Garmin started with aviation, marine and automotive navigation products, and is the world's largest manufacturer of GPS equipment. In 2003, it began to launch sports watches, which is currently the sports watch brand with the most styles, the most professional subdivision functions and the highest average selling price, and is sought after by many outdoor sports enthusiasts.
 
Garmin has launched a number of watch series with completely different positioning, functions and shapes, with a total of hundreds of models, but the overall positioning is biased towards outdoor sports. Although Garmin's electronic watches are expensive, with functions such as sports monitoring, positioning, mobile phone notifications, and data upload, it is difficult to call it a smart watch, because it is not equipped with a smart operating system, and it is impossible to install watch apps, and there is no expansion in addition to the existing functions. Most Garmin watches, even the most top-of-the-line models, do not support a touchscreen and can only be operated by five mechanical buttons on the dial, just like the feature phones that preceded smartphones.
 
For watches, especially outdoor sports watches, the lack of intelligent systems is not necessarily a minus, but rather a boost in professionalism. Most of the "smart" of smart watches actually overlap with mobile phones quite highly, and they will enter the cold palace after one or two trials, while Garmin watches have stronger battery life, more professional functionality, and more reliable electronic systems, but have captured many senior outdoor enthusiasts. During outdoor sports, sweating, oil, and wearing gloves will affect the control of the touch screen, and the simple button design is not only more reliable, but can be operated blindly by feeling during running, without looking down to select, which is the reason why the mechanical buttons have endured.
 
In addition to the screen of the Garmin watch can not be touched, the resolution is not high, the color performance is not good, the display effect is dwarfed by Apple Samsung, but the advantage is that its screen adopts the principle of transflection and semi-reflection, no backlight is required, and it completely relies on external light sources to illuminate the screen content, the higher the external brightness, the better the screen display effect, and extreme power saving, under the static picture, the device has almost zero power consumption, and the dial can always display information, which makes the battery life of Garmin watches far exceed that of many smart watches, Under normal use, the battery life can easily exceed a week. In places with poor lighting, Garmin also has a built-in independent light source to light up the screen, which does not affect normal use. In today's world where electricity is the main bottleneck, Garmin's trade-off is undoubtedly a favorite for outdoor enthusiasts.
 
Although Garmin started with professional GPS navigation supplies, but contrary to intuition, navigation is not the strong point of Garmin watches, most of its models only support GPS and GLONSS two navigation systems, the Hong Kong Consumer Council has invited athletes to match a variety of sports watches on the 400-meter track to do testing, Garmin calculated the running distance and the actual situation is quite different, especially in the city with high-rise buildings, the positioning error is large, can not eliminate the signal interference reflected by high-rise buildings, Not as accurate as the Apple Watch, which supports four positioning systems.
 
The most representative of Garmin's professionalism and strength is undoubtedly the Fenix series, which is the culmination of Garmin's professional functions, appearance design, and material technology, and has a strong metal body with 100-meter water resistance. The series all have built-in gyroscopes, barometric altimeters, compasses, optical heart rate monitors, thermometers, GPS and other sensors, combined with more than ten professional guidance programs such as mountaineering, cycling, swimming, and running that come with the system, which can act as a sports coach to a certain extent. For example, in running mode, Fenix can accurately measure the bounce amplitude and millisecond contact time to the centimeter level, and give appropriate cadence guidance through vibration and sound. In swimming mode, it can recognize swimming style, measure the number of strokes and swimming speed, and evaluate stroke efficiency.
 
There are many versions of the Fenix series, divided into 3 series and 5 series, of which the 3 series was released earlier, and the lowest price has been reduced to less than 2000 yuan, which is quite cost-effective. The software and hardware level of the 5 series has been slightly upgraded, and the Beidou positioning system has been newly supported, which is divided into 5Plus, 5S Plus, and 5X Plus, with an average price of more than 5,000 yuan. The 5Plus is the standard model, with a regular battery life of 10 days; The 5S Plus is a streamlined model with reduced size and functionality, suitable for users with small hands, and has a battery life of 6 days; The 5X Plus series is an enhanced version with a battery life of up to 18 days, but it is also close to the weight of a mobile phone, and the function adds an oximeter, which can instantly understand the physical condition when you are on the plateau. Each of these models is available in several versions according to color and material, with the regular version having a stainless steel dial and tempered glass crystal, and a titanium body and sapphire crystal version, with a price difference of several thousand yuan.
 
For sports enthusiasts who pursue practicality and lightness, the Forerunner series is more in line with the requirements, the use of plastic dials and hollow silicone straps has reduced the weight of the watch to 30-50g, and the average price has also been reduced to 1300-3000 yuan. For running enthusiasts, the Forerunner235L with a built-in professional running program is sufficient; For Audio-Technica enthusiasts, Forerunner 645, 735, and 935 are more professional options, with built-in running, swimming, cycling and other programs.
 
vivoactive is one of the few Garmin watches with a touch screen, with a higher screen-to-body ratio, a rounded dial, a young and fashionable appearance, and a number of professional sports programs built-in, which is not inferior to the Forerunner series, suitable for people who need to balance sports and fashion. vivoactive 3The price starts at 2000 yuan,Built-in22Sports modes,Heart rate monitoring、GPS、Sleep monitoring、Breathing guidance、Stress index analysis and other functions are equipped,Among them, the music version comes with3.5G storage space,It can store more than 500 songs for Bluetooth headset playback,The ordinary version has no additional storage space。
 
The Instinct series is the series with the highest protection specifications, the watch uses a black and white screen, fiber-reinforced plastic, and a hollow silicone strap, which looks more plastic, but the Instinct series can work normally in the temperature range of -20°C to 60°C, supports 100-meter water resistance, shock and corrosion resistance, and supports the world's 4 major satellite positioning systems, and is not inferior to the Fenix series that is twice as expensive.
 
If you don't need a lot of features, then vivomove is a stylish and fun choice. Its appearance is completely indistinguishable from an ordinary quartz watch, with real hands on the dial to show the time, but the watch has a built-in motion sensor, supports steps counting, sedentary reminders, sleep monitoring and other functions, and can upload data to the mobile phone for viewing using Bluetooth. The VivoMove sports watch face has a red sedentary reminder bar and a black goal progress bar, which will accumulate and resume after the event. The black progress bar accumulates during exercise, and the progress bar is full when the set goal is completed. Exercise and rest under the reminder of the red and black progress bars every day, it is a healthy choice for sedentary office workers, vivomove sports version uses button batteries, with a battery life of up to 1 year, and the price is 599 yuan. vivomove HR hides an OLED touch screen under the pointer, which is integrated with the dial, and an optical heart rate monitor is added, which is more comprehensive, but the battery life returns to the normal level of 5 days, and the price is about 1500 yuan.
 
If you want to buy an eye-catching, easy-to-use, smart watch, Garmin is not an ideal choice, but for sports enthusiasts who have a certain sports foundation and want to improve their performance, Garmin's professional monitoring guidance can come in handy, focusing on doing a good job in sports monitoring, which is Garmin's current killer feature.