Garmin Fenix 3 GPS Watch (Sapphire Silver/Leather Band)

1. Wrist HR isn't too reliable which is a shame. even with a paired garmin HR band the HR seems to be laggy and to report incorrectly for portions of the workout. 2. The display isn't that bright. i use the backlight a lot even during the day time. Those two things aside however this is still a great multi featured tool and pretty configurable for whatever suite of activities you may be particularly involved with.

The Garmin Fenix 3 HR receives widespread acclaim for its robust features and durability. Users praise its accurate heart rate monitoring, GPS accuracy, and multisport capabilities. The rugged design is lauded for handling diverse activities, from running to swimming. However, some note a steeper learning curve with the complex interface. Overall, it's hailed as a top choice for fitness enthusiasts and adventurers alike, delivering on its promise of advanced tracking in a durable, stylish package.

I used to have Garmin Fenix 3. Unlucky, it was broken by an accident. But I have to say, this is the best device that I used for my bike run tracking. Easy to connect with your phone. It gives all the information you need. Record your outdoor activity based on the real map. It also shows your heart rate. A long life battery is another plus point.

These are the best smart watches ever! Very easy to sync with your phone and use. They are durable, accurate and very comfortable to wear for hours. Battery life is fantastic (it stays charged for days) and the features are fantastic. Definitely recommend them to anyone who is looking for high quality smart watches.

Almost perfect

Confession. I have used Suunto watches for ages (Ambit 3 Peak) but with the transition from Movescount to SuuntoApp I thought I'd have a backup if syncing routes became a problem. What can I say. This is a superb product and very easy to use through Garmin Connect. Huge feature set and an incredible level of detail, but it can be customized to individual needs anyway, so not really a problem. The ONLY real issue is the green colour of the navigation route, which isn't the easiest to see in some lights, but that's nit-picking. Otherwise it's faultless.

Amazing Capabilities - Best Watch I've Ever Owned

Picked up the Fenix-3 gray package with HRM. The watch is amazing. Very light on the wrist. In watch mode, charge lasts about 2-weeks. Using the bike function daily on rides to/from work drives the charge down to about a week. Charges via USB in about 1-2 hours. The watch comes loaded with an amazing complement of apps and widgets for any outdoor sport/activity you can imagine. Also comes with apps for indoor biking, rowing, etc at the gym. You can add a dizzying amount of user-friendly additional apps and widgets for no cost from the connect IQ web page. There are new apps and widgets being posted to the Garmin site each month. If you add one and don't like it, it is easily deleted with no fuss. You can customize your dial with an array of both digital faces and ... MorePicked up the Fenix-3 gray package with HRM. The watch is amazing. Very light on the wrist. In watch mode, charge lasts about 2-weeks. Using the bike function daily on rides to/from work drives the charge down to about a week. Charges via USB in about 1-2 hours. The watch comes loaded with an amazing complement of apps and widgets for any outdoor sport/activity you can imagine. Also comes with apps for indoor biking, rowing, etc at the gym. You can add a dizzying amount of user-friendly additional apps and widgets for no cost from the connect IQ web page. There are new apps and widgets being posted to the Garmin site each month. If you add one and don't like it, it is easily deleted with no fuss. You can customize your dial with an array of both digital faces and analog faces. It is fun to change watch faces whenever you want with a couple button presses. The watch has a decent amount of storage to add apps, save your fitness data, etc. Really the most versatile watch I've ever owned and as a watch collector I have owned 100+ watches (many high end). The Garmin gets the most wrist time. The activites you use the watch with can be downloaded by bluetooth to your ipad or computer to give you a detailed log and fitness tracker. You can see detailed map tracks of your routes onthe ipad. All of the data is transmitted automatically by bluetooth to my ipad and is organized and stored in a very useful manner to allow me to track my weekly activity and see where I have been and how I have performed over time. On my bike rides, I am able to monitor virtually every important metric while riding to include speed, distance, mph, average speed, and much more. You can customize the screen to show you the data fields you want to see. With the optional cadence pod on my bike I can track my cadence in addition to all of the other metrics. The Fenix is also compatible with power meters which is great. The heart rate monitor is well built and comes paired with your device right out of the box. You can pair your watch with your phone also which can be useful....e.g. Phone in your backpack yet you can see alerts, texts, etc on your wrist. The case is very light yet tough. I have the normal crystal version vice the sapphire. So far no signs of wear or scratching. The crystal is slightly recessed below the bezel which makes it very difficult to scratch or bump. Water resistant to 100m which is pretty amazing for a watch with this much tech plugged into it. The watch acquires satellites in about 2-seconds when outdoors which is fast than my handheld Garmin GPS. You canlink to wifi and bluetooth to control music, receive notifications, etc. I just can't say how impressed I am with the technology packed into this watch. And more importantly all of the technology works without hiccups or glitches which is awesome compared to some other brands. It has 26mm lug width and you can swap out straps easily with other Garmin straps or 26mm aftermarket bands (leather, nylon, steel). It dresses up and is just the right size to fit under a cuffed shirt in a suit. I honestly don't think I'll buy another watch again except another Fenix someday down the road - although I don't see this watch wearing out anytime soon. Exceeds all expectations. Highly recommended.

