Garmin fenix 8 vs Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black
if you're spending almost $11,000 for a smart Fitness watch and daily tracker you want to make sure that you're making the right decision so today I'm comparing the Apple watch Ultra satin black versus the Garmin Phoenix 8 I know a lot of you have been asking for it so today's the day finally I'm going to go through the things I love the things I don't love about it and what I've learned using both of these devices over the past few weeks thank you element for sponsoring this video more on them later I'm going to cover the design and durability the features that I use for working out like running and training for a marathon battery life and charging the Integrations with other kinds of devices and gadgets that I need for training GPS accuracy Health metrics some random features that I like and lastly their Smartwatch features now just to discuss the price the Apple watch Ultra 2 set in black with the titanium millanes band is $899 I think it looks super clean with this new band but the band is pretty expensive it's $1.99 if you buy the band on your own this is in comparison to the ultra 2 in natural Titanium with kind of The Ocean band this one's $7.99 if you get this new band it's $8.99 in comparison to the Garmin Phoenix 8 which have the 51 mm here which is their largest and most expensive size and this is $1,200 which is crazy but it is much bigger if you put them side to side you can tell how much bigger the Gin Phoenix 51 mm they do have three sizes of this so you can get smaller versions just note that so they're not cheap they are laptops that you can buy in these price ranges and you can buy multiple cheap watches if you really wanted to for the same price as both these watches and that's where the most important question is do these things hold up how well can they endure challenging environments now both watches with these bands work in swimming diving certain depths for scuba diving even showering with them and rinsing them out cuz you want to make sure that you keep it clean sweating in all kinds of environments working out and even just walking around places I accidentally hit my watches up against a lot of things and both of these watches have gone through the gauntlet so my first thoughts is the design they're both pretty big when you put them on initially and you've never worn watches this big you can feel the weight of the watch I've gotten used to them over time because I wear both of them almost every single day but they do protrude when you're wearing them you know they have a pretty decent amount of thickness they're not super super thin compared to other watches the Garmin has this design look and feel of very high intensity like I'm an outdoorsy person this is not a classic watch I'd wear to like a dinner but it says hey I love to work out I'm a fitness freak I'm hiking mountains I'm doing triathlons I'm running Ultra marathons whereas the new Ultra 2 in satin black can be a little cleaner the action button I think yells hey I like to do Fitness potentially and I wish that it was all black but it can be a little more discreet especially with this titanium millanes Loop that I might be able to wear this out on a fancy dinner I'll have a video out on this soon as well but it's a bit more discreet but it does have that rugged feel with the digital crown and the orange tint that you see on both sides of the watch so it's not fully a watch that you could wear to a fancy dinner and feel confident if you wanted to in my opinion um if they took the orange away I think that's where you kind of get to that level but it still has somewhat of a rugged feel now when it comes to durability both these watches are super durable I bang them up against the wall my ultra 2 I've had for longer and if you look at it there is some like white residue I think in this corner I tried to rub it off but it might have been scrap Ratched if you look right there you can kind of see that the black titanium is supposed to be stronger than the natural titanium just because of the coating that they put on it but so far it looks pretty strong there's only that one small area that kind of looks like it might have gotten scratched and there's a bit of white over there the Phenix dat I haven't had as long but so far it's holding up pretty well both of the past watches that I had from both these Brands held up extremely well nothing went wrong I think one of the issues I had with the Phoenix 7 and The Epic was the buttons would sometimes stop working and I'm not sure if something not stuck in there but the new Phenix 8 has these capacitive buttons they're not actual buttons it makes it feel like a button so I think that should solve a lot of the issues with I had to get both my Phoenix 7 and my epic replaced because of the button issue but I think with this new update there should be no button issues and then in terms of the display we have the new AMOLED display on the Phoenix 8 which is gorgeous and stunning I love the colors it looks so good it still does feel a bit laggy I would love it to be faster and quicker whereas the Apple watch is just a smooth experience it feels exactly like your iPhone the watch Ultra 2 does get brighter than the Phoenix 8 in bright