Garmin Fenix 5x – Full specs and commentary

Bad news for non-Garmin companies. The Fenix 5 has lots and lots and lots of ‘stuff’; lots of versions available now at upwards of US$600 – maxing out at US$850.

Full Fenix 5 Review (here)

Here is an overview comparison; or you can page down tot he table of comparative specs at the end of this post.

• It never used to have proper maps – it does now!! At least at the top end of the F5 range, that is. Essentially it will work & route like your SATNAV and you can add your own maps to it.
• It didn’t used to have many meaningful variants – it does now (check the exact features for the model you are interested in) – a small one, a normal one and an over-sized map-one.
• The F3 screen wasn’t quite hi-res enough – it still isn’t BUT it has improved further over the Chronos/F3 (now 240×240 compared to 218×218; and the SPARTAN has 320×300). Although note that the smaller 5s is still 218×218 (Source: garmin.com) – that is disappointing.
• Battery life was always pretty good – now it’s better. Although the precise battery power over and above the 300mAh of the F3 is not stated. ULTRATRAC is officially cited as up to 100 hours otherwise you may well get the official 20 hours of GPS battery life…not bad at all!
• It used to have 16 colours – now it has 64.
• F5 comes in slightly smaller than the older F3 sapphire: 47x47x15.5mm compared to 51.5×51.5×16.0mm
  • F5s comes is NOTABLY SMALLER than the F5 at 42.0×42.0x14.5 mm
  • This might appeal to smaller-wristed people
  • There are 3 case variants: 42mm, 47mm, 51mm (maps). ie the 5s, 5 and 5x versions.
• F5 comes in with a slightly larger display than the older F3 sapphire: F5-30.5mm vs F3-30.4mm (27.94mm on the F5s)
• F5 Sapphire with silicon band is 87g whereas the older F3 Sapphire/titanium with silicon band was 78.2g. The F5s with silicon band is 67g
• It used to have just enough memory – now, overall, it’s doubled (although no doubt to cope with greater demands)
• wifi wasn’t on the chronos…now it’s back (Sapphire only)
• It has training effect 2.0 features (including anaerobic TE), comes with a HRM-TRI (in the appropriate version) and all that that entails with regards to multi-sports and caching.
• It supports footpods
• It does SUP and other new profiles
• It has music control
• It supports TEMPE
• oHR – naturellement (option)
• CIQ 2 – mais oui.
• ANT+ – doh. But also Bluetooth sensor support. Yep, that’s right. Might take longer to support BTLE PMs
• Slightly higher prices than the F3 but nothing any more, or less, eye-watering.
• Trackback, ultratrac, glonass, EXO, power…yes, yes, yessity, yes, yes.

Missing: With native support of some Bluetooth sensors and native support of BSX/Moxy’s muscle oxygen data it seems strange that RUNNING POWER is not there. More intriguing than strange. I have a conspiracy but in the meantime there’ too much excitement here about the new Fenix 5 to worry about those (yet 😉 )

You can see from the comparison below that the products appear feature-similar other than the additional features at the end and some of the hardware specifications