Garmin Fenix 7X Vs. Apple Watch Ultra: The Battle for the Outdoor Enthusiast’s Budget

Over the last few months I found myself using alternatively the Garmin Fenix 7X and the more recently purchased Apple Watch Ultra and since I’ve seen a lot of people asking on different medias the question if Apple Watch Ultra could be a good alternative to Fenix, I decided to compile my impressions in a longer post trying to cover the main aspects relevant in a comparison.

Daily use

Since I put the Apple Watch Ultra on my hand (it was the first time I was using an Apple Watch) I appreciated the shape of the sensor as being comfortable and not intrusive, allowing you to wear it more tight for higher HR accuracy, should you like to do it. For example, this was one of the issues with the Polar Vantage V2 sensor .. it’s just too taxing on your wrist, with the Elevate 4 sensor from Garmin being better but still not that easy to wear like the Apple. The more recent Polar approach with their flat sensor in the Polar Pacer (Pro) is also easy to wear, with decent readings.

The onboarding for a new user is pretty straightforward, but I wouldn’t complain about Garmin or Polar, as I didn’t have any issues to create the accounts and configure the devices, Garmin also does a decent job migrating your settings from your previous Garmin device.

One decision you need to make with AWU, unlike the Fenix 7X is related to the use of AOD (Always On Display) on the Apple Watch – this may be a similar decision for the Garmin Epix users, but Fenix has a MIP display which doesn’t shine (indoors at least) but doesn’t require attention also.

I never considered the watch face selection as being a complicate choice, being used with the simplistic digital representation of the information provided by the sport watches – I never felt that the analog faces are a match for watches with displays .. for that, you better wear the classical watches. Now, in this area, I need to confess that I like Garmin’s list of watch faces more because there are options to display either a simplistic face with only time and day or a more complex one focused on your fitness data. With Apple, even though there are a lot of colourful watch faces, most of them are analog (contrasting with the square shape of the watch) and the digital options are limited, not allowing adding the information I’d like to see (for example how many steps I’ve made today). I’m only referring to the stock faces, which are installed on the device by default, not ones installed from external sources, which may not be optimised for battery use and sometimes create more issues than solve problems.

You can have a lot of complications with the Apple Watch Ultra exclusive Wayfinder and red night mode .. but that’s a analog watch face.

In my case, the watch serves a very utilitarian purpose, it should provide time/date and optionally some other details (sunrise/sunset, battery level, running stats), help me with the alarm in the morning (and eventually other moments of the day) and record the workouts accurately.

In terms of smartness, connecting to the phone and displaying incoming calls is just fine – no actual need for something more. That was what I expected always from my sport watches, everything else was just bonus. For example, music support – I didn’t use the Garmin Spotify integration more than 5 times because it required me to synchronise the music before heading out, using a good WiFi connection and the transfer wasn’t always stable – too much hassle .. if I decided I want to listed to something during the run, I took the phone with me for all flexibility. That’s why for me the music storage in Garmin wasn’t a real criteria to choose it over the Polar watches. Apple offers much more, with LTE support you can do similar things as with your phone, so actually you don’t need to take the phone with you during your outdoor activities and still have access to the calls/streaming services. Are those important? Two months ago I would have said NO, but now I like them and I enjoy the freedom the Apple Watch offers. Is that a strong criteria for me to choose Apple? No, it isn’t – I still prefer the sports watch functionality over the smartness, but if I could get both, why not? That’s why I still use AWU daily – convenience in a smart package with decent sport capabilities.

Sure .. you have payments on both Garmin Fenix and Apple Watch, in this area Apple easily wins due to the versatility and wide support of Apple Wallet.

Regarding maps, Apple started slow and we shall see what Watch OS 10 will bring ..but for a while, Garmin will still be king – regardless how you’d try to supplement this in Apple with third party apps – Workoutdoors or other. I’d like to see Apple doing more, but it looks that things won’t change dramatically in the next year. In addition to that, with Garmin providing maps for every region of the world, you can consider Fenix as being your partner when going abroad. That doesn’t mean that you can’t live (survive) with Apple Watch, but you need to be more intentional when navigating outside of the areas you know well. Not even the back to start (backtracking or not your steps)..

When it comes to battery, the difference is so obvious that for Apple you can only say that with the right routine, you won’t have to worry using it every day and still working out every day – just drop it for a short charging session when you’re in the shower and you’ll be fine – it charges fast and the battery on AWU is still decent for 2 days of use. For people coming from other versions of Apple Watch, the AWU is a dream; for those coming from Fenix or even Vantage V2, it’s a compromise you (may) make for the additional smartness and capability of the AWU device.

Using AWU as a phone … it’s nice and being able to even reply on messages (write small texts) is a cool capability – don’t forget that the device is still smaller than a phone and the signal acquisition might differ from what you’d expect from a phone – I had situations when I didn’t have signal with the AWU in places where my iPhone could still provide some connectivity. So, it’s not exactly a 1:1 replacement for your phone, but in 85% of the situations you could use your watch as a decent substitute. People said that the microphones are excellent, allowing your voice to be well captured during calls and the speakers are decent as well.

The smoothness of the AWU vibration motor was appreciated, especially during the silent alarms – compared to that, Fenix is a tractor – Garmin is very powerful and less subtle, being able to wake up your partner even if it doesn’t have sound active.

One thing that I highly appreciated from all the apps I could have used with AWU is Audible, which is well supported and allows you to listen your favorite books during the long(er) runs. In my case, since the iPhone 14 Pro is (considerably) heavier than the iPhone 13, I took the AWU as an opportunity not to carry the phone with me during runs and got used to it. I’d say this is one of the (if not the only) reason to use the AWU more. That, and also the expectations from Watch OS 10 – we are not yet there with a final version, some things might change until the official launch, but what I’ve seen doesn’t yet addresses my expectations.