sunlight um that's the one win for the ultra that I like but they're both pretty strong we can see them in bright daylight and you only notice a small difference when you're wearing both watches at the same time now battery life and charging one massive difference between these two watches is battery life I'm at 37% with 11 days on the Phoenix 8 the 51 mm whereas the Apple watch will last me 36 hours I will charge it once or twice a day um for just you know 15 to 30 minutes I'll put it on the charger and you can see I fully charged it around noon today and then took it off the charger again and it's about 84% in the past 4 hours so this will last me a day it'll get me very long runs it'll help me achieve that but when it comes to the Garmin Phoenix 8 I can take this for a week long sometimes maybe even a two we long trip if I'm still using GPS and the watch lasts forever which I really love that's nice but at the same time I forget to bring my charger when I travel because I'm like oh I never need a charg it's always working so that's one of the downsides whereas the Apple watch I know I'm charging it every day so I always have to charger with me and then when it comes to charging experience the Garmin uses a USBC cable to a plug so you do have to take the watch off obviously and you plug it into this port it's not the smoothest experience it's like plugging into a port on your phone and then you kind of have to wiggle it out it's nice it works and it gets the job done it's not as seamless as the Apple watch where the charging experience is you slide it on a magnet so this is just the portable charger here that I have that's that I really like from anchor and I can go ahead and just slide this on and now it's charging boom and it's just like that it's super magnetic I can take it off I slide it on and it just works I don't have to plug anything in I don't even have to look I can do it with my eyes closed I slide the charger on boom I know I can feel if the magnets connected we're done so I do personally prefer the charging experience on the Apple watch but I do love the battery life on the Garmin Fenix 8 now what I like about the Apple watch Ultra 2 and the series 10 supports even faster charging it's fast charging so noad sent me this charger which is purely an outlet it's great I can plug it into the wall I have the Apple watch charger on the top and then I can charge my laptop iPad and iPhone via these USBC ports so this is extremely nice so it's super easy just to lay my watch on there and I can charge it and I can travel with this so this makes it easier not to forget my Apple watch charger which I do appreciate so thank you Nomad for sending this over I'll have an affiliate link down below for all the Nomad stuff that I use and I love next is integration so having all these watches I think I have the Phoenix I have the Epic I have the Phoenix 8 the Apple watch Ultra 2 and natural titanium and the Apple watch Ultra 2 in satin black you know if you have the epics or the Phoenix 7 there is not much of a reason to upgrade unless you want that nicer screen but performance- wise they're pretty much on par very similar GPS accuracy and heart rate sensors but there is one major difference which is heart rate straps so I love to use heart rate straps like this is a Garmin one I also have a polar one which I will wear around my chest and this uses the electrical signal to measure my heart rate versus the watches use light and Optical sensors um as well as I have a core body temperature sensor I have a sweat test the flow bio S1 sensor on here as well now what I love about this sweat sensor is it tells me how much sodium I lost during my workout and I can make sure to replenish with the proper amount of electrolytes and that's where our sponsor element comes in so whether it's for these long runs marathon training sauna or any intensive fitness workout my go-to mix has always been element because hydration especially for intensive and longdistance activities is not just about water but also getting your sodium potassium and magnesium in I prefer to hydrate without the added sugars of popular sports drinks actually my absolute favorite flavor is the raw unflavored version of element I feel like it just has the least amount of things in it it's simple and it gets exactly what I need the way that I use it is I'll take one element pack whenever I'm doing an intensive Fitness activity if I'm doing a long run especially for marathon training I'll take one right before I work out and then I try to do about one per hour and that's just because I know from testing that I sweat a lot and lose a lot of water and electrolytes and that has allowed me to maintain my energy during these runs an element is offering you a free sample pack with any purchase just click the link in my description head to drink element.com back/ sherven to get your free sample pack stay salty stay hydrated now back to my two favorite running watches and how these Hardware Integrations work any downside with the Apple watch is the Integrations aren't that great so the first one is heart rate monitors yes it works um and you have to go into settings into Bluetooth and connect to the chest heart rate monitor but every time I'm doing a workout and I want to use my