Garmin Fenix 8 vs Apple Watch Extremely 2

• The very best general professional smartwatch for health

  Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED

  The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED blends smartwatch and journey watch options into one extremely superior wearable with a vibrant AMOLED show. It includes a microphone and speaker to take calls and use voice instructions proper in your wrist, plus an expansive record of coaching and navigation instruments. 

  Execs

  • Rugged construct
  • Spectacular battery life
  • Extremely correct well being and health information

  Cons

  • Laggy efficiency
  • Voice assistant feels undercooked

• 

  A superb different for iPhone devotees

  Apple Watch Extremely 2

  The Apple Watch Extremely 2 is a premium smartwatch targeted on providing in-depth health monitoring and a for much longer battery life than a standard Apple Watch. As of 2024 it additionally is available in a black titanium end.

  Execs

  • Show is shiny and exquisite
  • Gesture controls are useful
  • Integration with iPhone is unbeatable

  Cons

  • Battery life is not that lengthy
  • Missing in navigation and hardcore health options

Why are you seeking to buy a “Professional” smartwatch? It is the primary query it is best to ask your self earlier than spending upwards of $800 on one thing you put on in your wrist. Are you shopping for it only for the additional battery life and premium supplies or are you a severe athlete who really wants the additional abilities solely considered one of Apple or Garmin’s high-end watches can present?

The Garmin Fenix 8 is a small however welcome improve to the corporate’s premium smartwatch line (now combining the Fenix and the Epix), including in a microphone and audio system, together with entry to voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant instantly out of your watch. It is now a more in-depth comparability to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, a equally rugged smartwatch that Apple’s aimed toward severe athletes and followers of the outside.

Simply because these “Professional” watches share many options on paper does not imply they’re minimize from the identical fabric. Now that the Garmin’s new watch is out, we will put it face to face with Apple’s. This is how the Garmin Fenix 8 and the Apple Watch Extremely 2 evaluate, which smartwatch comes out on prime, and which it is best to decide relying in your reply to my first query.

Worth, availability, and specs

Each watches can get costly, quick

Garmin initially introduced its new Fenix line in August 2024. The Fenix 8 is definitely considered one of a number of choices the corporate is now promoting, together with the cheaper $799 Fenix E, which does not have a built-in flashlight, microphone, or audio system, the $1,099.99 Fenix 8 Photo voltaic, which makes use of a transflective Reminiscence-in-Pixel show and contains built-in photo voltaic panels to remain charged for longer, and a number of sizes of the Fenix 8 AMOLED (43mm, 47mm, and 51mm), which begin at $999.99.

The 47mm Fenix E is probably the most just like the Apple Watch Extremely 2 when it comes to worth, however the Fenix 8 AMOLED is a greater comparability due to its built-in audio system, microphones, and AMOLED display screen.

The Apple Watch Extremely 2 was launched in Sept. 2023, alongside the Apple Watch Series 9 and iPhone 15. In 2024, fairly than announce an Extremely 3, Apple introduced that the Sequence 10’s new sleep apnea detection characteristic can be accessible on the $799 Extremely 2, and the watch would come in a new black titanium finish.

The Apple Watch Extremely 2 options the S9 SiP, which helps issues like on-device Siri and gesture controls. It additionally has a show that may attain 3000 nits of brightness. Past that, the Extremely 2 is the unique Extremely. Garmin to an identical tact with the Garmin Fenix 8. The one new additions are the audio system, microphone, and improved sturdiness for diving. The remainder of the modifications are principally constructed round what these few {hardware} tweaks allow. It is a very comparable Fenix to the one Garmin launched earlier than. For a comparability between the remainder of the watches’ specs, try the desk under:

• 	Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED	Apple Watch Extremely 2
  Model	Garmin	Apple
  Coronary heart Charge Monitor	Sure	Electrical and optical
  Shade Display	Sure	3000nits
  Battery Life	As much as 16 days (7 days always-on) for 47mm mannequin	As much as 72 hours
  Lens Materials	Corning Gorilla Glass or sapphire crystal	Sapphire
  Case Materials	fiber-reinforced polymer with steel rear cowl	Titanium
  Case measurement	43mm, 47mm, or 51mm	49mm
  Show	AMOLED	1,185 sq mm, 410×502 pixel decision, 3000 nits 49mm
  Connectivity	Bluetooth, ANT+, Wi-Fi	GPS & Mobile
  Well being sensors	Coronary heart fee monitor, thermometer, pulse ox monitor, barometric altimeter, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, ambient mild sensor	Physique temperature, Blood oxygen, Optical coronary heart fee, Electrical coronary heart fee, 86dB siren, Depth Gauge
  Dimensions	47 x 47 x 13.8 mm (47mm mannequin)	49 x 44 x 14.4mm
  Weight	Chrome steel: 80 g, Titanium: 73 g (47mm mannequin)	61.3g
  Cellular funds	Sure	Apple Pay

