Garmin fenix 7S Solar, Smaller sized adventure smartwatch, with Solar Charging Capabilities, Rugged outdoor watch with GPS, touchscreen, health and wellness features, slate gray with black band

Im a Fenix 5S+ user for more than 3 years. I briefly owned Fenix 6s and returned it because it doesnt support Asian languages. I ordered Fenix 7s sapphire solar next day its announced. Let me elaborate the differences among these generations. Part1. Fenix 7 vs Fenix 5 1. 7 has much longer battery life. Almost three weeks vs 5s one week. This is huge, but I think its mostly from better power management rather than solar charging. I wear it 7/24 and never take it off. I swim three days a week, one hour each time. I time my swim by the watch. For the 5, it often brushes off 10% of the battery by doing so. Now the 7 takes only 4% off the charge 2. 7 is 5.5 grams lighter than 5. See the pictures. This is huge. I can clearly feel the difference on the wrist. Dimensions are almost identical though. 3. 7 now reads respiration rate (breath per minute) and blood oxygen saturation (only manual check) other than heart rate 4. 7 includes all languages. As a contrast, you have to buy 5 or 6 in the country with your desired language. For example, a watch you buy in USA cant read anything written in Chinese. That was absurd. Im glad Garmin realized its 21st century now. 5. 7 comes with touch screen. Although I disable it most of the time. Only chance I feel like needing it is when I view maps. Touch screen does help to zoom in and out and move around. Viewing map on 5 is quite painful if not completely useless. Part2. Fenix 7 vs Fenix 6 To be honest, theres not much of difference between two generations other than 1. 7 has touch screen and 6 doesnt 2. 7 supports most languages and 6 doesnt 3. 7 has a bit more solar charging area than 6 So, if you dont need other language support and dont use map often, go ahead and grab a Fenix 6 instead. It would save you several hundred dollars, even more when its on sale. Part3. A couple of things I expected on 7 but didnt get it 1. wireless charging. Theres no reason to have plug-in charging nowadays. Data transfer isnt the reason. 2. Theres a rumor that band charging is coming with 7. Thatd be a giant step, but it isnt easy. 3. I wish screen contrast would be improved, at least as good as 5. I can feel the white isnt that white and all other colors are faint too except black. As a conclusion, its worth upgrading from Fenix 5, but not so much from 6. Did I mention I returned my first 7? It kept shutting down all sensors. Its usually triggered by starting swim activity. All the sudden, none of sensors would work until you restart the watch. It occurred 3 times out of three weeks. The replacement hasnt had that issue since a month ago.

I didn’t give 5 stars because of some missing features. The quality is very good, all the sports apps are awesome and track very well your activities and all the details needed! For a watch which cost a around $1000, very disappointed Garmin did not include the ECG and especially the LTE. When you buy a Fenix you expect to have all the technology inside. The garmin 955 have LTE included and it’s cheaper! The garmin 7 is a great watch but because of these missing features, I have the feeling it’s just an updated Fenix 6. However, to navigate the touchscreen is very useful when you use the map

Watch was awesome, lived the LED flashlight. The solar charging was very cool. The watch was not bright enough for these old eyes.

While from the product photo, it appears the blue is more of a dull-ish blueish grey, I’m still overall happy with the watch. Also I wasn’t aware the side profile was white, so adding stainless steel band to make it more modern and classy didn’t work to the full effect I wanted. Nonetheless, Garmin makes wonderful watches and could never after going through over 10 Fitbits, I am happy to purchase something with more longevity.

Its a lot of money, if you not gonna use/need it, I would recommend an apple watch

I ended up returning this after seeing what the screen looks like in real life. Almost like a retro game or some kind of graphing calculator, very poor quality “graphics” and it really ruins the watch. Feature wise, it’s incredible.

Love the look. So comfortable I don’t mind wearing it to bed. The price is the only negative..

I’ve had 3 garmin and this one is by far the best and, for me, the main reason is because it offers a LIGHT! Not a brightness of screen but an actual light on the side of the watch. I can’t tell you how unique and useful that is. If you are use to garmin then you know all of the Normal features. If you are not then I wouldn’t do it justice by explaining but I can say the things that out do the Apple Watch. 1. Battery life, you can get this thing to last a year. I typically go a couple months without having to charge. 2. Has a built in flash light. 3. Solar power. This isn’t as powerful but it does add a bit of battery to it that you don’t realize. It allows you to check how much solar it’s been getting and how much that’s added. 4. Gets notifications with email, text, calls etc. 5. You can load music, use Spotify and pay with it. 6. Oh yea, it has the ability to have touch screen if you choose! The Apple Watch is better in 2 categories. 1. The touch screen is “better” but it has to be because that’s the way it’s designed with buttons and how you can use it. And it’s ability to take phone calls.

Garmin one more time exceeded my expectations

Its the best Fenix series watch and I am a former Fenix 5X Plus owner. I like and bought the Fenix series mostly because we can customize watch faces and Data-Filed from Garmin, and large music storage space (500+ mp3s) to listen while running without carrying a mobile. And Fenix 7 is with a touch screen now which is also one big improvement. There are also lots of choices to customize Fenix 7 watch band, screen protector, bezel in the market too :-) As to the battery life, I am a morning runner who normally only wears a watch and listens to music with AirPod, also with a Garmin running POD connected to the Fenix watch, weekly running distance ~50 miles. Normally for such a scenario, with an hour running (6-7 miles) it will cost ~10% of battery power.