Garmin Instinct 3 Solar 50mm

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It has everything necessary and nothing superfluous. The navigation feature shows the route but not a map, so I sometimes have to check my phone to see where I am. Positioning accuracy drifts a bit—especially regarding direction—when under tree cover, whereas a phone usually maintains accuracy for both location and heading in those situations. Wrist-based heart rate monitoring is generally consistent, though during gym workouts I often notice the reading is about twenty beats too low; I have to position the watch over the prominent veins on my wrist to get accurate figures. In my view, these are inherent issues with this type of device, stemming from the small GPS antenna and the natural limitations of wrist-based sensing. The watch is sturdily built and charges by about one percent per hour in direct summer sunlight when stationary. The only downside is that without an InReach subscription (device cost + $40 + $8/month), I can only initiate message threads via the phone using Garmin’s preset templates in Messenger. I can only use my own custom templates to reply to standard notifications. This is purely a monopolistic tactic by the manufacturer.

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Joining the adventure

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Works well for the most part but with all garmin watches you have to synchronize manually if you want to keep track of the weather through the watch which is a bit of a hassle. But good battery life. Quite satisfied.

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Guaranteed Garmin. The light is really handy.

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The battery life is the promised 38-40 days in basic use. In the summer, I only had to charge it about every 6 weeks. Lightweight, can be worn well while sleeping. Accurate enough, even though the heart rate measurement is from the previous generation. Bright display for a solar product.