Garmin 010-01733-00 Fenix 5X Sapphire - Slate Gray with Black Band

Ive been rocking the Fenix 5 for about 3 weeks and I am very pleased with it. I came from the Nike Apple Watch Series 2 and have no regrets. I previously used the Garmin 235 but returned it due to the crappy back light and switched the Nike Apple Watch - (just to save my Nike Run history). I then purchased the 935. The back light was fantastic but was afraid of the plastic built quality and went for the Fenix 5. Fenix 5 feels great! Sturdy, reliable (unlike Apple watch, too many Nike run crashes), ridiculously long battery life, awesome backlight. I have three comments for the watch though: 1. Too expensive and pricing scheme is all screwed up. I would think 5s, 5 and 5x would have three prices due to size differences, battery life and minor feature (ie 5x with 16gb maps storage). 5s should be $499, 5 - $599 and 5x-$699 with sapphire default. My opinion. 2. Size - Im a small guy with small wirst. I should really get the 5s, but extra screen real estate and battery life for the same 5s price made me go with the 5. 3. Should have included onboard memory for music storage for the price. At the end of the day, do I really need the Fenix 5 and do I really use all the features? Probably not. This watch is more of a commitment watch. Keeps me active and helps me train. I am also a watch enthusiast and surprisingly the Fenix 5 competes well for my wrist time against the SeaDweller and GMT. All in all great watch and fun watch to own. See pictures - added 5 and 5s comparison on my small wrist. Demo units at local store

100% love this watch and wear it a my daily watch in addition to, of course, my training. Im not going to get into all of the specifics about the watchs functions and capabilities. Ill just let you know why I like it. Im new to the whole tracking your fitness with your watch game - so I immediately decided to just get the best of the best and go with this one. I love this watch, and how it syncs so seamlessly with the Garmin App. I love being able to have all of my runs and workouts stored in the app so effortlessly. I love having my texts and other notifications pop up on the watch instead of having to grab my phone - I am a wedding videographer full-time so its nice to be able to check texts coming in from my assistant without having to drop what Im doing to reach for my phone. No, you cant respond to notifications from the watch directly, but who cares? It would be silly to try and reply from your watch or TALK to your watch anyways. I leave my phone at home on my runs so I like how I can come home and have all of the data sync up immediately after my runs. GPS works great. HRM works well.. I cant find anything bad to say about this watch, honestly. Satisfied customer - money well spent -

I bought this to use on my mountain bike rides & wear it all the time. Im using Strava segments so I can keep my phone(Galaxy s9+) in my backpack or not even bring it. It syncs up immediately after the activity & the live segments work fine. Ive had almost all the fitbit models since early 2014 and the Garmin Instinct. This blows them all away! The watch & app have every statistic you could want & the heart rate even works great. It doesnt give you extra floors like the newer Fitbits either. I bought the rubber cover to go over the outer ring to keep it from getting scratched up. I havent used the maps much since Im on a bike but it seems to work fine. Theres a ton of free watch faces & apps on the Connect iq store. It is big but I got used to it fast. Totally worth the money!

I was very skeptical of buying this. Especially with the price. But I now see what all the fuss is about. This is a phenomenal watch especially if you are always on the go and/or you workout or outdoors frequently, and/or you are in the military, which checks every box in my life. The only problems I have are the limited apps to this watch, sometimes it does not sync with the phone to well so my notifications are delayed and it cant really operate two apps at the same time. It would also be nice if it can be voice activated but that is just and add on to an already amazing watch. One of my favorite parts about this watch is the fact that it can go without charge for DAYS, roughly a week and a half to two if employed correctly, and it only takes a little over ONE HOUR to fully charge. SO FAR SO GREAT but there is always room for improvement. The best smartwatch ive ever had but very costly..

