Garmin’s new fenix 7 and epix smartwatches have landed – and we got a sneak peek

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Garmin’s fenix range is now 10-years-old and into its seventh iteration. Over that time, it has settled into its comfortable domination of the top end of the utility or smartwatch world, offering the very best of Garmin’s navigation, fitness and health features in one rugged and chunky package.

In that context, the new fenix 7 is a mostly muted update to a mature line-up. It has a suite of neat upgrades, including finally adding a touchscreen, better maps and metrics including a “real-time stamina” tool that will tell you when you’re about to get tired.

But it does come with some big surprises. The biggest option, the fenix 7X, comes with an actual torch built into the top of the watch, to ensure that whether you’re on a trail or stumbling around the house in the dark, you can see and be seen.

It also features some hidden changes. On the back, next to your skin, sits Garmin’s latest sensors for heart rate and other important information, and inside is the latest GPS chip – they are far more accurate than those in the fenix 6, meaning that the health and navigation features are much more reliable.

But the biggest development over at Garmin, and probably the biggest surprise, is the arrival of the epix in its second generation. The new watch has all of the guts of the fenix 7 range, fitted with a much brighter and bolder AMOLED display that is more comparable to an Apple Watch.

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It all adds up to a quietly confident set of upgrades. There is no big revolution, no major redesign that is going to make your old watch look tired in one fell swoop – but you probably don’t want too dramatic a transformation from a piece of tech that could one day literally save your life.

Instead, the fenix 7 line and the new epix are full of small tweaks and improvements, all of which add up to a substantially improved new set of watches – the fenix remains the best outdoors and activity smartwatch you can get.

We’ve been using both the fenix 7 and epix for about a week, wearing them during workouts and normal life to test out both sets of features. It was compared with the existing fenix 6, as well as other competitors such as the Apple Watch, on both its technical features as well as comfort and looks.

In reviewing the watches, we were unable to use some of their connected features, because of a specific technical issue that will not affect anyone who buys them. As such, this review is an account of first impressions, with a more detailed review and comparison to come soon.

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From the outside, the fenix 7 has hardly changed at all; from some angles, you’d be hard pressed to even tell the difference. When looked at from the front, the main change is that the screws that once sat on the bezel have moved away towards the strap, and there are some changes to the solar ring that loops around the display to gather energy.

Even the epix, with its more dramatically changed display, is hard to distinguish when it is turned off. (Switch it on, though, and that glorious AMOLED springs to life, and you won’t have any trouble at all.)

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Despite the relatively minimal changes that mark out the fenix 7 from its predecessor, you still get all of the smarts that Garmin has put into its watches in recent years. That ranges from activity and fitness features such as detailed maps, to precise metrics on any workout. It also includes its all-day health-tracking features, such as a pulse oximeter for seeing how much oxygen is in your blood, and its “body battery”, which tells you how tired or rested you might be.

Added on to those are new software tools that will pop up while you are exercising. The new “real-time stamina” feature tracks how hard you are working while cycling or running, and tells you when you might run out of steam, while a “visual race predictor” uses your running history to predict how you might do in a race and where your training is going.

What’s more, the touchscreens on both the fenix and the epix mean that you can bounce around those different displays and options much more easily. While the buttons are still there – and, in practice, we found ourselves continuing to use them for the most part – the addition of the touchscreen makes navigating big menus much easier, and is likely to mean there is less of a culture shock for anyone upgrading from an Apple Watch or other smartwatch.

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Start actually doing some exercise and the real additions will come to the fore. The sensor in the back of the watch is vastly improved, with heart rate and other tools proving much more accurate – as compared with a reliable heart-rate strap – both when working out and while wearing the watch the rest of the time.

The GPS chip inside the watch is much improved, too. The fenix 6 would sometimes take a dispiritingly long time to grab its location, leaving you sheepishly waiting outside instead of running. Even when it had found its bearings, it would sometimes go wrong, with the track on the map occasionally showing you as having run through people’s houses.

It is perhaps a shame that a watch that costs upwards of £800 does not come with many major changes, but it is a reflection of the kind of care that Garmin takes with the fenix line.

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And there is still one flashy feature – literally. The fenix 7X has a little torch in the top, which is invisible for the most part, but can be switched on with a double tap of the “light” button. The glow is surprisingly bright, and it is unexpectedly useful – Garmin advertises it as being for pitching a tent in the dark, or lighting yourself up as you run along a trail, but we found it perfect for the much less exciting expedition of navigating to the toilet during the night.

The epix, meanwhile, is a major improvement of the kind that should be celebrated. Its glowing and crisp display does come with a hit to battery life: the fenix 7X with solar can last up to 5 weeks as a smartwatch, Garmin says, compared with an advertised 16 days for the epix, which seemed optimistic in practice. But it still does not need charging often enough to get in the way, and the crisp and bright precision of the display is a delight that finally means that Garmin could be ready to take on the Apple Watch.