Evaluation of Garmin Fenix 7 and Epix: A Trekker's Perspective on These Premium Outdoor Smartwatches

Evaluation of Garmin Fenix 7 and Epix: A Trekker's Perspective on These Premium Outdoor Smartwatches

Hiking in the great outdoors just got a major upgrade with the Garmin Fenix 7 and Epix (Gen 2)! These badass timepieces come packed with features and powerful tools that will elevate your hiking experience, all while adorning your wrist like a chunk of metal. But the question remains, is the steep cost worth it? Let'

's dive in and examine these shiny devices from a hiker's point of view.

More Than Just a Hiking Watch

First off, you don't need a fancy-schmancy Fenix 7 or Epix to enjoy the outdoors. These watches are all about luxury, baby. I typically don't recommend such extravagances, but let me tell you why I started enjoying these bad boys. It's not just for hiking; it's about monitoring your fitness and health, and these watches deliver in spades.

There's lots you can do and measure with these watches, such as:

• Tracking hikes, runs, bikes, paddles, and dozens of other activities
• Monitoring heart rate, sleep, respiration, and HRV (Heart Rate Variability)
• Estimating your "body battery" with the "body battery" metric
• Providing estimated fitness markers like VO2 Max and fitness age
• Allowing you to view all your data in one convenient place (Garmin Connect)

If you don't give a hoot about tracking all that, then these babies ain't for you; save your hard-earned dough. But for those who crave staying on top of their fitness and health, having a "one-stop-shop" for all this goodness on your wrist is nothing short of magical. For instance, I've discovered that an abnormally low "body battery" reading in the morning, even when feeling good, is a sign that I'm about to get sick. Being in tune with the data has helped me train smarter and rest better, ensuring I'm physically ready for big adventures.

Why the Fenix 7 AND Epix?

Among the countless variations, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Let me try to simplify things and offer some recommendations.

• Screens
• Fenix 7 boasts a transflective screen similar to the Fenix 6. You'll need sunlight or the backlight to see it, and it's limited to 64 colors.
• Epix boasts an AMOLED screen, the same type found on an Apple Watch. It's bright as all get-out and boasts 65,000 colors.
• Both watches are now touchscreen, and you can enable or disable it as you like. The buttons still work like they did on the Fenix 6.
• Solar Power
• Fenix offers options with solar energy.
• Epix has no solar capabilities.
• Battery Life
• Fenix models offer a longer battery life due to the screen's energy efficiency.
• Epix has a shorter battery life, but you can still generally go a week between charges (more on battery life later).
• Sizes
• Fenix comes in small, medium, and large. The larger models feature more battery and screen size; take your pick according to what feels comfortable. The 7x (large) size is a brute.
• Epix comes in one size, corresponding to the medium Fenix 7.
• LED Flashlight
• The (largest) Fenix 7x offers an LED flashlight on the bezel.
• Epix offers a screen flashlight, like a smartphone.
• Sapphire vs Non-Sapphire: This is a critical one, especially for outdoor enthusiasts. I'd only recommend the Sapphire models:
• Multiband GPS
• 32GB of internal memory for preloaded maps (instead of 16GB)
• Stronger Sapphire glass
• Titanium (light and strong) body

After rocking a Fenix 7x Solar Sapphire and an Epix Sapphire, 24/7, for a whole month, I've got a lot to say!

Smartwatch only with 1 hour of sunlight a day

GPS Performance

Both the Fenix 7 Sapphire and Epix Sapphire now feature a new GPS chipset that's both multi-GNSS and multi-band (L1+L5 for GPS). This results in unparalleled accuracy and reliability, even in challenging environments, making your hiking tracks more precise and your hike distances more accurate than ever before.

2% / day

Multi-GNSS Support

The new watches support a plethora of GNSS systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS). In contrast, the Fenix 6 only allowed you to choose two at a time. The new watches can now receive GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China), and QZSS (Japan). Note that each system has its signal encoding, and the GPS chipset must translate them to use the data, which consumes power.