Buy it ... you won't be disappointed

I wanted a smart watch, but I did not want a early model. I wanted to wait and let the competition create a more rounded watch and then buy it cheap. I feel like I accomplished this with Garmin Fenix(Phoenix) 3. The Rubber black band is comfortable and holds the watch comfortably to your wrist. I use the blood pressure monitor more than anything. It's worth the purchase just for this. No matter what sport you are into this watch has you covered. Golf and GPS = right club. Hike...ski..Compass...I live on a really high hill and love graph telling me I am at 694 ft. Sunrise is at 6:22 a.m. and sunset is 8:50 pm...all on the face of my watch. The reason for 3 stars is it does not have cell phone quality screen yet. You can still see the pixels. But for what I paid and ... MoreI wanted a smart watch, but I did not want a early model. I wanted to wait and let the competition create a more rounded watch and then buy it cheap. I feel like I accomplished this with Garmin Fenix(Phoenix) 3. The Rubber black band is comfortable and holds the watch comfortably to your wrist. I use the blood pressure monitor more than anything. It's worth the purchase just for this. No matter what sport you are into this watch has you covered. Golf and GPS = right club. Hike...ski..Compass...I live on a really high hill and love graph telling me I am at 694 ft. Sunrise is at 6:22 a.m. and sunset is 8:50 pm...all on the face of my watch. The reason for 3 stars is it does not have cell phone quality screen yet. You can still see the pixels. But for what I paid and my titanium band this baby has found a home in my watch collection $200.

Most amazing watch I've had!

