Garmin has announced its Fenix 7 series of sport watches, compromised of no fewer than nine different models.
The Fenix 7 comes in three sizes, the small Fenix 7S, the Fenix 7 and the longer-lasting but larger Fenix 7X. They are available in standard, solar-powered and Sapphire Solar Editions.
Big changes introduced this year are based around improvements made in Garmin’s Venu series. The Fenix 7 watches keep the chunky side buttons used in previous generations but also have a touchscreen.
Older Fenix watches did not have a touchscreen, as it is one way to accidentally pause or stop a workout. The Fenix 7’s touch interface is disabled during tracking to avoid this.
Why use a touchscreen? The watches have the slicker interface seen in Garmin’s Venu 2 watch, which feels at its best when operated by touch — although button navigation works just fine too.
The result is the Fenix 7 feels faster to operate than the Fenix 6, and offers a smoother way to access light all-day fitness tracker data like your heart rate and sleep info.
The other big change only affects the top-end Sapphire Solar models. Garmin started making solar-charging watches in 2019 with the Fenix 6X. These were expensive options but used Gorilla Glass display protection rather than the harder Sapphire.
Garmin has figured out a way to make its charging tech work with the tougher form of glass, and also claims to have improved solar charging yield by up to 200%. I have used the Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar for the past three weeks. The solar charging element sits around the screen, and appears to have a much larger total surface area than the solar charger of the Garmin Fenix 6 Solar.
This generation sees Garmin stick to the avenues of development its thinks are important, rather than adding in advanced health sensors like ECG nodes and blood pressure-recording hardware. As such the experience of living with a Fenix 7 is similar to that of a Fenix 6, just with the smoother, faster and better-looking software of the Venu watches.
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll look deeper into the modes, features and performance of the Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar. If you’re already persuaded you can check out the full range over at the Garmin website. It starts at $699.
