Smartwatches have changed our lives. A smartwatch may do a wide range of tasks, including accepting calls, sending messages, and monitoring your fitness. In certain nations or areas, you can utilize the Google Wallet app on your smartwatch to make cashless transactions in stores, cafes, or online bookmakers where Google Pay is accepted. Needless to say that you need to be careful of making online transactions only in stores that are safe, i.e. trustworthy. These have the so-called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate, their URLs start with “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP”, and they have a green padlock to the left of the URL. Or, speaking of bookies, avoid bookies that have not gone through the necessary testing or licensing and also pick those that are trusted, like betting sites that accept Neteller, for example.
Anyway, here we are talking about another kind of smartwatch…
Garmin Enduro is the perfect fitness watch for trail running and other outdoor adventures, with a battery that lasts for days; but if you tend to spend a lot of time outdoors, it might not be right for you.
We had the opportunity to try out the extremely durable Garmin Enduro top-quality solar running watch. We tested the quality of its design and performance and highlighted its features. It is safe to say that if you are looking for a rugged trail running or endurance watch, with great battery life, this one is for you.
Garmin is a very reputable manufacturer of some of the best fitness trackers and fitness watches, and thanks to their advanced GPS features, more than one trail runner has entrusted their well-being to Garmin during ultra-runs or triathlons. Although this model did not quite make it to the top of the list of the best Garmin watches, it still deserves a place on it.
Design and Display
The design of the watch is similar to the Fenix 7. Its 51mm x 51mm x 14.9mm case makes it a chunky watch, especially for small wrists, but it’s light, at just 61g for the DLC-coated titanium option and 71g for the stainless steel version. We tested the model with DLC coating. Combined with the electric glass, the watch’s 10ATM water resistance, and incredible battery life, you will hardly ever need to take it off, even to charge it. The strap it comes with is a simple fabric velcro that will not win any style awards, but Garmin Quickfit straps are compatible if you want to change them.
The box contains five buttons including one metal ’master’ button to start and stop exercises, which acts as an ’OK’ button. The other four are simple plastic, one that activates the backlight, two “up” and “down” buttons and a “back” button that doubles as a “circle” function to set a baseline for your times. Overall, we liked the design: it is easy to use and easy to scroll through stats, select your workouts, and pause and set lap times during a run. The design of the Garmin operating system is similarly ergonomic. It is so feature-packed that selecting a home screen and viewing stats can be a tedious process. However, once you’ve spent a few days getting used to the watch, it is easy to scroll through and access weather data, steps, heart rate history, compass, sunrise/sunset, and more with a push of the “down“ button.
Watch Options
Enduro is packed with features and capabilities. The sports profiles themselves contain many different types of swimming, running, cycling, strength, yoga, and multi-part activities, although endurance sports get the lion’s share of the workout watch metrics. Enduro has a pulse oximeter tracker to track your recovery, VO2 max, stress tracking, and sleep tracking. The watch packs them into a Body Battery score, similar to the Polar Vantage Nightly Recharge. These stats learn from your previous exercise records and are designed to reveal when you should be training and when you should be taking it easy.
This is in addition to a host of other health metrics that come standard with every fitness watch, such as continuous heart rate monitoring via Garmin Elevate technology and skin temperature detection. The watch will also alert you if your heart rate is irregular.
As befits any high-end adventure watch, its GPS functions are good: the screen offers positioning at any point in your workout, along with a TracBack feature that lets you track your steps, which is essential on the trail. Combined with a built-in compass and gyroscope, GPS will provide you with an arrow that dictates your position and a red line to follow.
At the end of each run, bike ride, or swim, you will be able to see a small map of your route displayed on your watch, with the option to save it as a regular route. However, there is no topography, as the map is flat, although the watch will read your altitude and descent statistics. Solar battery technology means the watch will charge itself during your adventures, extending battery life to the frankly ridiculous times listed above; 50 days in smartwatch mode and up to a year in “battery saving“ mode with solar charging. During the testing period, we never had to charge the watch after setting it up, thanks to which we were able to complete four hours of exercise during the week, which is hardly a battery principle.
One feature we would love to see, but unfortunately, Enduro lacks, is the ability to have built-in stored music. The watch can act as a remote to control music or other audio from your phone, but there is no native music storage on the watch. If you are trying to get the bare minimum gear for a race, you will need to carry your phone if you want to practice with the soundtrack. This seems like a feature removed to make room for the enormous battery life.
Watch Performance
We tested the Garmin Enduro’s features over the course of a week, completing several different runs and one strength training session. We loved Enduro’s running features: the level of depth we got into the metrics was impressive, with reports on altitude, VO2 max, and more available during the run, not just in the post-run report. However, in our first attempt at the watch, we turned on auto-pause, which is designed to automatically pause your workout when you stop. This function is theoretically ideal for busy city driving, which requires stopping at intersections and intersections. However, the watch was too sensitive, pausing at small speed changes, so we quickly turned that setting off.
After that, the operation of the watch was simple, a five-button function, with easy-to-read metrics thanks to the always-on function and GPS with “TracBack“ features that allow us to accurately track our steps.
We tested the watch by running with it, as well as an everyday watch, the Polar Vantage V2. We also had UnderArmour’s MayMyRun running on our phone at the same time.
Apart from the minute difference in time, which is responsible for the fact that we had to spend a few seconds turning each watch and application on and off one after the other, all three produced similar results. The Polar Vantage V2 stood in comparison to Garmin Enduro at 0.04 kilometers, and there was only one calorie difference between the two-hour calorie counts. MapMyRun gave similar results, so we were happy with the accuracy of the watch while running. If anything, Garmin’s impressive GPS credentials probably make it the most accurate of the three.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for exercises in the gym. Enduro’s Strength profile uses the watch’s gyroscope to count your reps, but it is more accurate for some exercises than others: it counted reps easily enough for the bench press, but when overhead presses were attempted, the watch struggled: it counted at least three extra reps, at least one or two come from the ’pure’ need to get the weight up to the shoulders and safely back down. You can manually adjust your rep score for each set using the “up“ and “down“ buttons on the watch, but until then you might as well write it down in your notebook.
Conclusion
Garmin Enduro is a phenomenal watch tailor-made for runners and ultra-marathoners, with full Garmin advanced GPS features and a long-lasting solar battery that ensures you will never get lost, even if you are out for a week or so. The watch boasts a great design and has a huge number of tools and features, so it will take you some time to learn everything the watch can do.
But this is by no means a watch without minuses. Firstly, the music component is not very satisfactory, although it uses a lot of multisport functionality, some of the features are not fully utilized and their implementation could have been better. All in all, it is an excellent watch, which you can buy today for around HRK 600. But if you are looking for a comprehensive fitness watch for everyday use, rather than a dedicated endurance tracker, you would be better off spending a few more bucks and opting for another model.
Pros:
- Fantastic battery life on a fitness watch.
- Garmin’s complete suite of GPS track features.
- Robust and durable design.
Cons:
- No embedded music.
- Multisport options are not intuitive.
The price of the device on the official Garmin online store is $799.99, but, at this very moment, it can be found for almost half that price on Amazon.