chest heart rate monitor I prefer to know that it's connected or not so I do need to go into the settings app double check that it's connected under Bluetooth and then go back to my workout app and on the Phoenix 8 once I start my workout it's going to have blinking lights for all the previous devices I've connected and if one is connected that thing will be solid so heart rate monitor it would be solid or it even notifies me that it's connected to the chest heart rate strap so being able to start a workout and know that I'm connected to my third party devices is a huge benefit on the Garmin versus the Apple watch I have to jump through settings and a whole bunch of loops and becomes this process where it's not conducive to using more than just your watch as a tool for fitness and working out especially for cyclists who use like bike computers and other things like that and Marathon trainers you might use running pods heart rate straps and a whole bunch of other stuff and maybe all that stuff is excessive and unnecessary but if you do want to use it it's easier on the Garin that's the hardware side from the software side integration both devices support straa So if I want to upload my workouts to Strava what's nice about the Garmin app is Garmin uses kind of like a their own cloud platform so as soon as I sync my workouts to the Garmin right here it'll instantly send a Strava I just have to set this up in my settings so I'll go to settings I drive down to Connected apps and here you can see all the things I've connected but since I have straa connected directly on the Gman app I never have to worry about manually uploading things it automatically sends my workouts to straa as soon as I finish them and I can change my settings in there if I need to but even if I get new watches and I change things as long as it uploads to the Garment app and then the Garment app cloud is working sometimes there are issues it'll instantly send it to straa and I don't need to think or worry about it the major difference on the Apple watch is I have to go to the straa app and use the Strava app natively to either manually or automatically sync it via health kit the downside there is sometimes because of iOS restrictions you know if my Strava app isn't open if I don't have certain settings turned on background app refresh or like motion activity then when it comes to syncing my Apple watch data I actually either have to manually do it so I can go to my notifications I can go ahead and find the run that I did and import it I used to do this when I only wanted to import runs and nothing else or I can turn on automatic uploads which I just prefer not to do but it does require your phone to read all that information which it just becomes a little a little bit more of a cumbersome process and it creates a higher variability that it might not work perfectly dependent on your settings so in that sense I prefer the Gins when it comes to straw Integrations it's getting really hot in here now you can sleep with both of these watches not in that way but you can sleep with them on your wrist and it will track your sleep things like heart rate variability respiratory rate skin temperature blood oxygen there are certain settings you actually need to turn on to get that information but even just looking at the Sleep data I can see they're both about 50 minutes apart in terms of total sleep so not every device is going to be accurate I have done a video where I compared all these devices against a sleep study and they can be all over the place so I take it with a grain of salt I tend to look at Total Sleep time and just understanding my general sleep Trends rather than going to minute details of hey how much deep sleep did I get this night versus that night because when you wear multiple wearables you realize that you're going to get such different data from all the different wearables I do love on the Garmin that I'll get a race predictor it says that I can do a 345 full Marathon whereas on the Garmin there is no native race predictor support it does let me do things like race rods where I can race myself on a previous Rod to see what time I get but there is no like prediction methods there but Apple now does have two new things which is vitals and training load which I would say is similar to training status recovery time on the Garmin and that just allows me to understand hey am I pushing it too hard am I draining um both those devices will kind of give me this Guidance the Apple watch does it based on heart rate and you know intensity as well as a subjective metric that you must input each time you work out and then the Garmin kind of just automatically does most of it they do take some subjective info as well but I think those charts are a great reminder when when you get a little lazy hey you're not working out get back out there start running so I do love that both of these watches have that new training load training readiness features built in it also helps slow people down who work out too much too hard and they might need to do less now when you look at the steps they're pretty close 25,700 on the Apple watch Ultra 2 24,800 on the Garmin Phenix 8 so I wouldn't I think it's good to look at the yeah I do a lot of steps it's good to look at all the steps