Pros: Still does everything I want it to. Has great battery life still. Pretty accurate for a wrist measure, when measuring heart rate. Also has built in GPS, and even Garmin Pay although I never got it to work. Screen is perfectly visible in sunlight
Cons: Proprietary charger. I’ve had to switch the watch band 2 times.
I am about fan of Garmin and its products, I only wished that they had a program to replace batteries.
I bought a used fenix 5 for 60€ and replaced the battery (14€) myself. 35-40 days per recharge now with bluetooth and heart-rate logging. IMHO extreme value.
This is probably why I won’t go back to them. The fact that, from what I’ve seen, you just get an offer on a discounted refurb in lieu of a battery change. Either that or told to purchase a new one if the battery fails just outside of warranty, which didn’t seem rare for my watch. Given how many iterations there have been of these watches seems by design.
I’ve had my vivoactive 3 for 6 years and the only problem is the battery. When new it would last a week as a normal watch a solid 12 hours when GPS tracking.
Now its at best 36hrs between charges. About 1hr if i tried to GPS track with it.
When I look up replacement batteries not a single one has a good review.
Switching the wristband twice in ten years is normal wear if you don’t have a metallic band.
Even then, the pins need changing every now and then if you use them in salt water.
Well my original Instinct solar’s band started falling apart after less than two years. I replaced it with an incompatible one from an AliExpress watch (The Skmei died in 6 months, as it isn’t water resistant but the build quality is fine), which feels higher quality and is also more durable than original.
The Garmin watches are very high quality, relatively good for tracking, decently private and sustainable. But their bands are horrendous.
