I wasn’t going to write about this issue again, but Instinct 3 has just surfaced an exciting, new class of problems due to its being under-specified, aka made-on-the-cheap. Essentially, a new update cannot be installed because the device has insufficient space…Jeez, c’mon, Garmin, it’s 2025. You must be able to buy memory for about 10 cents. It isn’t very respectful when we have to pay $500, and you can’t cough up 10 cents for a decent component.
There is a similar issue with the marque Garmin Fenix 8, and other high-end Garmin watches with maps. Sometimes, they take up to 10 seconds to render maps correctly. OK, the cost of a more powerful CPU is more significant than another few megabytes of memory, but the Fenix 8 is a $1000 watch. Under-specified components are inexcusable at that price.
Turning back to the latest Instinct 3 problem. I’m not sure of the exact meaning of every American phrase, but Mike’s comment here of ‘Pretty Bummed‘ seems like an understatement for a bricked device. C’mon Garmin, start thinking of your paying customers, not your shareholders.
Perhaps you should volunteer to design products for Garmin. Lend your significant expertise to the cause. Of course you’ll need to keep in mind that these devices need to run for weeks on a single charge, but you’ll certainly figure that out too.
They don’t NEED to run for (4-5-6-…) weeks… if a few days less battery power would be all it takes to support a higher memory and in turn would provide a much better customer experience!
Hi Garmin, thanks not to sell a smartwatch in 2025 with only 128Mo of storage.
If you are a great sportwatch and weareable industry leader, maybe 256Mo …. or 8Gb like Forerunner 165 which is sold at a lower price 😉
It would be interesting to know how many frustrated users are returning their watches at this point. Maybe the I3 Pro or I4 will deal with this issue. But I am definitely out…unless I can score one really cheap on ebay or marketplace in a couple month. I used to be an early adopter for years with the Fenix, Enduro, Epix, Venu and Instinct,…but unless something really super innovative comes around (microLed perhaps), I will go 2nd hand in the future. Just bought a 1 year old Epix Pro sapphire S for my wife for 400€! You can get a F8 for as low as 650-700. I am tired of shelling out 1000€+ and get cut off by Garmin 1-2 years later because support drops to a minimum. I still love Garmin but I have to rethink our “abusive” relationship ;-))
“I’ve not seen any mainstream Instinct 3 reviews give anything more than a passing mention of bugs.”
Hmm, that’s odd. I literally had an entire section dedicated to bugs in the review. Line item, one after another, complete with status of each one. Though, maybe I’m not considered mainstream.
As for referencing Wahoo ACE, I’m perplexed on this one too. The Wahoo ACE is, by any reputable reviewers account, not even half-baked. It’s whatever 1/10th baked was. The Edge 1050 at launch was quite solid, one only need to go back and see comments from both users that actually bought the device then, or reviewers (pick whichever one you want). I’m not really sure why we’re looking at firmware update lists and deciding it’s a good thing to be harsh on the companies that actually put detail out there on what’s fixed. Else, the ‘smart’ companies will just simply title it “Fixed some bugs”. After all,that’s precisely what Wahoo did in their latest ACE release notes, a single item mentioning bugs fixed, when we all know it’s weeks worth of dev works of bug fixes.
Seems like that’s kinda the wrong message to send.
Just to follow up on this one, Garmin released a new firmware version – 7.08 yesterday for the Instinct 3.
In the release notes, it simply says: “Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.”
That’s it. That’s all that’s in there according to the release notes. Gone are all the details we’d historically have found on bugs.
In reality, this version actually fixes a ton of issues, including many of the issues I had in my review (in fact, almost every bug item in my review is fixed in this fw). But of course, nobody publically knows what’s fixed now, because Garmin was effectively told to stop listing bugs which bugs to fix, else they’ll get punished for fixing them.
there seems to be a little industry developing with some of the mainstream tech sites frequently writing about new features and fixes. I understand that those posts are quite popular. Maybe Garmin wants to stop that?
Don’t get me wrong, the whole too-small storage thing on Solar is stupid, and this is exactly why (the item you linked to). Totally agree there.
Also agree seeing the the increased focus of various sites talking about every feature. To be fair, when I’m bored enough I cover the bigger Fenix/Forerunner update announcements – and those do well view-wise. Though, they also frustrate many people when features are exclusive to only new watches. The last few years, people were pretty happy with Fenix 7 updates going to both Pro and non-Pro alike. Of course, that seems to have ended now.
