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The best overall pro smartwatch for fitness
Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED blends smartwatch and adventure watch features into one highly advanced wearable with a vibrant AMOLED display. It features a microphone and speaker to take calls and use voice commands right on your wrist, plus an expansive list of training and navigation tools.
Pros- Rugged build
- Impressive battery life
- Highly accurate health and fitness data
Cons- Laggy performance
- Voice assistant feels undercooked
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A good alternative for iPhone devotees
Apple Watch Ultra 2
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a premium smartwatch focused on offering in-depth fitness tracking and a much longer battery life than a normal Apple Watch. As of 2024 it also comes in a black titanium finish.
Pros- Display is bright and beautiful
- Gesture controls are helpful
- Integration with iPhone is unbeatable
Cons- Battery life isn’t that long
- Lacking in navigation and hardcore fitness features
Why are you looking to purchase a “Pro” smartwatch? It’s the main question you should ask yourself before spending upwards of $800 on something you wear on your wrist. Are you buying it just for the extra battery life and premium materials or are you a serious athlete who actually needs the extra skills only one of Apple or Garmin’s high-end watches can provide?
The Garmin Fenix 8 is a small but welcome upgrade to the company’s premium smartwatch line (now combining the Fenix and the Epix), adding in a microphone and speakers, along with access to voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant directly from your watch. It’s now a closer comparison to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, a similarly rugged smartwatch that Apple’s aimed at serious athletes and fans of the outdoors.
Just because these “Pro” watches share many features on paper doesn’t mean they’re cut from the same cloth. Now that the Garmin’s new watch is out, we can put it head to head with Apple’s. Here’s how the Garmin Fenix 8 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 compare, which smartwatch comes out on top, and which you should pick depending on your answer to my first question.
Price, availability, and specs
Both watches can get expensive, fast
Garmin originally announced its new Fenix line in August 2024. The Fenix 8 is actually one of several options the company is now selling, including the cheaper $799 Fenix E, which doesn’t have a built-in flashlight, microphone, or speakers, the $1,099.99 Fenix 8 Solar, which uses a transflective Memory-in-Pixel display and includes built-in solar panels to stay charged for longer, and multiple sizes of the Fenix 8 AMOLED (43mm, 47mm, and 51mm), which start at $999.99.
The 47mm Fenix E is the most similar to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in terms of price, but the Fenix 8 AMOLED is a better comparison because of its built-in speakers, microphones, and AMOLED screen.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was introduced in Sept. 2023, alongside the Apple Watch Series 9 and iPhone 15. In 2024, rather than announce an Ultra 3, Apple announced that the Series 10’s new sleep apnea detection feature would be available on the $799 Ultra 2, and the watch would come in a new black titanium finish.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 features the S9 SiP, which supports things like on-device Siri and gesture controls. It also has a display that can reach 3000 nits of brightness. Beyond that, the Ultra 2 is the original Ultra. Garmin to a similar tact with the Garmin Fenix 8. The only new additions are the speakers, microphone, and improved durability for diving. The rest of the changes are mostly built around what those few hardware tweaks enable. It’s a very similar Fenix to the one Garmin released before. For a comparison between the rest of the watches’ specs, check out the table below:
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Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED Apple Watch Ultra 2 Brand Garmin Apple Heart Rate Monitor Yes Electrical and optical Color Screen Yes 3000nits Battery Life Up to 16 days (7 days always-on) for 47mm model Up to 72 hours Lens Material Corning Gorilla Glass or sapphire crystal Sapphire Case Material fiber-reinforced polymer with metal rear cover Titanium Case size 43mm, 47mm, or 51mm 49mm Display AMOLED 1,185 sq mm, 410×502 pixel resolution, 3000 nits 49mm Connectivity Bluetooth, ANT+, Wi-Fi GPS & Cellular Health sensors Heart rate monitor, thermometer, pulse ox monitor, barometric altimeter, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, ambient light sensor Body temperature, Blood oxygen, Optical heart rate, Electrical heart rate, 86dB siren, Depth Gauge Dimensions 47 x 47 x 13.8 mm (47mm model) 49 x 44 x 14.4mm Weight Stainless steel: 80 g, Titanium: 73 g (47mm model) 61.3g Mobile payments Yes Apple Pay
The Fenix 8 and Ultra 2 don’t change designs that already work
Apple and Garmin are shipping watches that are identical to their predecessors
When it comes to style, you don’t go to Garmin’s high-end smartwatches or Apple’s Ultra for something that could be described as “fashionable.” These are rugged devices that, for the most part, put their functionality above their appearance. That’s not a bad thing.