that you take just because I think getting your 10,000 steps is can be helpful so both these watches are maybe you know almost 800 900 off which is a decent chunk for the steps I've been trying to wear both watches at the same time the entire day so not sure how that metric might be off if you want me to I can run a more specific experiment on steps next is the Smartwatch features so I love wearing the Apple watch as my main device like I will probably always wear this one big factor is Apple pay being able to pay for things I use Express transit so when I'm on the subway you don't even have to like tap anything I just tap my watch and pay which I could also use my phone for which just easier when I'm carrying stuff and I just want to tap my watch super easily without having to pull stuff out of my pockets there is Garmin pay on the Garmin device but some cards are not supported which is a bit challenging and you do have to type in the code each time you put the watch on um when you're trying to pay um whereas the Apple watch will ask you for the code when you initially put it on so there are slight increased barriers of entry and less supported cards on the Garmin device versus the Apple watch and they do support things like weather calendar almost everything supported the biggest challenge is you can do a little bit less on the Garmin I can see my event some details in the address on the Apple watch is the same but then I can get directions to that place with Apple Maps there's just more deeper tide Integrations on the Apple watch Ultra when it comes to the Smartwatch devices and Smartwatch features now we're going to talk about GPS and heart rate accuracy on the Garmin and Apple watch Ultra to see what the numbers look like I have four outdoor runs that I've done from 60 Minutes to 3 hours let's compare now I'm going to start with the first run that is a 3-hour run inside Central Park I had the Phoenix 8 51 mm connected to a Garmin heart rate strap just to show that to you so the heart rate data is from a heart rate strap if we look at the heart rate data from this it's this first graph here uh there was a bit of a pause in the middle it was really cold outside so one of the things I did notice was the Apple watch being off and if you're curious purple is Apple watch blue is Garmin and the purple was the heart rate Garmin strap which there were spikes up here and the appat did not get that I think because of the colder temperatures and Optical heart rate monitors requiring skin profusion that could have just created these inconsistencies that happened near the end of the run it could also be me just sweating a lot the heart rate strap could have slipped down more than it should have been or I was having tugging and moving it but then if we look at things like elevation they're relatively close in terms of the dips and valys they might be off in terms of their base values the developer fields and then the most important piece is the GPS are we able to track the same distance and data so one thing I have noticed is the Apple watch Ultra will always have a shorter number in terms of distance than my Garmin but this was one of the very few runs where the Apple watch actually had just a slightly bit more of a distance than the Garmin did now we can zoom in to see the GPS tracks and for the most part remember purple is Apple watch and blue is Garmin when I'm outside near the water that's where I think the GPS is the best on the peers it does extremely well there's no bouncing around you can see look at this they are almost in line with one another I did run this track twice and there's no changes it's when you get inside of the city and there's big buildings or on this pier 57 I know there's big buildings so the Garmin here it looks like kind of straight in on the pier into the building whereas the appw watch stay outside the appat do have smoother data too because they're using Apple Maps data if we look on here the same thing the Apple watch seem to have jumped into these buildings cuz it's purple the blue Garmin stayed on the street a bit here but it jumped into the buildings there so it's when we're getting near large buildings where the GPS gets a little messed up if we go up the side West Side Highway very very consistent and then it's this segment here where we're starting to go in the street where these two start to separate a little bit more you can tell one of them runs into the buildings that's the Phoenix 8 the Apple watch is probably smoothing that data out with Apple Maps data but there is a point here where they both kind of get a little confused and I think we ran through a little park right here so they're not perfectly sticking together there once we get to Central Park bam one and one so I would say in terms of GPS these are a couple percentage points off there's not much of an accuracy difference run number two this is on the East Side Highway the Garmin was not connected to a heart rate strap the heart rate you can see there are some inconsistencies near the front and the back in terms of both devices elevation somewhat close but there is a pretty big separation here and then the DPS tracks so let's see East Side Highway different scenario so for this run there was a lot of scaffolding um when I was