The Fenix 8 and Extremely 2 do not change designs that already work

Apple and Garmin are transport watches which can be similar to their predecessors

On the subject of fashion, you do not go to Garmin’s high-end smartwatches or Apple’s Extremely for one thing that may very well be described as “trendy.” These are rugged gadgets that, for probably the most half, put their performance above their look. That is not a nasty factor.

The Garmin Fenix 8 includes a spherical show with a thick titanium or stainless-steel physique (with non-obligatory sapphire entrance glass), and is available in a number of sizes relying on how massive a display screen and the way giant a wrist you could have. The 43mm choice ought to be ok for most individuals, however you’ll be able to go as much as 51mm if you happen to’re searching for the biggest doable choice, even bigger than the 49mm Apple Watch Extremely 2.

The Fenix 8 has a touchscreen that may allow you to management a majority of the smartwatch together with your finger, however there are many buttons too: three on the left aspect of the watch that management energy, scrolling by way of menus, and issues like notifications and music controls, and two on the correct aspect that allow you to management exercise monitoring and entry voice assistants.

The Apple Watch Extremely 2 is a bit more stripped down as compared. Apple’s smartwatch has an OLED display screen that is flush with the physique of the watch, and formed extra like a rounded sq. than a circle. Which means the watches’ interfaces are slightly bit simpler to learn and in addition that the Extremely 2 is appropriate with the Apple Watch bands that Apple and third-party accent makers have made up to now.

There is no getting round it, the Apple Watch Extremely 2 is thick, similar to the Fenix 8, although it has a less complicated set of buttons to cope with. On one aspect there’s the Digital Crown used for navigating interfaces and activating Siri, and a aspect button that launches into Management Heart or Apple Pay. And on the opposite aspect is the Motion Button, which might be assigned as a shortcut for launching a selected exercise and some different choices.

Which watch design works higher for you’ll rely totally on style. I believe there’s an actual allure to a spherical show, however both means, you are going to be coping with a heavier smartwatch than what you’d get for just a few hundred {dollars} much less.

Apple runs circles round Garmin in software program simplicity, not performance

The Garmin Fenix 8 can do greater than the Apple Watch Extremely 2, so long as you care about health

Apple makes higher designed software program than Garmin, however Garmin is keen to let the Fenix 8 do greater than Extremely 2. Sure, Garmin makes you shift by way of a number of layers of interfaces and menus simply to make use of its watch, however it’s nonetheless an informative, if a bit complicated, working system.

It is value it for all the information Garmin surfaces and for all of the various things the watch can monitor, although. The Fenix 8’s Glances display screen surfaces extra frequent issues like altimeter readings or coronary heart fee variance, but additionally actually, actually particular information factors like the situation of your canine or the subsequent gap in your golf sport. That is on prime of notifications out of your smartphone and all of the well being and health options you possibly can probably need.

The addition of the speaker and microphone array implies that the Fenix 8 can even entry voice assistants, an on-device assistant that controls the watch, beginning a exercise or adjusting settings, and a cellphone assistant that requires a connection to your smartphone and an web connection to work. In our overview, we discovered the cellphone assistant works properly, however oddly, solely offers you audio suggestions — visible outcomes are nonetheless displayed in your cellphone.

Apple’s method to watchOS is as straightforward to know because the iPhone’s iOS, with some added depth the place it issues. The primary display screen of the working system is the watch face, with a stack of widgets or a extra conventional app launcher, a scroll or press of the Digital Crown away. Apple’s closely depending on apps, in that you will have to launch one to see or do something significant on the watch. Glanceable data is restricted to problems on a watch face or widgets within the sensible stack.

The Apple Watch Extremely 2 is extra selective within the well being and health options it gives, but additionally has extra of a wealthy app ecosystem than the Garmin. It is extra of slightly iPhone in that means. That is a helpful means to consider the software program of the Garmin Fenix 8 in comparison with the Apple Watch Extremely 2. Garmin’s watches grew from hardcore health and GPS trackers into smartwatches. The Apple Watch began as a smartwatch — emphasis on the sensible — and is simply now attempting to do a few of the hardcore health monitoring and navigation duties that Garmin has been doing for years.