I've slowly become a bit of a watch aficionado. Thankfully when I decided to get a watch case for my dresser, I went with a 12 slot unit instead of 6 as I originally planned, because I quickly surpassed that, and currently sit at 9 watches. I have a number of fashion/dress watches, and with the Fenix 3 HR watch, three smart watches.The Fenix sits on the fence of being a smartwatch in the sense of what a current generation smartwatch offers. Can I speak texts to it, no. Can I control my Nest or other home automation with it, not really (I could set it up as a location device in SmartThings if I really wanted). Does it display information from texts, emails, weather, and so much more, oh yes. I actually am not using the notification content on the Fenix in an ... MoreI've slowly become a bit of a watch aficionado. Thankfully when I decided to get a watch case for my dresser, I went with a 12 slot unit instead of 6 as I originally planned, because I quickly surpassed that, and currently sit at 9 watches. I have a number of fashion/dress watches, and with the Fenix 3 HR watch, three smart watches.The Fenix sits on the fence of being a smartwatch in the sense of what a current generation smartwatch offers. Can I speak texts to it, no. Can I control my Nest or other home automation with it, not really (I could set it up as a location device in SmartThings if I really wanted). Does it display information from texts, emails, weather, and so much more, oh yes. I actually am not using the notification content on the Fenix in an attempt to stretch the battery. I have a Moto 360 and Pebble which work better for that purpose if I need that type of device.I was in the market for a device which I could use to track hiking, mountain biking, and walking in regards to activities without relying on my phone. The Fenix has fit that purpose ideally. At the time of purchase, I had no idea that it would sync via Wi-Fi. And this is a huge benefit as I have a Verizon MiFi. So now when I’m out and complete an activity, I can power up the MiFi and have the activity sync with that. It’s smaller, lighter and the battery lasts a lot longer because it’s not powering a huge color screen. Not to mention it has a 4,000 mAh battery, weighs just under 5 ounces, and can charge the Fenix itself. On longer hikes I can now leave my phone powered off and only use it as an emergency phone without needing to carry a giant battery pack to charge the phone since the Fenix will record my routes. This saves me 5-10 ounces of pack weight typically depending on which battery pack I was previously bringing. I’m not a passionate ultralight packer, I do like to go light, but I am a data junkie so I need to feed that passion.I’ve seen a lot of complaining about the heart rate monitor, inaccuracies of wrist based monitors, etc. My Moto 360 was horrid. I could only get a reading 20-30% of the time I’d say. It was so frustrating, I never bothered checking for accuracy and it was a spot reading. So far, my experience is that the Fenix has been spot on. One day at the gym while riding a stationary bike, I checked the hand based monitor against the Fenix. Both measured the exact same BPM rate. I then counted against a clock and my BPM matched what the Fenix was reporting. I also have a Tickr chest strap, which I have not yet paired or checked against the Fenix.GPS accuracy is seemingly pretty good. Inside as expected leaves a lot to be desired. One of my indoor walking routes I take at work when it’s raining, was recorded as me jumping all over the place, likely when it grabbed reception and again lost it. The distance ended up being about correct however, the path was just crazy.ABC’s – one of the main reasons I purchasedThe altimeter is calibrated at the factory. I found it to be off by a couple hundred feet. This was easy to correct within the Fenix. Lidar imagery has accurate altitudes to use for calibration. Google, “Daft Logic Altitude” to find the site which allows you to click on a map and have the altitude returned. Once I calibrated this, it was accurate. I verified by clicking a point at the end of my driveway to get the altitude after doing the correction in front of my office.The barometer is quite useful. I turned on the barometric pressure alarm to notify me of pressure drops of 2mb in a three hour period. I’ve had one occasion when out in the woods where nothing was on radar, and a storm literally popped up ten miles south of me, in two frames on the radar, it went from nothing to yellows and reds. Unfortunately I did not yet have the watch, so I can’t comment if this would have been detected, but that’s the hope when on the trail. The barometric sensor is also used to calculate flights of stairs ascended and descended. I tested starting from the street level walking up to the seventh floor, my office level, and it was spot on.The compass is what pushed me to the Fenix 3 over the Vivoactive HR model. The Fenix has a magnetic compass whereas the Vivoactive is GPS based. Not everyone understands that there is a true north and magnetic north. Depending on where you are on the earth, this angle of difference varies. But for a quick rundown, if you were to navigate to a fixed location three miles away, at a 15º declination, the difference between magnetic and true north is almost three quarters of a mile. Do your research before finding this out in real life.I race sailboats, and there is a watch face in the store for the Fenix. So far is has proven pretty useful, I’d like to see more functionality, so I’ll probably end up writing one myself. But this was another driver for me. I can use the watch to be notified of lifts and headers while racing. I’d like an app to notify of when you’ve reached the layline, etc. Of course the GPS vs. magnetic compasses will be useful here for taking into account for current offset.I’ve been blown away by battery life. When using it just as a watch and an occasional tracking of a walk during the day, it typically loses ~10%. As I write this review, it has been 24 hours since charging, and the battery is at 87%.It’s an expensive watch, and I don’t regret making the purchase in the least bit. I found the button layout to be a bit different in the sense of flow, but I’ve grown accustom to it. I just feel like the back button should be on the bottom left and the up/down menu buttons on the right middle and right bottom. Not a big deal, it works!One gripe, which I'm not going to ding a star for, wish we could do half stars though. It's a proprietary charging system. My guess is that it's probably for water ingress reasons. But if it utilized a standard micro-usb connector, I'd already have one of these cables on trips. So it's another charging cable I have to bring on a backpacking trip, which adds weight. There are aftermarket chargers out there for the Fenix 3, non HR model. The plug into the watch side with a micro-usb connector. So far there are non which have the cutout for the HR sensor on the Fenix 3 HR watch. At the very least, make the OEM Garmin charger utilize a micro-usb connector, or as things are progressing now, a USB-C connector.Oh yeah, it tells the time too. Because it’s GPS based, it follows you across times zones and is always spot on.

