A great multisport watch doesn’t have to be a sizeable multisport watch. The Garmin Fenix 5 has taken the aggressive line of multipurpose Fenix watches and narrowed it down to something that looks a little less bulky. It comes in 3 shell sizes, thinking about comfort according to the physical type of each person. This Fenix 5 has a 47mm case, compared to the 51mm on the Fenix 3.
For its part, the Fenix 5S is a sports watch for women and anyone with a smaller wrist, which has a 42 mm case. Almost more important than size is what the Fenix 5 is capable of and what it is supposed to do. For its part, the Fenix 5 Plus comes in 3 sizes, 42, 47, and 51 mm.
Garmin Fenix 5 main features
- Weight: 85g. with a silicone strap. Screen: 30.5 mm. diameter.
- Heart rate: on the wrist.
- Water resistance: 10 ATMs suitable for swimming, diving, and snorkeling, water sports.
- Battery life: Smartwatch mode: up to ten days, GPS up to 18 hours, GPS and music up to 8 hours, UltraTrac mode up to 42 hours.
- Technology: smart notifications, gyroscope, barometric altimeter, and 3-axis compass, Garmin Pay, stores up to 1,000 songs, Bluetooth, ANT +, Wi-Fi.
- Sport profiles: activity tracking, running, cycling, gym, golf, swimming, dep. Nautical, triathlon.
- Sensors: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO.
The button in the upper right corner takes you to sports options. The lower right button returns a step in the clock interface and allows to mark laps.
On the left side of the face, there is a backlight button. Another two buttons act as up and down buttons and shortcuts to data pages. These show you the daily step count; calories burned, local weather, altitude, and recent notifications.
The 27.94 mm screen. It’s the same transflective, multi-color display you’ll find on other newer Garmin watches. However, this model does not have an updated resolution. The Fenix5S is 218 x 218 pixels, while the five and 5X now have a slightly higher resolution of 240 x 240 pixels.
For almost any sport
It can be viewed correctly in sunlight, although there is not much innovation on the screen. But you have to talk about what it does. It has GPS, Glonass, an accelerometer, gyroscope, altimeter, barometer, compass, and built-in heart rate sensors.
Perfect for outdoor sports. Running, trail running, hiking, climbing, road, track, mountain biking, pool and open water swimming, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, triathlon, paddle surfing, strength training, and is perfect for a round of golf on your favorite course. It is water-proof up to 100 meters deep and records lengths, distance, pace, stroke count, and calories burned.
Details that make the Fenix 5 different
The Fenix5 tracks most sports, but if it doesn’t include the one you’re interested in, you can create it using the buttons on the watch. It’s as fun as entering a password with the TV remote and assigning the GPS to it.
All of this is what makes del Fenix different. Not only does it track your sport, but it also provides you with a wealth of specific data. Get an accurate reading of distance and pace outdoors, and you can easily change the data screens while you are training.
Indoor only without GPS, it gives approximate readings compared to what a treadmill says. Although heart rate readings tend to be incomplete on a wristwatch, the Fenix 5S generally offers reasonably accurate readings, reasonably close to what can be obtained with a chest strap.
Accurate heart rate
According to Garmin, the sample rate for non-training heart rate readings on Fenix 5 was increased. This means that it now reads the data more frequently throughout the day and should theoretically provide better measurements.
Now you can divide your workouts into aerobic and anaerobic activities. This is something new and that you will love if you also like fitness.
Like other sports watches, it gives you a maximum VO2 estimate and will inform you of your current training status. You will know if you are exaggerating or if you should train as usual, as well as your training load for a more extended period.
You can create interval workouts and upload them to the watch. And customize the watch’s multisport mode to make it track everything you want.
Its less positive side
As for its flaws, the Garmin Fenix 5S has the disadvantages of previous Garmin sports watches, such as the inability to interact much with notifications or with any mobile application. Garmin has had years to work on it’s smart app and features. But he has preferred to focus on the express purpose of a device like this.
And for people who care about music when playing sports, the Fenix 5 watches do not have this option yet. You can control it from the watch, but you can’t load the music and run without using the phone.
Garmin Connect
It’s not that the Garmin Connect mobile app is incomplete. It works on almost all smartphones. And freely share data with other popular health and fitness apps.
But there is little about Garmin Connect that attracts enough to open regularly, other than syncing the clock. While the watch itself offers much guidance after intense workouts, it lacks finesse when it involves daily activity alerts.
The watch face tells you that you have been sitting for a long time, vibrating on your wrist. But for whatever reason, despite its multitude of sensors, the watch isn’t always able to tell the difference between sitting for an hour or taking a yoga class in the same amount of time.
And what is the difference between the Garmin Fenix 5 and the Plus?
The differences between the Fenix 5 and the Plus are limited to the following:
- The Fenix 5 Plus has color maps.
- Stores up to 500 songs, with access to Spotify.
- Allows you to make payments through Garmin Pay.
- The Fenix 5X Plus version is the first Fenix series to offer a pulse oximeter based on wrist measurements. It allows you to monitor your blood oxygen saturation while you sleep or check your oxygen levels and acclimatization to the altitude at any time of the day.
- However, the Fenix 5 has six more hours of battery in GPS mode, and its price is lower, something that makes it an attractive option.
A great multisport watch
It is not a smartwatch that masquerades as a sports watch. And it’s also not a fitness watch that has embraced battery-hungry smartwatch apps and touchscreens.
It’s a powerful sports watch that has everything you’d expect from a high-end Garmin. This sounds great. But the initial surprise comes when you look at the price. And it is greater if you move inside the Sapphire glass models. However, there are exciting offers that are worth checking out.
Its price exceeds that of Garmin Forerunner running watches. And also some of the best from Polar or Suunto, for comparing some great options.
Ultimately, the Garmin Fenix 5 is an expensive sports watch. For that price, you’ll want to track every activity under the sun. Fortunately, it does much more than that.
The Fenix 5: expensive but for great reasons
The 5S is relatively small and light, weighing in at just 67g. with a silicone strap. It’s the most delicate of all the Fenix models and comes in white, black, and teal colors. If we compare the Fenix5 and the 5S, it is observed that they have the same activities and differ only in size, screen resolution, and battery life.
It’s no wonder that the Fenix’s smaller size, the 5S, has shorter battery life. The Fenix 5S lasts for nine days on a charge in smartwatch mode and up to 14 hours in GPS mode. The Garmin Fenix 5 will last 24 hours in GPS mode and two weeks in the standard way.
The 5S has a round casing, a fiber-reinforced polymer body, and a stainless steel bezel. It’s still pretty chunky, with a protruding bottom and flashing green heart rate sensors, but it’s not as monstrous as some other.
Customer reviews
User reviews are more general than just one criterion. These ratings consider factors such as the age of each comment, the number of votes, and the verification of purchases. The Fenix 5 has an average positive evaluation of 88% of customers, as can be seen in these comments:
– I use it as an activity monitor and keep track of daily spending, I also practice indoor biking in inclemency, MTB, trail running and HIIT 3 days a week, and all the options available with it are wonderful.
I buy this as a present for my wife, and she loved it, she has already had several smartwatches, and this one is far and away from the simplest, it really fulfills all the functions it has, not less than fail more than a fairground shotgun.”
– I was behind the Fenix 3 HR, but once they lowered it on Prime Day I could not resist. Since the last update that includes positioning by Galileo, the mountain routes mark them bareback, swimming in the sea as well and the rhythms in the track are controlled very well so as not to go overboard.
