Reviewers Say This Garmin Solar Smartwatch Beats The Apple Watch By Miles And It's $100 Off Today

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If youve been contemplating getting an Apple Watch lately, it may be time to consider a Garmin instead, especially with this current discount.

The Garmin Instinct 2 Solar is what some users call the best watch ever , deeming it a better alternative for health and fitness tracking, rugged durability, and, thanks to solar features, an extremely long battery life. So long, in fact, that one user says they got nearly a month of power on a single charge: The Garmin watch does what I need it to do and has a real-world battery life of around 19 DAYS for me. Thats constantly monitoring my pulse rate, keeping Bluetooth on, and getting notifications from my phone. NINETEEN DAYS!

This Garmin is so good that the same reviewer actually swore off Tim Cooks pricey tech items: No more Apple Watches for me. In fact, no more new Apple products. If youre a hiker, cyclist, runner or fitness maven, or even just someone who needs a smartwatch for tracking texts messages, their pulse and step count, this could be the only watch you need. And right now, its $100 off at just $299  its lowest price since Amazon Prime Day. 

The Garmin Instinct 2 can track your heart rate, energy levels, stress, sleep, respiration, and fitness, displaying it all through an eye-strain-friendly black-and-white screen and connecting with your phones health apps to store data. Its water-rated to 100 meters, thermal- and shock-resistant with its fiber-reinforced case and scratch-resistant thanks to its tough-as-nails design.

If youre hiking, running, walking, cycling or even skiing, you can expect pinpoint accurate tracking from the watchs built-in GPS, which even gives you a map back to your origin point should you get lost on your next adventure. It also provides a barometer, elevation and local weather. Oh, and of course, you can still use this Garmin to answer emails and texts, monitor smartphone notifications and more, just like an Apple Watch.

Where it shines most is its battery life, however, which is extended by continuous charging via its solar panel watch face. Love this watch, says one reviewer . I came from an Apple Watch with horrible battery life! With this watch I can get [at least] 17 days without a charge if I never go outside for the solar function to charge it!

Strap this to your wrist on your next adventure, and never worry about a dead smartwatch again. At $300, this is a solid Apple alternative.

Read on for more promising reviews of the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar smartwatch:

[] The Garmin watch does what I need it to do and has a real-world battery life of around 19 DAYS for me. Thats constantly monitoring my pulse rate, keeping Bluetooth on, and getting notifications from my phone. NINETEEN DAYS! Is it perfect? No. The monochrome screen is functional and high resolution. It is very readable in bright sunlight, unlike the Apple Watch. But the backlight leaves something to be desired. Even at its highest brightness, its a bit dim for my eyes. The user interface takes some getting used to. Pressing buttons is different than holding buttons. So each of the 5 buttons has two functions. Once you get the hang of it, though, its pretty intuitive, but do expect a learning curve. [] Overall, this is an excellent watch with a wealth of features. Just expect to study the manual and memorize buttons and other functionality. I highly recommend this watch.  Aaron Gleason  (This review has been edited for length. Read the full review .)

 

I have had a lot of watches and for the past five or so years used a Fitbit, most recently a Versa. After Fitbit sold to Google , the quality seemed to drop. The most recent Versa 2 (the Fitbits I owned usually stopped working after a couple years, so I owned 3 over that five year period) did a terrible job measuring HRV, which I track. It would regularly show a much lower (worse) figure than I thought possible. It also gave me inaccurate readings on pool swims and sometimes step counts. I ended up turning it back in to Amazon (what an easy process...wow), and switched to an Instinct 2 Solar. I love it. There are too many things to mention, but it is accurate (HRV is measured well, as are all of the other key metrics such as HR, steps, yards swam, etc.. But it also has things like waypoints, where you hit a button and it marks that geographic location. Then you can get it to direct you back to that location. Great for if you are hiking and trying to find your way back or even finding where you left your car in a big parking lot. The other thing that is incredible about this watch is the battery life. Whereas the Apple Watch needs to be charged nearly every day and the Fitbit will be every 5 days or so, this watch will carry a charge for several WEEKS. And thats with the face showing the time, HR, etc. on all the time. It saying right now I have 16 days until I am out of battery. This is a rugged watch that is perfect for outdoor activities, but I would recommend it to anyone. Garmin is a great company that has done a great job transitioning from primarily GPS technology for aviation, marine and automotive applications to wearables such as Smart Watches. I havent felt this good about a purchase in a long time, and I have owned this watch for several weeks now. I keep learnings new things about its capability.  John A. Howard

 

Absolutely love this. Battery life is incredible. Screen is easy to read in all light conditions (im 47), (Solar is much harder to read btw). Has many boating data screens with true nautical speed and distance etc. Tides and tide plot functions are great and accurate. Weather is spot on. Health apps are awesome, although I mostly use walk. You can customize each activity screen to show tons of info. For example in my walk screen i run heart rate, timer, speed, calories burned, and time of day. Alarms and notifications are loud. Theres tons of customizattions to this watch. Highly recommend for anyone.  M.E. Knowles

 

Love this watch! I came from an apple watch with horrible battery life! With this watch I can get a minimum of 17 days without a charge if I never go outside for the solar function to charge it. All of the functionality and the and the ease of wear make this my favorite watch yet, even better than my Suunto that I wore for years. A definite recommend.  Anthony D. Nathan

 

I bought this watch to track my runs and hikes for Strava. The interface between Garmin Connect and the Strava app has been seamless for me. It tracks my other workouts such as elliptical, weight training, and yoga. It can even tell when Im doing a curl, a lateral raise, or a triceps extension. The user interface takes a day or two to get used to, then its straightforward. Battery life is great, after I recharge I usually have 28 days of use remaining. However, I am only using it in GPS mode for an hour at the most. I havent yet taken it on a day hike, so not yet sure what the battery will do after 7-8 hours of being in GPS mode. The default band that comes with the watch is comfortable. Seeing text messages and incoming calls helps, especially when driving, as I only have to look at my wrist for a second. It counts steps, tracks pulse rate all day long, etc. It does what I wanted it to do, and a whole lot more.  BobbleHead