Am in love with this watch. Came from a Fitbit Charge 2, Garmin Vivoactive HR, and this watch provides way more analytics such as recovery time, post workout review, and the HR sensitivity is a lot more consistent too. However the best part about this watch is its ability to be used in all occasions. Something which the vivoactive was terrible at. One thing I recommend though. Is that you consider the sizes carefully. I am a fan of big faced watches, and have a decent sized wrist. The standard 5 is as large as I would go. Also, I went with the non sapphire version because: 1. I dont need the wifi for syncing 2. Reviews on the Garmin forum have shown that the sapphire vs mineral: mineral is clearer. 3. Go with slate grey if you want darker. But not the black that is the only option avail for the sapphire with black silicon band. The black chips easily. And will reveal the silver metal underneath - feedback from Garmin forums. 4. Added a $7 screen protector, and I think my glass will remain as scratch free if not better than a sapphire one. 5. These watches are constantly updated with new models so often, I cant imagine myself keeping this longer than a year before wanting an upgrade - for features.

The best purchase Ive ever made for my running and hiking journeys. Ive had this for 2 years. Yes, theres scratches along the edges, but this watch has been through it all. The sapphire glass has held up through all the dings. Sleep tracking is so-so it will measure me sleeping even if Im just laying in bed reading, but overall a cool feature. GPS and topo maps have literally been life saving. Despite being very comfortable in the deep woods and with navigation I have gotten myself semi-lost in national forest and this made it easy to back track steps or look at map to determine best route back. Heart rate is fairly active and impression for a watch based HR.

Returning this watch felt awful. You see, I love this watch. I miss it. Still. But it had to go back.The inaccuracy of the GPS was heartbreaking. The watch had everything and more than I wanted for running. And, its the small things that went into the design - like the ability to configure your own screens to display any of the number of measurements. For me, who requires glasses but dont wear any when running - this was perfect. And the ability to invert the background color was just the icing on the cake I needed. Even in the brightest of sun I could clearly see the screen - perfect. Before purchasing, I did my usual due diligence and all the reviews indicated a flawless piece of equipment. I used the money my wife gave me for Christmas (specifically for a sports watch) to purchase the Fenix 5. Within the first 24 hours of using it, I started to get an uneasy feeling about the GPS. On several runs and based on my effort, I figured I was running around 7:45 to 8:00 per mile. My new watch indicated 8:45. I started wearing my Polar RC5X with its accompanying GPS with the Fenix for comparative purposes. Sure enough, the Fenix 5 pace was consistently inaccurate. At some points - by 2 mins. After some searching it became quite apparent that I wasnt alone in my assessment. Apparently there are quite a few people experiencing the same issues. Some people offered up various fixes (1 second recording, Smart recording, Glonass on/off, full reset, etc.) - I tried them all. All of them. Over a period of several weeks I tried what I could however I could - I just wanted it to work - thats how great I thought the watch was. As I said, this seems to be a recognized problem - on the Garmin Forums for the Fenix 5/5s, the GPS Accuracy thread is by far the busiest with nearly 700 contributions and over 56,000 views. Also, the fellrnr review (google fellrnr gps accuracy) highlights is huge details the shortfall of the GPS of the watch. Heres the thing - had I read fellrnrs review and studied his GPS chart - I would not have bought the watch. I would have waited until Garmin addressed the issue. I thought of getting the Stryd sensor to get a more accurate reading of my pace - but I didnt want to spend an additional $200 on the $600 I just spent - just didnt seem right. As I mentioned at the start - I really loved this watch. It has so much useful functionality that cant be overstated. As for the Garmin Connect App - thats as nearly awesome as the watch itself - particularly the Insights function (where you are in regards to everyone else for your gender and age). If Garmin ever do manage to fix the GPS issue on the watch and theres favorable independent reviews indicating the same - then, Ill be back. But for now, its back to my Polar.