Now let’s go to some aspects of interest for me when considering the sports watches.

HR accuracy – the accuracy of the Apple optical HR sensor was praised by various people and I confirm that it’s fine, though I’m not that impressed with it’s consistency to consider it a replacement for the Polar H10 or even the Polar Verity Sense I used with my Fenix so far. I mean, for a heavier watch you’d expect that the vibrations will affect the accuracy of the sensors and for example with Fenix I decided to wear either the H10 or the Verity Sense. To some extend the same applies to Apple Watch Ultra – most of the time is ok, but if you really care about measuring HR during the higher intensity workouts, take one external sensor. I had some situations when the sensor was just struggling to get the HR, the intensity was low .. I suspect the sweat to be a factor, but that’s just expected during a workout. This may affect your overall “measured intensity” depending on the value the watch “locked” and the duration of the “lock”.

Otherwise, the AWU oHR is really good – it performed well in various scenarios and below you can see some samples, when compared with the Polar H10 during two threshold series – the differences in the second session were higher (sometimes 7-8bpm) but still (from my perspective) not dramatic overall.

GPS accuracy – with multiband GPS, both Fenix 7X and Apple Watch Ultra are very good at measuring distance and adding points on a realistic track regardless of the tree coverage or environment – they are not perfect and not identical in their measurements, but ultimately that’s not exactly what moves me. I use a Stryd footpod with my Garmin most of the time .. with AWU you can do that only if you use the Stryd app, but not the default workout app.

In terms of satellite signal acquisition, both are fast and actually under 10 seconds, it doesn’t matter which is faster..as long as it doesn’t take minutes and the track/distance is fine. The pace is ok for both, no complaints.

Sleep analysis – people praised Apple’s algorithms to detect sleep phases and overall sleep, starting with Watch OS 9 – it might be so, I can’t compare with some real pro equipment, only with the perceived reality (the moment I woke up or I closed my eyes to sleep, explicit wake up moments during the night).

Looking at the numbers for several days, Garmin is more generous with Deep Sleep and less with REM, but in terms of duration and general info they don’t look that different [that doesn’t say that Garmin is ace in this area] – usually they both are accurate in detecting the start and end moments of sleep at least. What Garmin (with FirstBeat) does and I was expecting Watch OS 10 to do as well (but didn’t at least during the WWDC announcement) is giving you an interpretation or score of the sleep and some indications for the day. Otherwise the data is there (and it might be accurate) but won’t be used easily by the large mass of users. I understand Apple’s reluctance to commit to advice or categorical statements, but still ..

It’s clear that the interpretation is way wrong if the inputs are not right, but in my experience the results from Garmin are somehow in line with how I feel – until I see something similar from Apple, I would still consider Garmin a better choice if you’re looking for actionable data. The AWU may be helped by Athletic which may add the interpretation, but the results are for the moment more reliable for Garmin – at least in my view.

Training support – this is where Garmin shines and Apple is just trying to catch up, even with the new Watch OS 10 about to release in Autumn 2023. With more bluetooth sensors support (though not yet Stryd), Apple with become more appealing to people, but until the Custom Workouts API (https://developer.apple.com/watchos/) will be adopted by more platforms, you will need to create all custom workouts manually which may be tedious, considering the options with Daily Workouts from Garmin.

Actually, I still use the Daily Workout from Garmin as a starting point to my workout even when executed on Apple Watch. Yes, you can live without it … but still.

In addition to that, for proper analysis of your performance you need to rely in the case of Apple Watch on external platforms, since Apple Health or Fitness are not offering more than statistics.

For example the VO2 Max determined by Apple is around 47 (increasing), Garmin on the other hand insists is 51(also increasing).. the difference is too big, I’d rather be more conservative with 47 until I will perform a lab test, as much as I would love to see my VO2 Max going from 51 to 52.

Apple has added HR zones, but that’s just the beginning, you better adjust those manually based on your previous experience with other platforms – the other sport platforms are offering much more.

What I like about Apple Watch Ultra

• Wear confort
• Silent alarm (particularly the vibration finesse)
• Apple Wallet (Garmin Pay doesn’t have the same level of support)
• Support for Audible (and streaming in general .. although I would still sync it before going out)
• LTE support (although my carrier share number support is not available in roaming, so actually you can’t leave phone when you’re visiting other countries)
• Fast charging (though more often, the fact that it charges fast doesn’t get in the way for living your life)

What I like about Garmin Fenix 7X

• Support for sport analysis and feedback (Garmin’s feedback is better structured and more robust than what Athlytic – even though I’d say that for me the feedback from both was kind of in the same zone)
• Support for structured workouts within the platform (yes, you still can do it on the Apple Watch but that’s a pain – this is about to be addressed by the APIs supported by Watch OS 10)
• The flashlight 🙂 – it’s so convenient and easy to access
• The battery life .. so rewarding not to worry about your charger for weeks
• The buttons and the choice to disable touch – so much easy to work, even (or especially) in difficult situations

Wrap-up

The two devices are different and even though they have some overlapping, they serve different purposes for now. For me, they both have attractive features, but if I’d be hard pressed to choose just one, I would select the Fenix for its capabilities in sports and cohesive platform for training. Otherwise you’ll see the Apple Watch Ultra on my hand as it covers my running needs decently and also the extra desire not to carry the phone with me all the time. For people coming from the smartwatch world, especially the Apple users, the AWU makes all the sense – for those pasionate about sports, Garmin is (still) a better choice. For undecided, having both is the best choice 🙂