Garmin Fenix 7 Professional evaluate

The Garmin Fenix 7 Professional is the newest instalment of Garmin’s multisports watch that is firmly geared toward out of doors lovers.

Just like the Fenix 7, the Professional nonetheless is available in three fashions and presents the entire similar options to make it match for adventuring. That features Garmin’s nice multi-band mode, rafts of outside exercise profiles and battery life that may go for weeks.

For the 7 Professional, Garmin is now including extra coaching metrics, mapping options and {hardware} enhancements that can assist you keep seen on solo night-time path runs and inform you how onerous you are coaching in a extra correct style.

So is the Fenix 7 Professional one other out of doors watch nice, and is it definitely worth the improve on the unique Fenix 7? Here is my take.

Design and show

• Is available in photo voltaic and sapphire photo voltaic variations
• Improved show
• LED flashlight on all Fenix 7 Professional sizes

The Garmin Fenix 7 Professional does not shift too distant from the look of the 7, which is not essentially dangerous or shocking. It is a watch that appears constructed for rugged use and now Garmin has added in some new options to make it extra helpful outside.

The primary is taking the LED flashlight it included on the Fenix 7X and bringing it to the Fenix 7S Professional and the 7 Professional. Just like the 7X’s flashlight, there’s white and crimson LED modes with the choice to set the sunshine to varied modes like setting it to pulse. It is a vibrant sufficient gentle to show helpful and you may set it as much as keep on whenever you’re monitoring exercise.

Garmin says it is also added an improved show to the entire Fenix 7 fashions. Our 47mm 7 Professional packed a 1.3-inch, 260 x 260 decision display, matching the scale and backbone on the non-Professional 7. You might be getting a display that is a contact clearer and brighter however it’s not an enormous display improve. It is nonetheless a touchscreen, which fortunately is not laggy and presents a pleasant different to utilizing the bodily buttons to navigate menus.

Garmin presents the Professional in photo voltaic and sapphire photo voltaic choices, which does imply you get its PowerGlass lens to reap vitality from the solar to spice up battery life. You are still getting a reasonably customary silicone strap that is straightforward to take away and waterproof ranking that makes it secure to be submerged in water as much as 100 metres depth.

Well being and health

• New Hill and Endurance scores
• Added mapping options and modes
• New coronary heart charge sensor constructed for train

Every thing you possibly can observe or monitor on the Fenix 7 you are able to do on the 7 Professional. So Garmin has sought to enhance issues in some key areas together with delivering extra correct information, providing extra coaching insights and bolstering the Fenix’s already nice mapping expertise.

For those who like your whitewater rafting or motocross, Garmin now has a profile for you. It is also sought to enhance the accuracy of its coronary heart charge monitoring by including a brand new sensor on the again of the watch that, together with new algorithms, desires to dish out the form of HR information you possibly can depend on.

In our checks, the Fenix 7 Professional’s sensor carried out surprisingly properly, the place larger Garmin watches up to now have struggled in additional excessive depth train use. The Fenix 7 Professional wasn’t resistant to the odd uncommon spike or coronary heart charge drop in opposition to a extra dependable coronary heart charge monitor chest strap, however usually the info was good. It is nonetheless not chest strap stage of accuracy, however it carried out properly usually.

One of many greatest causes to personal a Garmin is the power to view maps, and its strategy is best than what you will discover from different sports activities watches proper now by way of modes, stage of element and simply proving helpful when it is advisable discover your approach round.

You may have to get the Sapphire version of the Professional to get these pre-loaded topographical maps, which now help a break up display mode. This lets you view metrics and maps on one display and reduction shading to reinforce the element you will see on these maps on the opposite. Garmin has additionally added the power to see climate, like precipitation and temperature throughout maps, although this isn’t simply accessible whenever you’re in monitoring mode.