50 days of use

Unlike handheld GPSMAP units, there is no detailed "GPS status" screen showing the satellites and signals you're receiving.

Multi-Band Support

Original GPS & GNSS satellites began broadcasting positioning signals in 1993. Since then, the satellite operators have modernized the signals and increased their transmitting power. Think of it like AM and FM radio. The original positioning signals were low-fi AM, prone to interference, and the new signals are clear and consistent like FM. Newer positioning satellites that go up generally support these newer bands. However, there are still older satellites up there that only have the original bands.

Multi-band watches like the Fenix 7 and Epix can receive these newer signal bands. Multi-band positioning allows the watches to more reliably receive data and also detect "bad" signals that have bounced off canyon walls or have been degraded in the atmosphere. I've also noticed that multi-band positioning can offer an impressively reliable elevation calculation (displayed on the device as "GPS Elevation").

Smartwatch only with no sunlight

If you're keen to learn more about GPS, I've got you covered right here. I'll keep it simple and easy to digest!

Testing Observations

3% / day

I won't make you pour over maps to figure it all out. Here are my observations:

• Multi-GNSS and multi-band offer the most accurate tracks. The tracks were almost the same as the handheld GPSMAP 66sr and 65s, often placing me precisely on the trail.
• Multi-GNSS only was almost identical to using multi-band, except in challenging locations like canyons.
• Multi-GNSS on the Fenix 7 was more accurate than both GPS+GLONASS and GPS+Galileo on the Fenix 6.
• GPS only wasn't very good. The results were comparable to using an older GPS-only handheld.
• With multi-band enabled, my GPS elevation was usually accurate to within 5-30 feet (when compared against an official USGS benchmark).

33 days of use

If you want to see multi-band in action in a slot canyon, check out these videos:

Test Tracks

Fenix 7x & Epix - Blue / Fenix 6x (GPS + Galileo) - Red / GPSMAP 66i (GPS + Galileo) - Green / iPhone 13 Pro Max - Yellow

Battery Performance

Activity tracking outside with multi-band + multi-GNSS

In a nutshell, the battery is stellar. Garmin improved the battery life through more efficient chips and batteries, and they boosted the solar capabilities in the solar models.

Regardless of whether you opt for the Fenix 7, a solar model, or the Epix, you can use it for at least a week without having to recharge it in most circumstances. I think that's reasonable, and a significant improvement over something like the Apple Watch 7 (or lower), which demands daily recharging and only offers limited activity tracking.

2-3% / hour

The battery life between the Fenix and Epix varies primarily because of the screen. The much brighter and vibrant AMOLED screen on the Epix drains the battery more than the transflective Fenix screen. Of course, solar gives the Fenix an extra boost.

My test results were in line with Garmin's specs, and I appreciate their honesty in advertising these specs. Here's where I ended up in my testing:

33-50 hours of use

Fenix 7x Sapphire Solar

I didn't test with GPS only or in Expedition Mode because I don't find them useful. I also kept all the standard features on, pulse ox off, and sleep mode enabled. You could also tweak settings in the battery saver to squeeze more time out of the watch.

| Condition | Burn | Usage Time || --- | --- | --- || Smartwatch only with 1 hour of sunlight a day | 2% / day | 50 days of use || Smartwatch only with no sunlight | 3% / day | 33 days of use || Activity tracking outside with multi-band + multi-GNSS | 2-3% / hour | 33-50 hours of use || Activity tracking outside with multi-GNSS only | 1-1.5% / hour | 65-100 hours of use |

Overall, I found that I could wear the Fenix 7x Sapphire Solar 24/7, do 30-60 minutes of exercise every day, do an 8-hour hike, and would need to recharge the watch in about 3 weeks.

Activity tracking outside with multi-GNSS only

Epix Sapphire

There's one essential feature to note about the Epix: by default, the Epix is "always on" and has "gesture mode" on, just like a newer Apple Watch. When you raise the watch to look at the face, the screen gets brighter. When it's down at your side, it gets dimmer. This is the default setting on the Epix.