The Garmin Fenix 8 features a round display with a thick titanium or stainless steel body (with optional sapphire front glass), and comes in multiple sizes depending on how big a screen and how large a wrist you have. The 43mm option should be good enough for most people, but you can go up to 51mm if you’re looking for the largest possible option, even larger than the 49mm Apple Watch Ultra 2.
The Fenix 8 has a touchscreen that will let you control a majority of the smartwatch with your finger, but there are plenty of buttons too: three on the left side of the watch that control power, scrolling through menus, and things like notifications and music controls, and two on the right side that let you control activity tracking and access voice assistants.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a little more stripped down in comparison. Apple’s smartwatch has an OLED screen that’s flush with the body of the watch, and shaped more like a rounded square than a circle. That means the watches’ interfaces are a little bit easier to read and also that the Ultra 2 is compatible with the Apple Watch bands that Apple and third-party accessory makers have made in the past.
There’s no getting around it, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is thick, just like the Fenix 8, though it has a simpler set of buttons to contend with. On one side there’s the Digital Crown used for navigating interfaces and activating Siri, and a side button that launches into Control Center or Apple Pay. And on the other side is the Action Button, which can be assigned as a shortcut for launching a specific workout and a few other options.
Which watch design works better for you will depend mostly on taste. I think there’s a real charm to a round display, but either way, you’re going to be dealing with a heavier smartwatch than what you’d get for a few hundred dollars less.
Apple runs circles around Garmin in software simplicity, not functionality
The Garmin Fenix 8 can do more than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, as long as you care about fitness
Apple makes better designed software than Garmin, but Garmin is willing to let the Fenix 8 do more than Ultra 2. Yes, Garmin makes you shift through multiple layers of interfaces and menus just to use its watch, but it’s still an informative, if a bit confusing, operating system.
It’s worth it for all the data Garmin surfaces and for all the different things the watch can track, though. The Fenix 8’s Glances screen surfaces more common things like altimeter readings or heart rate variance, but also really, really specific data points like the location of your dog or the next hole in your golf game. That’s on top of notifications from your smartphone and all the health and fitness features you could possibly want.
The addition of the speaker and microphone array means that the Fenix 8 can also access voice assistants, an on-device assistant that controls the watch, starting a workout or adjusting settings, and a phone assistant that requires a connection to your smartphone and an internet connection to work. In our review, we found the phone assistant works well, but oddly, only gives you audio feedback — visual results are still displayed on your phone.
Apple’s approach to watchOS is as easy to grasp as the iPhone’s iOS, with some added depth where it matters. The main screen of the operating system is the watch face, with a stack of widgets or a more traditional app launcher, a scroll or press of the Digital Crown away. Apple’s heavily dependent on apps, in that you’ll have to launch one to see or do anything meaningful on the watch. Glanceable information is limited to complications on a watch face or widgets in the smart stack.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is more selective in the health and fitness features it offers, but also has more of a rich app ecosystem than the Garmin. It’s more of a little iPhone in that way. That’s a useful way to think about the software of the Garmin Fenix 8 compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Garmin’s watches grew from hardcore fitness and GPS trackers into smartwatches. The Apple Watch started as a smartwatch — emphasis on the smart — and is just now trying to do some of the hardcore fitness tracking and navigation tasks that Garmin has been doing for years.
The Apple Watch started as a smartwatch — emphasis on the smart — and is just now trying to do some of the hardcore fitness tracking and navigation tasks that Garmin has been doing for years.