I bought the Fenix because I was dissatisfied with what I had - a low-end smart watch (Zenwatch II) and an older GPS watch for my activities (Forerunner 310XT). I wanted a device that would replace both, serve as both a reliable daily timepiece and a GPS watch for my runs, bike rides, and open water swims. The Fenix 5 turned out to do that and much more. Here are my biggest likes and not-likes (there arent really any dislikes). On the plus side: - Instantaneous GPS fix with no wait (older Garmin devices could take a few minutes and if not allowed sufficient time for the GPS fix would produce very inaccurate GPS data for the first few miles) - Quick charging, e.g. while I am in the shower and getting ready in the morning, means that I can wear it almost 24x7. This means I am not missing any steps and can use it for sleep tracking every night. - I dont have to travel with 2 devices, chargers, and cables. - I dont have to bring any charger on shorter business trips. If I make sure that I give it a full charge on Sunday night, I still have 30% or more of charge left when I return on Thursday. - While the visibility is not stellar and inferior to the Forerunner, and some screens and watch faces can be difficult to read for the 50+ generation, I do not need reading glasses for the basic functions and I can operate all its features equally well in complete darkness and in bright sunlight. - Tracking alpine skiing activities worked surprisingly and unexpectedly well. Just turn it on and forget. It detects runs. - The watch was easy to pair with all my legacy accessories (mainly speed/cadence sensors on 3 bikes, and chest HRM straps) - I dont need scientific HR data. When I compare the HR data between the watch and the chest strap on similar activities, the accuracy of the built-in optical HR monitor is similar enough that I dont fret when I forget the chest strap. - The voice announcements via the phone speaker are configurable and useful, e.g. for lap times. - Notifications from the phone, mainly for texts, emails, and incoming calls make it less likely to miss something important and are the main reason why I liked wearing the Zenwatch. The Fenix does this equally well. On the could be improved side: - The lack of voice operation is a small inconvenience. I appreciated the ability to make calls or send short texts with the Zenwatch while driving or riding a motorcycle or bicycle. It would be great if this could be added in future models to make it truly perfect (but I realize that this poses technical challenges and might require a compromise with waterproofness). - I did get an external temp sensor that is attached to a running shoe. The built-in temp sensor does not provide useful temperature data because it displays a mix of ambient and body temperatures. Garmin says its real purpose is for calibration of the altitude sensor. Then I dont understand why they bothered with exposing the data to the user. - The altimeter requires frequent manual calibration, especially after air travel. It does not recover on its own and will happily display negative altitudes for a while after landing. When I am on a plane, it seems to cut off at about 5,000 feet, which is odd. I have not taken it to higher elevations on the ground yet, so I dont know what it does during workouts on Mt. Everest. - I prefer the metal band even while running, but the clip makes it a bit difficult to use the Garmin handlebar mount on a bicycle. - Sizing of the metal watch band was more difficult than expected, even with all the right tools. The pins were very difficult to remove, did not have a defined click when pushing them out, and required substantial force that almost destroyed my watch band link pin remover. I took it into the pool with no issues but have not had a chance to track a swim workout yet. I hope it will produce better GPS data than the 310 when worn on the wrist in the water. I used to put the Forerunner under my swim cap to get meaningful GPS tracking in open water. With the Fenix, I fear that it might slip out from under the cap due to its size and weight. I wore it on the wrist on a mountain bike ride with good results.

Update : Feb 21, A little over a year of usage: changed to 4 stars as the rubber band is tearing apart at a few punch holes . buying a new band. BTW - the watch did not undergo any extensive water / training - but was used also in the shower. The sapphire is great , holding on very well as well as the watch body. ======================================================================================== Im using This watch for running and HIIT training . Pros: + As a Hebrew user , the Watch has built in Hebrew support. + Battery life is great + Although the big size - it is very comfortable on the hand. + Buttons works very well . and their placement and feel are very well designed. + Sapphire display is a great when the type of activity is Crossfit/HIIT using kettlebells etc. Cons: - User interaction with the clock is done ONLY with buttons on the side - The charging cable is not that comfortable. ( i bought a their party cradle charger which i prefer)

Smart, attractive, dependable, and accurate. I bought this for mountain biking and wilderness exploration. To be absolutely truthful, I thought it might be a little too big, but nope, it fits me perfectly. As a matter of fact, I use it for everything now. Running, sleep, the gym, on trips (it keeps track while youre flying @30k feet), and all things in-between. I never really put much into the data component of my daily routines, but now I have interesting characterization from day to day, and enjoy the watch. When I first decided to purchase a gps watch I took some time to look around and decided Garmin would be what I wanted, because the application was Gps. If you want other things more relegated to daily life responses, and an iterative component, there might be better watches for that, but if you want to know where the hell you are!, this is your watch. I also thought about the smaller version without the map, but after using the map to generalize from a macro perspective while out in the deep brush, Im elated that I didnt. This watch helps me stay the course from reference vector to vector. I have no limitations with where I go and how to get back. Frankly speaking, its the BEST. I count on it.