1-1.5% / hour

You can also turn "always on" off, in which case the screen turns off when you're not looking at it. When you lift it, there's about a 1 second delay, and it powers back up. I wish the power-up were quicker, and maybe it's something that will happen in a new firmware update. But it is acceptable, and does dramatically increase your battery time.

| Condition | Always-On Burn | Screen Off Burn | Usage Time || --- | --- | --- | --- || Smartwatch only | 15% / day | 7% / day | 7-14 days || Activity tracking outside with multi-band + multi-GNSS | 6-7 / hour | 5 / hour | 15-20 hours || Activity tracking outside with multi-GNSS only | 4-5% / hour | 3-4% / hour | 20-33 hours |

65-100 hours of use

Overall, I found that I could wear the Epix Sapphire 24/7, do 30-60 minutes of exercise every day, do an 8-hour hike, and would need to recharge the watch in about a week.

Battery Tips

You can get even more life out of your batteries, and I routinely do. Here's what works best for me:

• Use sleep mode, which dims the screen and shuts off features at night.
• The map will burn the battery like crazy; use it for planning, but then make sure it's off when doing your activity. Only scroll to the map when you need it.
• Disable the pulse oximeter. Unless you're perfectly still and the unit is laid horizontally, the readings will be off, usually by about 5-8% for me. The acclimatization feature uses it, so you'll forfeit that, but I never found it helpful anyway.
• Dim the brightness to a level that works for you.
• If you don't care about recharging every week or so, leave multi-band on for the most accurate and reliable measurements for your hikes and activities. If you don't go out in challenging environments and you're okay with potentially less accurate tracking, do multi-GNSS only.
• Turn off WiFi, Bluetooth, and "accessories" (ANT) when you don't need them (like when you're sleeping at night or on the trail). You can create a custom power mode in Power Manager that you use with an activity.
• Turn off music if you don't need it.
• Disable vibration.

The Fenix 7 and Epix use the same battery connector cable as the Fenix 6.

Using the Screen

The screens on the Fenix 7 and Epix come with some pleasant surprises. First, let's talk about the touchscreen. Both watches now have a touchscreen. For the outdoors, touchscreens usually struggle when conditions are wet. Luckily, you can operate the watches fully with just the buttons. And you can enable or disable the touchscreen for each activity (like hiking). When touchscreen is on, you can swipe through the widgets, screens, and move around the map. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the touchscreen worked well even when conditions were wet; better than the Montana 70x series.

On the old Fenix models, if you wanted to move around the map, you had some confusing button presses to make it work. Now with the touchscreen, you can just swipe your finger around the map and it moves. I find myself exploring the map when I'm navigating much more, and as a result, it gives me more context for my surroundings. With the all push-button maps on the Fenix 6 and below, I generally avoided moving around the maps because it was slow and tedious. So the new touchscreen really lets you get the most out of the onboard maps.

When I first started testing the Fenix 7 and Epix, I fully expected to keep the Fenix and sell the Epix when I was done testing. But the screen on the Epix is so much better than the Fenix that I'm keeping my Epix. It may seem frivolous to care about the number of colors, but it makes a big difference. The AMOLED Epix is simply easier to see. It's easier mentally to lift the watch, digest what I'm seeing, and move on. In contrast, you might need to tilt the Fenix around to get enough light, because the Fenix screen relies on reflecting light back to illuminate the pixels. It's great for battery life, but in practice, means that you sometimes have to adjust your wrist to get enough light, or hit the backlight button. With the Epix, you never have to do it.

Where the Epix shines is in the map detail. The Fenix 7 and Epix have the same maps, and the Epix and (regular) Fenix 7 have the same screen size. But the Epix has 416x416 pixels jammed into the space, while the (regular) Fenix 7 only has 260x260. That means, at the same zoom level, you'll see more details on the Epix, including trails. On top of that, 65,000 colors just make the maps look better than 64.

