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970 Sluggish Maps, especially during a Run makes this feature nearly unusable

matty
21 days ago

970 Maps doe not function while on a run after loading a course and hitting navigation. 

Note that using the standalone Maps feature alone is relatively slow, but once you are on your run, i assume because there is other processing going on, the maps feature is so delayed as to make it useless. 

The issue here is typically the WHOLE purpose of the navigate feature is you are in a new area and are using to help you not get lost.  But if you can not pan/zoom and see where you are without stopping your run and waiting for it to load it is not functional.  

For software engineer reference I only have 2 data screens on, and the "workout" adds a 3rd automatically.  So NOT a lot of extra data is being processes here. 

Link of an example below

https://imgur.com/a/DgyMmFx

Can Garmin "Cache" the area better?

  • 0 6 days ago in reply to renschler

    thanks for the video, it’s really important to see some evidence (vs people just complaining “it’s slow”). It’s well established by now the current generation of watches (F8, E3, FR 970)  is underpowered with a CPU which was introduced with F7. My feeling is Garmin users (including myself) have a high pain tolerance for inadequate device performance. Sales are apparently great so from business perspective there is little incentive to upgrade the hardware. On the other hand, if i read through the forums it seems that some “bugs” are indeed overload situations (watch cannot complete computations fast enough) which are very hard or impossible to fix with software optimizations. So with adding more and more features and higher-resolution screens, Garmin may be forced to finally move to a new CPU with the next gen of watches. Otherwise, at some point, shitstorms may extend beyond the “forum bubble” and finally impact sales.

    btw. the “battery life is paramount, that’s why we use deliberately slow / clocked down CPUs” reasoning is also getting. Others (e.g. Suunto) clearly show that far faster UI and long runtime are possible nowadays. 

    PS: I would really like influential reviewers like DC Rainmaker to complain more loudly to Garmin about this serious issue - maybe the company would finally listen.

  • 0 6 days ago in reply to Heikoo

    I think if we made a head to head comparison of the 970 vs the Coros Pace Pro vs the Suunto maps performance it would be maybe get more eyeballs on the issue. I do wonder if Garmin could improve performance without needing more processing power if they threw more engineers at it and made the right optimizations. For example, today if I pan away, and then come back to the starting location, the starting location is slow to redraw.

  • 0 5 days ago in reply to renschler
    renschler said:
    I think if we made a head to head comparison of the 970 vs the Coros Pace Pro vs the Suunto maps performance it would be maybe get more eyeballs on the issue.

    Absolutely true. I am also wondering why DC Rainmaker did not notice this very slow map rendering in his review of the 970.

  • 0 4 hours ago

    Created a ticket with support and got a disappointing response. It sounds like it might be true, the 970 is underpowered for the display.

  • 0 4 hours ago in reply to renschler

    Its a $749 (excluding taxes) disappointing response.

    their engineers can add a amoled screen and not think of improving the processor, gpu, ram performance?

    now fenix 8 pro has even better screen, its another $1900 disappointment.

    IDK how can the garmin product not think of this in 2025? Amazfit, Suunto, Coros can add amoled screens AND provide very smooth map rendering performance, by giving battery life that is much much batter than FR970?

    I already returned my FR970, i felt it, using it for a month i tried to convince my self, its a good watch. When i went to NY last week and i tried to navigate and look around. Honestly its more worse than what people are seeing here. Man just open your maps and browse NY city downtown, its so slow you will feel like throwing your watch in garbage.

    for the give price of $749 garmin provides a plastic body, sapphire glass and only titanium bezel. When i see competitors (in terms of HW quality minus analytics) they provide much higher premium value for every inch of the watch. It feels its really worth $800 watch.

    garmin have simply changed the body and reused the stuff from side of FR965 honestly. I dont wanna pay a whopping $749 for a substandard hardware from garmin.