In another post on Garmin forum there is a solution explained. For a moment I felt as if I visited Linux user forum 🙂
Perhaps you should volunteer to design products for Garmin. Lend your significant expertise to the cause. Of course you’ll need to keep in mind that these devices need to run for weeks on a single charge, but you’ll certainly figure that out too.
They don’t NEED to run for (4-5-6-…) weeks… if a few days less battery power would be all it takes to support a higher memory and in turn would provide a much better customer experience!
No problem, i can help 🙂
Hi Garmin, thanks not to sell a smartwatch in 2025 with only 128Mo of storage.
If you are a great sportwatch and weareable industry leader, maybe 256Mo …. or 8Gb like Forerunner 165 which is sold at a lower price 😉
Put 8gb on it and people will complain that they should be able to sync Spotify playlist and have full maps (which of course they should be able to!)
The enduro 3/ Fenix 8 solar does pretty well with 32GB. 128MB is kinda inexcusable given that even the instinct 3 AMOLED gets 4GB of storage…
It would be interesting to know how many frustrated users are returning their watches at this point. Maybe the I3 Pro or I4 will deal with this issue. But I am definitely out…unless I can score one really cheap on ebay or marketplace in a couple month. I used to be an early adopter for years with the Fenix, Enduro, Epix, Venu and Instinct,…but unless something really super innovative comes around (microLed perhaps), I will go 2nd hand in the future. Just bought a 1 year old Epix Pro sapphire S for my wife for 400€! You can get a F8 for as low as 650-700. I am tired of shelling out 1000€+ and get cut off by Garmin 1-2 years later because support drops to a minimum. I still love Garmin but I have to rethink our “abusive” relationship ;-))
If, you are tired of lack of support/communication from Garmin during the lifecycle “always sold product” from Garmin.
We start a thread here – https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/1ihbdr6/comment/mavy0pi/
When’s instinct 3x coming out?
I assume the 50mm version is the 3X.
“I’ve not seen any mainstream Instinct 3 reviews give anything more than a passing mention of bugs.”
Hmm, that’s odd. I literally had an entire section dedicated to bugs in the review. Line item, one after another, complete with status of each one. Though, maybe I’m not considered mainstream.
As for referencing Wahoo ACE, I’m perplexed on this one too. The Wahoo ACE is, by any reputable reviewers account, not even half-baked. It’s whatever 1/10th baked was. The Edge 1050 at launch was quite solid, one only need to go back and see comments from both users that actually bought the device then, or reviewers (pick whichever one you want). I’m not really sure why we’re looking at firmware update lists and deciding it’s a good thing to be harsh on the companies that actually put detail out there on what’s fixed. Else, the ‘smart’ companies will just simply title it “Fixed some bugs”. After all,that’s precisely what Wahoo did in their latest ACE release notes, a single item mentioning bugs fixed, when we all know it’s weeks worth of dev works of bug fixes.
Seems like that’s kinda the wrong message to send.
Apologies for indirectly including you, I’ve revised the sentence accordingly.
Just to follow up on this one, Garmin released a new firmware version – 7.08 yesterday for the Instinct 3.
In the release notes, it simply says: “Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.”
That’s it. That’s all that’s in there according to the release notes. Gone are all the details we’d historically have found on bugs.
In reality, this version actually fixes a ton of issues, including many of the issues I had in my review (in fact, almost every bug item in my review is fixed in this fw). But of course, nobody publically knows what’s fixed now, because Garmin was effectively told to stop listing bugs which bugs to fix, else they’ll get punished for fixing them.
The irony is that the first post I saw on the Instinct forum was from someone unable to update to 7.08
https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/instinct-3/404365/unable-to-upgrade-to-version-7-08
there seems to be a little industry developing with some of the mainstream tech sites frequently writing about new features and fixes. I understand that those posts are quite popular. Maybe Garmin wants to stop that?
Don’t get me wrong, the whole too-small storage thing on Solar is stupid, and this is exactly why (the item you linked to). Totally agree there.
Also agree seeing the the increased focus of various sites talking about every feature. To be fair, when I’m bored enough I cover the bigger Fenix/Forerunner update announcements – and those do well view-wise. Though, they also frustrate many people when features are exclusive to only new watches. The last few years, people were pretty happy with Fenix 7 updates going to both Pro and non-Pro alike. Of course, that seems to have ended now.