Smartwatch only

Maps

A welcome addition to both watches is an onboard Map Manager. This means you don't have to plug the watch into the computer to load (Garmin) maps like you used to if you wanted to change the region. You need WiFi to do this, and when you are connected, you can load new map regions, update maps on the watch, and remove regions. The catch is that it takes a long time. The Sapphire editions have 32GB memory, and assuming you haven't loaded music on there, you can load additional map regions. There's not enough memory to load the entire world on there, but you can load a big chunk of the world.

15% / day

In terms of map quality, the Garmin TopoActive maps have improved. I'd say most all of the trails that are official trails are on there, including national, state, and local parks. Occasionally, a trail will be missing, but it's an exception. All the maps are routable, so you can have the watch create a course or route and navigate you to a destination. You can also pan around the map, do a long press, and have the option to navigate to or save a point.

Navigating

7% / day

The Fenix 7 and Epix are both able to sync with Garmin Connect and Garmin Explore. Garmin Connect is the health and fitness oriented dashboard, while Explore is the navigation oriented one. You can use Connect or Explore to create courses, and then send them to the watch. You can also import GPX files and easily convert them to courses. The watch is full of POIs (points of interest) that you can navigate to. And you can also scroll around the map, long press a point, and save it or navigate to it.

When you have a hike activity going, you can easily go to the map screen. Enable touch for hiking, and then tap on the map. You'll be able to drag it around to view the larger map. The up and down buttons zoom, and the back button brings you to the normal map view centered on where you are now. When you are zoomed in, the map redraws very quickly. Not as quickly as a smartphone, but much quicker than a Fenix 6. When you are zoomed out and scrolling around, the map redraws much slower, and this experience is consistent on Garmin devices. I'd imagine it's just loading more data in and can't quite keep up on the screen.

7-14 days

If you are navigating a course, the watch will alert you every time there is a sharp turn or when the device thinks you are off course. This can drive you insane, so I recommend turning at least the turn notifications off. I wish Garmin offered an option to only alert for turns at junctions (and not every sharp bend and switchback).

After your hike, you can sync your track back to Garmin Connect and/or Garmin Explore. And note that if you save a waypoint on the watch, known as a "saved location," you can only sync it back with Garmin Explore.

Up Ahead

One of the useful new features when navigating a course is the new "up ahead" feature. When you create a course, you can specify waypoints along the course, for example, a water source or summit. This is done when planning a course. If you have these "course points" specified, you'll get an "up ahead" screen if you are following a course that lists the distances to the next course points. It's a great way to break a hike into chunks and focus on the next chunk.

Activity tracking outside with multi-band + multi-GNSS

One thing to note is that if you import a GPX file with waypoints into a course, the waypoints don't transfer over to the course. So you'll have to manually set the course points when you create the course.

The Flashlight

6-7 / hour

The Fenix 7 offers an LED flashlight built into the bezel. I'd lump this into the "nice to have as a backup" category. If you're hiking or enjoying the outdoors, you should be carrying a headlamp as part of your basic essentials. The LED flashlight doesn't come close to the brightness of even the weakest headlamp. But I could see myself potentially using the flashlight in a pinch when my headlamp (and my phone flashlight) failed.

I like that the flashlight offers a red option, which is great for night vision. I did use it once to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night when camping, which was handy. It also offers a strobe that you can use in an SOS situation, or if you wanted extra visibility (to others) on a trail.

5 / hour

Also note that the bright AMOLED screen on the Epix can work as a flashlight, and there's a flashlight app for that as well. Again, it's something to use in a pinch but otherwise not a big deal.

How I've Ended Up Using My Watch

15-20 hours

After using the Fenix 7x and Epix side by side, I've decided to keep the Epix and sell the Fenix 7x. Before I actually used the watches, I didn't think the screen mattered that much, but it's simply easier and pleasant to use the far brighter and colorful Epix screen. The battery life is doable; I don't mind charging it every week or so. And on a 3-day backpacking trip, I just hooked it up to the USB charger that I use for my phone and camera; it wasn't a big deal.