For those who did not really feel like Fenix already supplied sufficient methods to gauge how properly your coaching goes, it is now added two new coaching metrics within the type of Hill Rating and Endurance Rating. Hill Rating desires to offer you a greater concept of how properly you possibly can sort out hills, paying shut consideration to your extra elevated exercise over weeks and months, to inform you whether or not you are going to be able to sort out a really elevated race or route.

Endurance rating desires to simplify your understanding of whether or not you are build up the correct quantity of coaching to sort out extra endurance-style actions. It is producing scores out of your earlier exercise historical past and VO2 Max readings and, like Hill Rating, is admittedly about providing you with a clearer sense of whether or not you are placing in the correct amount of coaching and monitoring time to place your physique to extra bodily demanding use. Ought to these scores be seen because the definitive say in your preparation? No, however the info and metrics it is fuelled by ought to provide some helpful steerage on whether or not you are properly ready.

Once you add within the belongings you already get from the unique Fenix 7, like the good multi-band mode for bettering out of doors monitoring accuracy, an already considerable set of coaching insights and instruments and nice mapping modes, the Professional is a formidable look ahead to out of doors monitoring.

Smartwatch options

• New consumer interface
• Identical smartwatch options as 955
• Slick and responsive OS

Like different Garmin watches, the 7 Professional is sports activities watch first and smartwatch second, however it presents sufficient options for people who wish to make use of it once they’re not tackling trails.

Garmin hasn’t added something drastically new right here, so that is nonetheless a watch that you should use to view notifications out of your Android cellphone or iPhone, ship textual content responses to some notifications (for Android solely), change watch faces, view calendar and inventory updates and also you do nonetheless have a built-in music participant that helps offline playlist storage with Spotify and Deezer.

The smartwatch expertise on a Garmin is about pretty much as good because it will get on any sports activities watch. The notification help works properly, you have bought good music options and the consumer interface on the watch is strong on the entire.

There are components which are not excellent. Garmin Pay is not tremendous slick, nor does it help an enormous assortment of banks, the Garmin Join IQ Retailer is not wherever close to as polished as Apple or Google’s watch storefronts, however on the entire it is the very best sports activities watch and smartwatch mash-up you will discover proper now.

Battery life

• 22 days in smartwatch mode
• Can final for as much as 70 days in expedition mode
• Energy supervisor mode included

One thing you are not going to have to fret about on the Professional is battery life. You are going to get plenty of it right here and whether or not you are out mountain climbing for a number of days otherwise you’re utilizing it as your day-to-day working watch and smartwatch, you are getting lots.

In monitoring mode, the 47mm model I examined can go wherever from 40-70 days in Garmin’s Expedition mode, which samples GPS information at a much less common charge. For those who go for probably the most correct multi-band mode, that drops to 23-26 hours. That prime finish of the vary relies on taking advantage of the Professional’s photo voltaic charging powers, which does require spending plenty of time outside to push issues additional.

For those who’re extra involved in monitoring and utilizing the onboard smartwatch options, Garmin says you need to be lined for as much as 22 days. The numbers aren’t that totally different from the unique 47mm Fenix 7, however what I would say is that that is nonetheless a Garmin watch that can final every week and longer relying on the quantity of exercise you observe and the way precisely you select to trace it. Garmin says it is a watch constructed for the outside and it could possibly actually final an excellent time away from the charger.

To push issues additional Garmin nonetheless consists of its nice energy supervisor modes, letting you’ve got higher management over what’s working and being tracked and be sure you’re not utilizing battery-sapping options that you do not care about.

Verdict

The Garmin Fenix 7 Professional is one other nice look ahead to people who love the outside and out of the brand new options Garmin has added to the Professional over the usual 7, it’s doubtless going to be the flashlight that would be the huge pull for going Professional over the unique.

Which may make the additional outlay over the unique onerous to justify, however for people who need the newest and best Garmin tech and options, there is not any doubt that the Fenix 7 Professional presents it.