For those who want that deep integration together with your smartphone, otherwise you want your smartwatch to do and entry all the identical issues your smartphone can, watchOS and the Apple Watch Extremely 2 may be a greater match. The Garmin Fenix 8 covers all crucial issues a smartwatch ought to do, however it’ll by no means have the extent of integration with a smartphone that an Apple Watch and an iPhone have.

The Fenix 8’s well being and health monitoring runs laps across the Apple Watch Extremely 2

So many exercises tracked, a number of well being components measured

Garmin has collected a wealth of exercise monitoring and navigation options in its a number of a long time of making wearables. There’s fundamentals like sleep monitoring, exercise monitoring, or coronary heart fee monitoring, but additionally a rising record of extra difficult or particular metrics, together with Coaching Readiness, which measures your restoration, Coaching Standing, a measurement if you happen to’re coaching successfully, and an Endurance Rating, which describes your capability “to maintain extended effort.”

The Fenix 8 has a coronary heart fee sensor, a pulse oximeter, and the standard assortment of a compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, and altimeter. Mixed, Garmin’s capable of monitor a number of totally different sports activities and exercise varieties, on prime of offering issues like GPS navigation and topographic maps.

Apple’s record of well being and health options touches on the identical common themes, however is extra restricted as compared. The Apple Watch Extremely 2 can monitor your coronary heart fee, coronary heart fee variance, take an ECG, and do sleep monitoring. There’s exercise monitoring for a choose group of exercises, with extra in-depth options for issues like working, biking, and diving. It has the fundamentals that most individuals will want, however may not go in-depth sufficient for probably the most severe athletes.

Apple does embody some distinctive well being and security options like Crash Detection, Irregular Coronary heart Rhythm Notifications, and as of watchOS 11, Sleep Apnea Detection, that Garmin does not have, however whether or not that makes it value shopping for over the Garmin Fenix 8 may range vastly from individual to individual.

The distinction between the battery lifetime of the Garmin Fenix 8 and Apple Watch Extremely 2 is nice

We’re speaking about days fairly than hours

In our exams of the Apple Watch Extremely 2, we had been capable of squeeze greater than Apple’s promised 36 hours of battery life. If something, the corporate is conservative with its smartwatch battery life estimates, it is doable to even blow previous the 72 hours Apple guarantees when Low Energy Mode is enabled. However that pales compared to what’s doable on the Garmin Fenix 8.

With the Garmin Fenix 8, battery life extends into the times, not hours. With the always-on show characteristic disabled, we had been capable of get 16 days of battery life, handily trumping the Extremely 2’s two days. That falls to seven days when the always-on show is enabled, however that is nonetheless implausible battery life in comparison with mainly each different smartwatch on the market.

The Garmin Fenix 8’s battery efficiency might be tweaked additional if you use it completely as a GPS navigation system, and that is actually the purpose. It is a way more versatile device than the Apple Watch Extremely 2, even when it behaves like much less of a “laptop.”

Which smartwatch is best for you?

There are apparent similarities between the Garmin Fenix 8 and the Apple Watch Extremely 2 when it comes to the multipurpose function they function smartwatches, however the particulars matter. The Garmin Fenix 8 may not be a dramatic enchancment on its predecessors, however it’s completely a greater health system than the Apple Watch Extremely 2, and relying on what belongings you’re involved in maintaining monitor of, a greater well being device too.

Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED

The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED blends smartwatch and journey watch options into one extremely superior wearable with a vibrant AMOLED show. It includes a microphone and speaker to take calls and use voice instructions proper in your wrist, plus an expansive record of coaching and navigation instruments. 

The place the Apple Watch Extremely 2 wins is its integration with the iPhone, and its potential as a tool that may run apps in its personal proper. Apple would possibly push the envelope with new well being monitoring options down the street too, however it stays to be seen whether or not one thing like optical blood stress monitoring makes its means again to the Apple Watch Extremely 2 particularly.

Apple Watch Extremely 2

The Apple Watch Extremely 2 is a premium smartwatch targeted on providing in-depth health monitoring and a for much longer battery life than a standard Apple Watch. As of 2024 it additionally is available in a black titanium end.

Which brings us again to the query I posed initially. Why are you attempting to purchase considered one of these “Professional” smartwatches? If it is for the premium well being and health monitoring options, spend a bit extra and purchase the Garmin Fenix 8. You may respect simply how a lot it is capable of do. If it is for extra premium supplies and an extended battery life (and also you personal an iPhone), the Apple Watch Extremely 2 goes to be the best choice.