phase, which will have less-than-anticipated battery life. Give it time to settle in over 3-4 weeks and see how it goes!

  • I have massive anxiety and all the great fun things that go along with it. I am glad Garmin forced me, figuratively, to step back and do the logging. As you are right I would have been stuck in a cycle of new watch quirks. 

  • For reference, here's my experience so far. I got my watch on Thursday afternoon and put it on immediately. It's my first Garmin device, so it's having to learn everything about me (not sure if previous owners have a leg up due to the previous data, or if there is extra processing power required to transfer old data AND learn new data). I did most of my set up on the watch, but also did some set up through my phone. I've done a pair of weight-lifting sessions, a pair of bike rides, and a few walks. I'm still figuring out what data screens I like, and making changes between each workout. I'm also still in the infatuation phase, where I play with the watch more than I should. I downloaded/applied the firmware update and installed Spotify.

    In general, I left a bunch of the most important settings as default (like Always-On Display is disabled, Gesture Mode on, Brightness at default, etc).

    Putting my watch on my wrist Thursday, the battery was in the upper 80s% (maybe 87% or 88%?) and right now it's at 54%. So 3 days on my initial wearing killed about 1/3rd of the battery potential, which would bring me to about 9 days in real-life. On the one hand, that is SO MUCH BETTER than my previous devices (Fossil watches on Android's Wear OS and FitBits). On the other, it's definitely less than advertised. I'm guessing I'll probably end up around the 2-week mark with battery life after a while, which would be waaaaaay more than satisfactory to me.

  • When you see something unexpected after a firmware upgdate, the first thing to try is to reboot the watch (different than a power cycle).

    Press and hold the upper left button for 15 seconds or so, and the watch turns itself off.  Then turn it back on.

  • My down and back buttons are mushy, lot of play before click. Also bigger range of motion than with up and light button. Also scratches on the side of the watch body. Returning the watch.