running through here and I want to see how well it would do with the scaffolding purple is Apple watch look how smooth the Apple watch line is on the street so they're definitely using Apple Maps data to smooth this out whereas the Garmin Phoenix 8 struggled a bit more in the Scaffolding in the streets here they're not perfect cuz they're not in the street but the appat Dida so much smoother and it was probably recording less distance and the Garmin Phoenix thinks I'm like zig agging so that's a big difference right there in terms of scaffolding and using Apple Maps data when we did come to the East Side Highway there are a ton of bridges as well so it's very hard to get good GPS data you can see both tracks kind of jumping around a little bit but still relatively decent I would say they're very well tied together when you're on the East Side Highway as well and then I did run to the track so one thing I love about the Apple watch is it has track mode and if you look at the Apple watch the purple the curvature is perfect it's perfect to the track and that's because as soon as they showed up to the track it asked what Lane are you in and like buzzed me and I just tapped Lane three and I said submit and it was that instant that as soon as I got there it started to snap this GPS data you can see right here to Lane three and it's stuck to Lane three until I left the track and it exited track mode so that's one massive advantage on the Apple watch Ultra that I love and the other series watches 2 where it snaps to the track and it makes sure that you're getting the best GPS data possible whereas the Phoenix 8 you know there's a little bit of wavering off of that lane it's not able to stick to that Exact Track unless I switch to the track mode which is another step and it becomes a bit more complicated so for me I was off the track I came on the track instant change the track mode instant change the leave track mode the Apple watch Ultra made it seamless and I love that about my Apple watch third one Central Park no heart rate strap to the Garmin Phoenix 51 mm ammo lead now this is where the heart rate stuff starts to jump around because of the weather and most likely how are is wearing it the Apple watch is purple the Garment is the blue they started to separate about 38 minutes into the run and that second half of the run it seems like the was a bit all over the place so I'm not sure what might have happened there at that point and this is where if you want to get decent heart rate accuracy I highly recommend wearing a chest heart rate strap I am using the new titanium millanes Loop which could also impact heart rate accuracy on the Apple watch Ultra and I try to tighten my bands as much as possible to get the best information elevation relatively close GPS tracks I run almost on the same way so look at that it's perfect perfect perfect it's the same thing we get into these roads Apple watch smoothed out with Apple Maps data most likely G it's jumping in and out a tad we get to Central Park perfectly aligned I've never seen such good GPS tracks both of these watches amazing and perfect wow just look at that so clean last run not in New York City it say Georgetown Cayman Allen heart rate strap with the Garmin Phoenix 847 mm smaller watch slightly worse battery life than the 51 mm let's see how it looks heart rate data so on par with one another it was a warm day I was extremely sweaty so the heart rate strap and the upper watch Ultra seemed to be pretty much very on top of each other just like two people who are in love one day I'll experience that right elevation seems like they're kind of all over the place it is only 2 to 8 m so not a massive difference now GPS tracks this is an island out in the middle of nowhere there's great views of the sky so I'm expecting this to be perfect one in one GPS tracks are great they're following the road very small discrepancies you can barely tell any differences it looks like one line to me small minor changes I ran this twice back and forth and it looks like there is little not a single discrepancy between these Maps look at that wow because this is in a space where there's no buildings potential trees blocking it amazing GPS tracks if you don't have multiband GPS it'll probably perform amazing here too and when it comes down to GPS distance pacing tracking both these watches are truly amazing when it comes to heart rate you might get some differences in separation in between the two the Apple watches have shown to have better heart rate especially the smaller ones with bands that you can tighten to the exact tightness that you need on your wrist the bigger watches in general are just going to have more weight more movement and it's going to decrease the potential accuracy of your watch so just keep that in mind when you're buying a smart watch for Fitness tracking and running when there is a lot of movement I prefer using Bluetooth or amp plus to connect my chest heart rate strap to that device just to get a little bit more accurate heart rate data if I'm doing very specific heart rate training now back to the last few sections all right welcome back the last thing is random stuff so I really love one thing on my garment that I just wish I absolutely wish that the Apple watch had and that