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5 Easy Steps To The Site
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In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
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Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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Have some fun in the travel section.
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My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
I hope Garmin doesn’t stop making watchs with MIP displays. They drain less battery and look better in direct sun than amoled.
It feels like with the 255/265 moving upmarket, with the addition of multisport and PMs, and the 165 is the successor of the 235/45.
I agree with your thoughts about MIP in this video, Ray. I think Garmin is transitioning to Amoled for all their lower and mid tier watches because it’s largely what the people want, and they kind of have to in order to keep up with their competitors in that space.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty confident there is always going to be MIP versions of their “outdoor adventure” series of watches, the Instinct and Fenix (and the multitude of Fenix derivatives). I’d venture a guess that, in the very near future, those might be the ONLY Garmin watches to retain a MIP variant going forward. And for most people that’s probably fine.
I’m looking forward to the day when some new tech (maybe microLED?) marries the best of both worlds and ends this debate once and for all ;)
microLED still has to compete with other light sources, worst of all the Sun, hence using much more power.
MIP and transflexive displays use other light sources, thus requiring far less power. And an optional backlight doesn’t add much to the power draw when only on when being looked at.
Really excited about those SPD Assiomas.
Thank you for addressing the security update question. In an unfortunately software-driven world, it’s an important splash of cold water on someone looking at dropping significant coin on these devices.
Only 2 years, not from the time you buy but from the time they release it? That doesn’t show a commitment to stand by their products, particularly the ones that are marketed as being rugged and long lasting.
Thanks for this episode, especially for the analysis paralysis section when comparing Garmin watch features.
I can’t digest that there are so many differences even in the same lineup. For example, compare the stress widgets of Instinct 2s and Crossover. Instinct 2s will give you the average stress for the current day, Crossover won’t. In the steps widget: 2s will display streaks, Crossover won’t. I even reported that as a bug in the beta program, nothing changed.
Or assume someone wants to see the current resting heart rate. Nothing too unusual. On most forerunners, this is shown in the HR widget overview. For Fenixes, it’s shown in the 7 day graph (as with Forerunners). For Instinct… well… you get a 7 day graph but unfortunately the current day has no number next to it so you have to guess your RHR value using the values on the y axis.
I totally get that Garmin wants to slice and dice the same data differently to make people think there’s a massive difference between all those watches. There’s nothing to say against color-coded bars with a 0-100 scale vs. connected dots in zoom-to-fit style for stress level history (on Venu/FR vs Fenix).
The problem is that all these nuances are not described anywhere. Not in the often outdated comparison tables on Garmin’s homepage, not in the manuals, and there’s not enough place for these in the most in depth reviews. To get to know these differences, I actually have to use the watches side-by-side.
It would be great if Garmin could consolidate the data in 2 or 3 really optimized ways instead of reinventing the wheel, again and again, even within the same lineup.
the 2 year updates might actually be revised at some point. They will be hit by the new european cyber resilience act, and there are requirements for updates to certain groups of equipment that would require a minimum of 5 years. We will certainly see a huge impact on that legislation on the smartphone market – especially on the cheap android phones. They will vanish completely (and that means no more Asus products, since they notoriously lack commitment to their products after the first year)
Two years would be fine if they changed the start date. The start of the two years should be when Garmin last sold it on their site as an active product. Garmin still has the Forerunner 945 for sale on their site for $499. If someone bought that today, new from Garmin, would they be surprised to find that it is no longer receiving updates?
To pour salt on the wound, here’s the lead caption for the Forerunner 945, “Our most advanced, lightweight GPS smartwatch…”
If the security updates are only available for two years, doesn’t that mean I’d basically have to budget some 4-500 bucks every year just for keeping my fenix secure? That really doesn’t sound very appealing.
As Brice Hope comments above, the start date of the security update window should definitely be changed to the last-sold (through official channels) instead of the release date. Hopefully this is combined with the European cyber resilience act, mentioned above by Claus, and a five year minimum commitment to security updates. This would change the 400-500 $/year budgeting to a way more affordable level of 85-150 a year, and hopefully lower than that.
On another note, I watched the fenix 7 vs epix comparison video, and in its comments making a deep dive into battery replacement was discussed – what it costs, how easy it is. I couldn’t find such a video – forgotten or am I just bad at searching? I hope you have time to take a look into this issue, as it may be a major hidden cost to a watch over its lifetime – unless that lifetime is only the two years of security updates from first release!
Thanks!
Just as we get some progress in the best technology for the situation with USB C and the like; we get the tech companies from moving away from it in other places.
So, I hope MIP displays stick around in fitness gadgets. Icm very disappointed that Polar have dropped it for their latest watches.
Really sad about mips going away on garmin. OLED is a horrible technology and responsible for a lot of ewaste. Guess I will stick to the edge until they phase that out too and then will just stop using garmin products in favor of another brands with mips displays