Very fair seller

I bought a very expensive watch at a great price from this seller and the watch is performing great. It was sold with scratches on the watch face which were well photographed in the listing. I appreciated that what arrived in the mail is what I was expecting. A factory reboot helped with one little blip in performance and now the watch is performing great, with a very long battery life as its known for. I feel I got a fair price for a great piece of technology. I run about 40 miles per week and rely on the data. The seller took the time to contact me after I received the watch, checking that things were ok. He was willing to message back and forth over a few questions I had and seemed genuinely concerned that I be happy with my purchase. The sincerity was really ... MoreI bought a very expensive watch at a great price from this seller and the watch is performing great. It was sold with scratches on the watch face which were well photographed in the listing. I appreciated that what arrived in the mail is what I was expecting. A factory reboot helped with one little blip in performance and now the watch is performing great, with a very long battery life as its known for. I feel I got a fair price for a great piece of technology. I run about 40 miles per week and rely on the data. The seller took the time to contact me after I received the watch, checking that things were ok. He was willing to message back and forth over a few questions I had and seemed genuinely concerned that I be happy with my purchase. The sincerity was really appreciated. The watch's performance quality is pretty much identical to the many reviews and youtube video reviews I watched/read, avail. online. The watch performs a tremendous amount of data collecting and I was able to learn its functions easily after watching a few YouTube videos. It works easily with Garmin connect and together provide everything from estimated recovery time to sunset time, to pace, weight analysis, heartrate, VO2 max estimates, control of your music playlist from watch, etc. I wore a TomTom Spark 2 before and found when wearing both, GPS tracking was on par. Only complaint is it enters auto pause kind of slowly...a few steps behind when I think it should.

fenix 3 HR more functions than you may need

I like my fenix 3 HR. I used it predominantly for cycling and swimming. There are more functions than you may need, but that ensures you have what you want. From endurance athletics to Paddleboarding to Golf, this watch has it all. With Face It, you can put a personal picture on the face to customize your look. The only time I have run out of battery life is when I havent recharged it for a 3-4 days. At one point it lasted a week without recharging. I highly recommend putting a protective shield on the face. Since you will be active using this there is chance to have the face scratched. I think the non matte type of Armorsuit protects and gives good visibility. Cons - There arent many I have found. While swimming at night the face is hard to read, and the brightness ... MoreI like my fenix 3 HR. I used it predominantly for cycling and swimming. There are more functions than you may need, but that ensures you have what you want. From endurance athletics to Paddleboarding to Golf, this watch has it all. With Face It, you can put a personal picture on the face to customize your look. The only time I have run out of battery life is when I havent recharged it for a 3-4 days. At one point it lasted a week without recharging. I highly recommend putting a protective shield on the face. Since you will be active using this there is chance to have the face scratched. I think the non matte type of Armorsuit protects and gives good visibility. Cons - There arent many I have found. While swimming at night the face is hard to read, and the brightness doesnt stay on long enough for me. Also, I wish you could put more fields on some of the screens so you dont have to move from screen to screen so often. Even with the Cons I mentioned, I still like this watch.