If you need that deep integration with your smartphone, or you need your smartwatch to do and access all the same things your smartphone can, watchOS and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 might be a better fit. The Garmin Fenix 8 covers all the most important things a smartwatch should do, but it’ll never have the level of integration with a smartphone that an Apple Watch and an iPhone have.
The Fenix 8’s health and fitness tracking runs laps around the Apple Watch Ultra 2
So many workouts tracked, multiple health factors measured
Garmin has collected a wealth of workout tracking and navigation features in its multiple decades of creating wearables. There’s basics like sleep tracking, activity tracking, or heart rate monitoring, but also a growing list of more complicated or specific metrics, including Training Readiness, which measures your recovery, Training Status, a measurement if you’re training effectively, and an Endurance Score, which describes your ability “to sustain prolonged effort.”
The Fenix 8 has a heart rate sensor, a pulse oximeter, and the usual collection of a compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, and altimeter. Combined, Garmin’s able to track multiple different sports and workout types, on top of providing things like GPS navigation and topographic maps.
Apple’s list of health and fitness features touches on the same general themes, but is more limited in comparison. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 can track your heart rate, heart rate variance, take an ECG, and do sleep tracking. There’s workout tracking for a select group of workouts, with more in-depth features for things like running, cycling, and diving. It has the basics that most people will need, but might not go in-depth enough for the most serious athletes.
Apple does include some unique health and safety features like Crash Detection, Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications, and as of watchOS 11, Sleep Apnea Detection, that Garmin doesn’t have, but whether that makes it worth buying over the Garmin Fenix 8 could vary greatly from person to person.
The difference between the battery life of the Garmin Fenix 8 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 is great
We’re talking about days rather than hours
In our tests of the Apple Watch Ultra 2, we were able to squeeze more than Apple’s promised 36 hours of battery life. If anything, the company is conservative with its smartwatch battery life estimates, it’s possible to even blow past the 72 hours Apple promises when Low Power Mode is enabled. But that pales in comparison to what’s possible on the Garmin Fenix 8.
With the Garmin Fenix 8, battery life extends into the days, not hours. With the always-on display feature disabled, we were able to get 16 days of battery life, handily trumping the Ultra 2’s two days. That falls to seven days when the always-on display is enabled, but that’s still fantastic battery life compared to basically every other smartwatch out there.
If you absolutely need multiple days of battery life, you won’t find it by buying a smartwatch from Google, Samsung, or Apple. At least not yet.
The Garmin Fenix 8’s battery performance can be tweaked further when you use it exclusively as a GPS navigation device, and that’s really the point. It’s a much more flexible tool than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, even if it behaves like less of a “computer.”
Which smartwatch is right for you?
There are obvious similarities between the Garmin Fenix 8 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in terms of the multipurpose role they serve as smartwatches, but the details matter. The Garmin Fenix 8 might not be a dramatic improvement on its predecessors, but it’s absolutely a better fitness device than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and depending on what things you’re interested in keeping track of, a better health tool too.
Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED
The Garmin fēnix 8 AMOLED blends smartwatch and adventure watch features into one highly advanced wearable with a vibrant AMOLED display. It features a microphone and speaker to take calls and use voice commands right on your wrist, plus an expansive list of training and navigation tools.
Where the Apple Watch Ultra 2 wins is its integration with the iPhone, and its potential as a device that can run apps in its own right. Apple might push the envelope with new health tracking features down the road too, but it remains to be seen whether something like optical blood pressure monitoring makes its way back to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 specifically.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a premium smartwatch focused on offering in-depth fitness tracking and a much longer battery life than a normal Apple Watch. As of 2024 it also comes in a black titanium finish.
Which brings us back to the question I posed at the beginning. Why are you trying to buy one of these “Pro” smartwatches? If it’s for the premium health and fitness tracking features, spend a bit more and buy the Garmin Fenix 8. You’ll appreciate just how much it’s able to do. If it’s for more premium materials and a longer battery life (and you own an iPhone), the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is going to be your best option.
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