Garmin Fenix ​​8 Review After One Month of Use: Who Is It For?

Advantage:

- Specially designed for extreme sports

- Many advanced health features

- Long battery life

Disadvantages:

- Unfriendly menu system

- High price

Digital Power Editor's Recommendation: The Garmin Fenix ​​8 is a watch that may not be for everyone, but for the person who buys it because they know exactly what they want from it.

Design, interface and daily use

Garmin Fenix ​​8 43mm titanium bezel (Photo: Bao Khanh).

Garmin has long been known in the sports community, especially running and outdoor sports. The latest version Fenix ​​8 was used by PV Dan Tri for a month and below are the reviews for users to know if this device is really suitable for them or not.

The Fenix ​​8 is available in 43mm, 47mm, and 51mm sizes, with a choice of MIP and AMOLED displays. In this review, we’re looking at the 43mm and 47mm AMOLED versions. The displays are bright and clear, even in bright outdoor conditions. This feature was previously available on the Forerunner 965.

The details on the body are meticulously crafted (Photo: Bao Khanh).

The watch is designed with scratch-resistant glass and titanium bezel, comes with 5 physical buttons, along with touch function, creating a solid and sturdy feeling. Actual experience of use, the glass and titanium bezel are scratch-resistant and impact-resistant very effectively.

The button system uses "anti-leak button" technology to increase durability when used in water, suitable for diving or swimming activities, with water resistance up to 10ATM. With this level of water resistance, users can completely use the watch in most harsh natural conditions such as humidity, storms, or deep diving underwater...

The charts and stats have also been improved, making them feel smoother and easier to use. If you're familiar with the Forerunner 965, you'll find that most of the new features of the Forerunner 965 have been "carried" to the Fenix ​​8, making for a much better UI/UX experience than its predecessors.

However, for the average user, if compared to other operating systems such as Apple's watchOS, Google's Wear OS, the "swiping" experience on the watch face of recent Garmin models with sensors and on the Fenix ​​8 model is still "weaker". The experience of the 43mm Fenix ​​8 version has a certain lag, while the 47mm version feels smoother.

Many features from the Forerunner 965 watch (yellow) are "carried" to the Fenix ​​8 (Photo: Bao Khanh).

However, compared to its predecessor, the Garmin Fenix ​​8 has significantly upgraded its everyday features. With a built-in speaker and microphone, users can make calls directly from the wrist without taking out their phone.

With indoor space, office... you can talk from the watch on your wrist without having to worry about where your phone is. However, this feature is not useful in noisy environments, on the street because the speaker outputs quite low volume.

Plus, with the Garmin Fenix ​​8, you can activate simple tasks via voice commands like setting a timer or starting a workout. If your friends also use the Garmin Messenger app, you can respond to messages right from your watch without having to open your phone.

The built-in flashlight is also very useful in many real-life situations. This feature continues to be retained from the previous version Fenix ​​7X. The watch also supports music storage, offline maps and NFC features like Garmin Pay for cashless payments...

Sports and health tracking features

Fenix ​​8 is equipped with the latest Elevate Gen 5 sensor, providing high accuracy in heart rate monitoring and GPS. In practice, testing in many different spaces: fire escape stairs in apartments, parks, in Ham Lon forest (Soc Son, Hanoi)... Fenix ​​8 watches all record GPS signals very quickly and accurately.

Fenix ​​8 is equipped with the latest Elevate Gen 5 sensor (Photo: Bao Khanh).

Garmin is famous for its in-depth health monitoring indicators, the company put all the "quintessence" into Fenix ​​8 as a core DNA genetic code. Indicators such as VO2MAX, average heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), sleep score, SpO2 concentration, combined with the exercise status feature... are synthesized and analyzed to give an index called "training readiness" for daily users.

It should be noted that this index is only accurate when the user wears the watch 24/24. Athletes who have worn sports watches for a long time will be familiar with this, but newbies will have to get used to it.

For example, the heart rate variability index (HRV), this is an index that measures the time interval between two consecutive heartbeats and continuous variation. This time interval is measured in milliseconds. This is a very important index to assess the health status of the body.

Vo2MAX index reflects the user's physical and motor abilities. (Photo: Bao Khanh)

When measured continuously for a period of time (usually about a week), the watch will synthesize an average HRV index of the body in the active state and the resting state. If the HRV index changes abnormally (for example, drops), it means that the body needs rest to recover.

This can be easily seen after a strenuous workout or a long competition, such as after a marathon, your HRV will definitely drop significantly below your daily average.

Overall, all the indicators that are synthesized and analyzed are of great value to users. As you dig deeper, your knowledge of health will also expand.

Garmin Fenix ​​8 supports hundreds of sports, according to groups: Running, cycling, swimming, gym, outdoor, water sports... This is also the first model that the company added diving with a supported depth of up to 40m.

Any long-time exerciser knows that any sport requires cross-training to optimize training results. For beginners, it is not easy to determine which cross-training exercises to add to the sport they are practicing.

Garmin has developed a new feature for the Fenix ​​8, which is Advanced Strength Training. In the Connect app, users go to Training and plans -> exercises -> find exercises -> filters. Here, you can select the "sports training focus" filter and the app will select the appropriate supplementary exercises to put on the watch.

Practice

The Garmin Fenix ​​8 supports a variety of sports, but in this article we'll focus on running and trail running.

Energy consumption is very low during long runs (Photo: Bao Khanh).

For outdoor running, the metrics listed on the Fenix ​​8 are generally valuable, allowing runners to follow or adjust to achieve optimal results.

During tempo runs (running at a speed of 4-4.5 minutes/km or a pace of 4-4.30), the Fenix ​​8 watch is heavier than the Forerunner series, so it feels a bit shaky on the wrist. If you pull the silicone strap too tight, it will feel like your wrist is being squeezed. It takes a few runs for the user to get used to it.

The strap on the 43mm version is designed to be quite short compared to a 16.5mm human wrist (Photo: Bao Khanh).

During road runs, the watch consumes about 2-3% of its energy for 2-hour runs (under conditions of disconnecting the phone and turning off notifications).

In trail running mode, we tested it many times on different terrains and weather conditions: cloudy, rain showers... The heart rate sensor system, GPS sensor... work well in any conditions, giving accurate uphill/downhill indicators, helping the exerciser to correctly evaluate the exercise and their level of effort.

The new feature shared by Garmin is Garmin Share, which allows sharing routes with friends without connecting to the phone, but in reality this application is more suitable for exploration and discovery activities, because the training routes are familiar to the test group.

In long workouts lasting 8-10 hours continuously, the Fenix ​​8 watch shows very good battery life, consuming only about 20% of the energy (the watch operates in normal mode, the screen is set to automatically turn off and does not count laps).

Garmin Fenix ​​8 is suitable for long-distance running and nature exploration in harsh conditions (Photo: Bao Khanh).

This battery level allows athletes participating in ultra trail races of 100km, even 100 miles, to feel completely secure when wearing the watch on the journey.

Conclude

In short, the Garmin Fenix ​​8 is a smartwatch aimed at sports and adventure enthusiasts, with a durable design, "buffalo" battery and many in-depth features. However, the high price and some interface limitations may make some users consider before buying.

Fenix ​​8 is a watch for those who buy it because they know exactly what they need from this watch. With a price of around 30 million VND, the path to users of Fenix ​​8 may be difficult for its brothers in the Garmin "family", not to mention competitors from a series of other names: Samsung, Apple, Coros...

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/suc-manh-so/danh-gia-garmin-fenix-8-sau-mot-thang-su-dung-dong-ho-phu-hop-voi-ai-20241019104701533.htm