THE GARMIN FENIX 5S IS THE FITNESS WATCH I DON'T WANT TO TAKE OFF

It turns out that a giant multisport watch doesn’t have to be a giant multisport watch.

Case in point: the new Garmin Fenix 5. Garmin has taken its big, aggressive, I Am A Serious Outdoors Person line of Fenix multisport watches and shrunk it into something that looks a little less obtrusive. It was also designed with women in mind. (Yay!) The Fenix 5 model has a 47mm face, compared with the 51mm face of the Fenix 3; and the Fenix 5S, aimed at women and anyone with smaller wrists, has a 42mm face. The Fenix 5X is the only one in this series that has maintained its massive size, due to its advanced mapping features.

Almost more important than size is the fact that the Fenix 5 knows what it is and what it’s supposed to do. It’s not a smartwatch posing as a fitness watch, and it’s not a fitness watch that has co-opted the app platforms and battery-sucking touchscreen displays of smartwatches. It’s a fitness tracking watch with all of the stuff that you would expect from a high-end Garmin.

This all sounds great! The gut punch comes when you consider the price: the Fenix 5 starts at $599, and only goes up when you move into the Sapphire glass models. That’s more than Garmin’s Forerunner running watches, more than its triathlon watches, more than Polar’s multisport V800 watch, more than Suunto’s Spartan Sport watch, more than... okay, you get the idea. The Fenix 5 is a very expensive sport watch. For that price, you’d want to to track every activity under the sun. Fortunately, it pretty much does that.

For the past month I’ve been wearing the Fenix 5S during both workouts and day-to-day life. It’s relatively small and light, weighing in at just 2.4 ounces with a silicone band, the lightest of all the Fenix models. The model I have is white; it also comes in black and teal. Over time the watch body and silicone strap have started to look dingy, so I’d recommend getting another color unless you have your heart set on a white watch.

For people interested in the Fenix 5: the 5 and the 5S record the exact same activities, differing only in size, display resolution, and battery life. (See pic above for a size comparison; the 5S is on the left.) Not surprisingly, the Fenix 5S’s smaller size equates to shorter battery life. The Fenix 5S is supposed to last nine days on a charge in smartwatch mode, and up to 14 hours in GPS mode; the Fenix 5, on the other hand, will last two weeks in standard mode and 24 hours in GPS mode. In my experience the Fenix 5S lasted closer to a week in smartwatch mode; coupled with consistent GPS workouts, I was looking at charging it around every five days.

The 5S has a round face, a fiber-reinforced polymer body, and a stainless steel bezel. It’s still fairly thick, with a swollen underside and flashing green heart rate sensors, but it’s not quite the monstrosity that is the LG Watch Sport.

The button on the upper right brings you to sport options; the bottom right button brings you back a step in the watch interface and lets you mark laps. On the left side of the face, there’s a backlight button and two more buttons that act as both up / down buttons and shortcuts to data pages (showing things like daily step count, calories burned, local weather, altitude, and recent notifications). TL;DR: these buttons take time to learn, even with button identifiers etched on the bezel.

The 1.1-inch display is the same multicolor, transflective display you’ll find on other newer Garmin watches, but it’s worth noting that the Fenix 5S didn’t get a resolution upgrade. The 5S has a resolution of 218 x 218 pixels, while the 5 and 5X now have a slightly higher resolution of 240 x 240 pixels.

Okay, so you can see it in sunlight, and there’s not much innovation around the display. Let’s talk about what it actually does. It has GPS, Glonass, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, an altimeter, a barometer, a compass, and built-in heart rate sensors. It records running, trail running, treadmill running, hiking, climbing, cycling, indoor cycling, mountain biking, pool swims, open water swims, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, triathlons, stand up paddleboarding, strength training, and more. Also: sleeping.