I use my Epix not only to track my hikes, but also for my runs and walks. I check in with my "body battery" daily, as well as my resting heart rate. And by the way, the heart rate monitoring is phenomenal. I've ditched the chest strap I used for cycling and just "broadcast" my heart rate from the Epix to my Garmin Edge 830 cycling GPS.

20-33 hours

Note that the new "stamina" feature is not available when in the hiking activity.

When I go on a hike, I'll generally plan it out in a tool like CalTopo or Gaia GPS first, which has much more powerful mapping and planning tools than Garmin Explore or Connect. I'll export that as a GPX track and stick it on my phone, along with offline maps. I'll also import it to Garmin Connect as a Course, and then sync that to my device. When I hike, I'll generally just track the hike without navigating the course unless I think it will be navigationally challenging, in which case I turn it on. For example, if I'm hiking on a well-established trail with little ambiguity (like the Mt Whitney Trail), I don't need the course navigation, but I have it in a pinch. If I'm hiking off-trail to some remote summit, I'll turn on my course navigation.

Activity tracking outside with multi-GNSS only

Small difference – the more pixels on the Epix allow for a max 8 data fields per screen, where the Fenix 7 only has 6 max.

While hiking, I set my data fields for the timer, distance, pace, total ascent, elevation, and sunset. For navigation check-ins, I'll use the map on my smartphone (with GaiaGPS and offline maps). Occasionally I'll pan the map around on the Epix, but generally, I'll only glance at it to confirm that I'm going the right way at a junction. After the hike, I sync with Garmin Connect and track my hike as a workout.

4-5% / hour

Recommendations

As a hiker or outdoors person, should you get the Garmin Fenix 7 or Epix? I'd say that these watches are an extravagance and not a necessity for most folks. Here's what I would recommend:

3-4% / hour

• If you only hike in good conditions and just want to navigate a hike, use your smartphone with offline maps (in airplane mode to save battery).
• If you hike in challenging conditions and just want to navigate and track a hike, look at a cheaper GPSMAP 62s or eTrex 22x.
• If you have a Fenix 5 or Fenix 6 and are happy with it, you don't need one of these watches. If you want more accurate and reliable positioning and are willing to pay for it, upgrade.
• If you want a watch to track your hikes and navigate outdoors without maps on a watch, get a cheaper Garmin Instinct or Instinct 2. You can load tracks onto it and tell if you are on or off the line, which, in conjunction with a paper or smartphone map, is more than enough to navigate a hike.
• If you've decided that you want a Fenix 7 or Epix, here's what I'd say:
  • If you are looking for the maximum battery possible between recharges, go with the Fenix 7x Sapphire Solar (REI – Amazon). For instance, if you are a thru-hiker and just want a very long battery life and the ability to load tracks, this is a great choice.
  • If you are more of a typical hiker who still has long days (20+ mile hikes), you'll enjoy the Epix (REI – Amazon) more. The screen is simply dazzling, and after using both watches side by side, it's hard to go back to the Fenix after using the Epix.
  • And again, whichever one you choose, go with the Sapphire version to get multi-band, it's worth it.

1. These watches are not just for hiking; they serve as a comprehensive fitness and health-and-wellness companion, offering features like tracking various activities, monitoring heart rate, sleep, respiration, and HRV.
2. The Fenix 7 watch comes with a transflective screen, while the Epix watch boasts an AMOLED screen, both now touchscreen-enabled with button functionality.
3. The Fenix 7 offers models with solar energy, while the Epix has no solar capabilities, resulting in varying battery life between the two.
4. Both watches provide estimated fitness markers like VO2 Max and fitness age, with all data organized in one place – Garmin Connect.
5. Navigation features on these devices include GPS-guided hiking trails and preloaded maps, making outdoor exploration more manageable.
6. The high-end models of the Fenix 7 and Epix watches offer multi-GNSS and multi-band support for precise and reliable navigation, especially in challenging environments.
7. supplementing the fitness and health features, these watches come equipped with gadgets and technology such as smartphone connectivity, music capabilities, LED flashlights, and gadget-compatible interfaces.

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