Garmin ridicules Apple Watch Ultra Garmin's patience seems to have finally snapped. After days of nonsense from Apple lovers that the Apple Watch Ultra is gunning for the Enduro-Epix-Fenix crown, Garmin gave in to the inevitable and issued a pithy rebuke. We measure battery life in months. Not hours Of course, Apple could quite readily have responded We measure watch sales in millions. Not hundreds of thousands Personally, I think it's best not to temp faith. Check out this quote from Nokia from 2013. [caption id="attachment_75625" align="aligncenter" width="858"] Garmin: Tempting Faith?[/caption] Let's cut through the nonsense. Whilst current generations of Garmin watches do have some battery issues, they also have amazing battery lives. Garmin has solved the battery conundrum ...after a fashion. Garmin does NOT have a magic battery wand to wave but rather they have put together a package that has a largish battery with slightly underpowered hardware and/or low-resolution screens plus some state-of-the-art components...a little bit like Apple except Apple's screens are superior and power hungry. That said, the awesomely-screened Garmin Epix 2 also has a better battery life than the Apple Watch Ultra providing you don't have the brightness cranked up too much and a detailed map always displayed. But that's not the nonsense I'm talking about. The nonsense comes from Apple lovers claiming that the Apple Watch Ultra will soon be crowned the king of outdoor wearables...the new phoenix has risen from the ashes of the Fenix 7...or something like that could be their mantra. There is absolutely no way that the Apple Watch Ultra will be used by "pro-level" outdoor expeditionists to find the source of the Amazon or scale the heights of the Himalayas. It's more that Ken and Kate, avid iPhone owners, will be deliriously happy that their Watch Ultra can just about handle their upcoming camping weekend and their first triathlon next year...it'll save them buying that pesky extra Garmin. That's where the problem lies tho. In years gone by, Kate and Ken would have bought a Fenix but now, much to Garmin's annoyance, they don't have to. They just get that one very smart watch to see them through the week at work and a Wednesday evening jog or yoga class. Then a quick Friday night recharge gets them through their latest weekend adventure. They might even take the Ultra for a resort dive on their upcoming trip to the Great Barrier Reef as the Apple Watch Ultra is a certified entry-level dive computer, which the Fenix isn't. At least all that is assuming Kate and Ken both have fairly large wrists otherwise a Fenix 7X/Apple Watch Ultra might look a bit silly ;-) Ken and Kate will never do an Ironman triathlon and if they did they would invest in the tech that they 'need' and that would include a bike power meter which the Apple Watch Ultra does not natively support. They'd probably also be quite slow over the Ironman and not able to use the dual-frequency super-accuracy GPS that Apple suggests they could. So Apple Watch Ultra absolutely is not and will never be the best outdoor adventure sports watch. BUT it definitely WILL be MORE THAN good enough to pick the low-hanging fruit of Garmin's Fenix customer base. Finally, Garmin has a problem called Apple. https://the5krunner.com/2022/04/29/garmin-epix-2-review/