is the flashlight so I double tap and now I have this flashlight so I wear this watch all day long just for this one reason so when it gets dark at night and I don't want to turn on the lights just to you know keep it dark and you know maintain my sleep for huberman I can use this to look around or if I'm trying to look inside a drawer that's dark I use this flashlight yes the Apple watch has a flashlight but because I set the action button to Fitness I can't turn it on as easily I can press and hold and then scroll through and change the flashlight which I've done once before but that friction point and that barried entry just I don't use that as often as I probably should and it's not as bright whereas this this one it's built in it's at the front I can double tap it it's super bright it's focused I can change the brightness I can turn it red that's that's hands down one of my favorite features on the Garmin Phoenix 8 that I wish I wish the Apple watch Ultra would have now one thing I want to talk about is bugs and software issues and challenges the one reason I haven't made my Apple watch Ultra the main device on Strava is the action button sometimes throws me off I'll hit start workout with the action button and it just gives me this orange screen and it doesn't actually start the workout and I've had this happen at races when I'm going on a run with friends and I'm like okay ready to go I tap go I thought it started but it never did so when you miss those 0.1 miles of your run you feel extremely upset and you know on straa people are not going to think you're cool so that's one of the downsides I've had from a software side and that's actually happened to me on the ultra 1 the ultra 2 and now the ultra 2 set in Black I've done a fresh install fresh restart with the phone and the watch and I still kind of have this issue on and off and I haven't figured out what might cause it but that's one challenge that I've had and that just might be because watch OS and the action button are only two maybe 3 years old now um whereas on the Garmin they've been around a lot longer and I've almost never had software issues sometimes the watch can be a little bit slower it's buggy one thing I had with the Phoenix 7 I think it was for the London Marathon was it like crashed at the night before I'm like checking the watch making sure that everything's working and the watch just crashed and I did a little Loop and I was like no this better work tomorrow U luckily nothing happened the next day but the night before the watch crashing was a bit scary so yes both are going to have some software challenges for the most part I've had less software challenges in My overall experience with the Garmin watches than with the Apple watches so that's just one thing to keep in mind now when it comes to which watch is going to be my main device for now just because of the start stop functions on the Garmin being a bit easier and more trustable from my past personal and past experiences I'm going to stick with the Garmin as my main watch that sinks to my Strava I will always wear two watches when I work out that's just who I am and what I like to do maybe four if I'm feeling a little crazy um so I'm always tracking my workouts on the Apple watch and the Garmin whatever device it is sometimes I might swap out one of these for a choros but I think if you're someone who wants to track workouts wants to also have lifestyle features the Apple watch is the hands down the best one to go with there's nothing else out there it's going to Encompass everything you need in your life as well as Fitness tracking it's amazing people say oh garin's the best best GPS Apple watch Ultra 2 is also amazing like they are way up there I think the Garment is great I personally wear it when I work out and then I'll take it off unless I like to use the flashlight feature the Apple watch Ultra on the other hand I wear it all day I wear it to sleep I wear it when I'm awake I wear it when I'm doing things it's become a lifestyle device and a fitness tracking device and and it does all those things really well so depending on what your priorities are if you're really into fitness and you need those third party Integrations like for example my flow bio S1 does not work with the Apple watch they don't have that integration right now it's only Garmin just because Garmin is the biggest Fitness watch out there and more people who do training use Garmin so that's why I need to wear my garment if you're someone who doesn't need to worry about all these little Nicks and nannies you might not need that so go with the Apple watch Ultra it's going to cover all your Basics and get you some extra lifestyle feutures and it actually saves you like $400 to $500 compared to the Phoenix a if you enjoyed this video subscribe follow me on all the socials @ sherven shares watch all my other comparisons of the Apple watch versus the Garmin I'll continue to make these videos if you want to see them comment below what you want to see next and I'm going to talk about this new sexy titanium Millan Loop band from the Apple watch Ultra go watch the video peace I want to thank element for sponsoring this video click the link in my description to get your free sample pack with a purchase today
2024-11-27 08:15
