Garmin’s flagship Fenix 7 track-everything adventure smartwatch has better GPS, longer battery life, a new touchscreen and improved fitness tech compared to its already incredible predecessor.
The Fenix 7 comes in a range of sizes and materials (some of which come in solar-charging options), all of which have top-of-the-range navigation with free maps available for every region in the world.
The 7S is the smallest device with a 42mm case and 1.2in screen, although it is still obviously a sports watch.
The Fenix 7 has a 47mm case and 1.3in screen and the supersized 7X has a 51mm case and 1.4in screen.
Read more: Garmin Instinct Solar review: Mid-price fitness watch
I’ve been testing the Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar edition for a number of months. It has 32GB of onboard storage so you can store up to 2,000 songs if you wish.
However, there is offline music streaming for subscribers of Deezer, Amazon Music and Spotify.
Sapphire models come preloaded with TopoActive Maps for Europe and all models now include Skiing and Golf Course Maps preloaded too.
There is a handy new Map Manager feature for managing and downloading maps from your wrist.
The Sapphire Solar model also comes with Sapphire glass and a titanium bezel, along with the solar charging units.
Battery life
Battery life is incredible. Garmin promises up to 57 hours of GPS use and up to 18 days of smartwatch use on the standard Fenix 7.
The Solar editions can last up to 73 hours of GPS use and 22 days of smartwatch use.
Solar charging gets a boost over the Fenix 6 series because the new watch has two larger solar panels.
Touchscreen
The new touchscreen is an excellent addition. It means you can swiftly swipe through menus and screens and it makes an immensely positive difference to how you use mapping.
For daily smartwatch functions it also improves ease of use. You can tap and hold on widgets on the watch face to jump straight to things such as a graph of your heart rate, battery power settings or notifications.
The firm’s excellent five-button control system remains and everything can be controlled using either method or both at the same time. It is worth noting you must use the buttons for starting and stopping an activity or pressing the lap button.
By default, the Fenix 7 disables touch when you start most activities, to prevent accidental pauses of runs or similar. You can also disable touch during your sleeping time periods using the Sleep Mode manager interface.
Fenix 7 is clear and easy to read in direct sunlight, with a backlight for lowlight conditions. But it’s not as bright or crisp as the OLED screen on Garmin’s Epix Gen 2 – which I will be reviewing soon.
Fitness and health tracking
Fitness tracking is second to none, with more than 60 activities and sports preloaded and more available from Garmin’s Connect IQ store. No other watch packs as many sport elements in and does it so well.
New features include a real-time stamina measurement for running and bike-based activities, which is a live estimate of how much energy your body has left as a percentage, based on your fitness, sleep, activity, recovery and other factors the watch tracks during your day.
You also get 24/7 heart rate monitoring, heart rate variability, high or low heart rate alerts, sleep tracking, female health, hydration reminders and stress level monitoring.
For the impressively accurate heart rate monitoring, the device uses the optical heart rate sensor on the rear of the watch. The sensor also tracks your blood oxygen levels.
I like the new Health Snapshot feature. You sit still for two minutes and the Fenix 7 will measure your heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), blood oxygen level, respiration rate and stress. These core metrics are already tracked by Garmin but the idea is that if you do this at the same time every day, you will start to develop a picture, or snapshot, of your trends.
Sleep tracking is superb on Fenix 7. You get detailed analysis of the quality of your sleep and it’s an area the company has clearly worked on.
You can set the Pulse Ox (blood oxygen) monitoring to be off, on during sleep only or on 24/7.
I like to have it on during sleep (as it’s a good early indicator of issues such as sleep apnea) and it is useful to have on if you are out in high altitude environments.
It draws a bit of battery power so it’s probably best not to have it on 24/7. When carrying out occasional readings, make sure to sit still.
One metric that is missing is running power, which is the measurement of how much work you are putting in while you run. This is calculated from the wrist on both Polar’s Vantage V2 and Coros’ Vertix 2 but not on Fenix 7.
Navigation and mapping
There is dual-band GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) on the Sapphire Solar which locks on to satellites quicker than the Fenix 6 Pro Solar and is theoretically more accurate as your watch can now see up to 60 satellites. It’s also called dual-band GPS but GNSS not GPS is the technically correct name. This feature has been constantly improving with software updates since the watch was launched.
Coros Vertix 2 was the first multisport watch to introduce this feature and it has more recently been introduced on Huawei’s Watch 3 GT and Huawei Watch GT Runner wearables.
Mapping and navigation features on Fenix 7 include the new Up Ahead function, ClimbPro, map manager, following routes and creating one-off routes.
As mentioned above, the Sapphire models of Fenix 7 have 32GB of built-in storage and global maps are pre-loaded. On other models you get 16GB of storage and you need to download the maps using map manager.
Customising and settings
You can customise the watch face to your liking, whether you are using the built-in watch faces or one of the thousands you can download from the Connect IQ app store. You can now install Connect IQ apps directly from the watch, incidentally, but don’t get too excited as this new feature is still at the basic stage.
You can tweak almost every setting on Fenix 7 from your phone: sport and activity profiles, data fields and widgets. You can also tweak these settings on the watch too. One thing you must do from the watch itself is download maps.
The widget glances are a great feature that display summaries of data such as steps, the weather, your sleep and training status. You can tap on any widget for a deeper dive into your data.
All of the data from your Fenix 7 is synced to the excellent Garmin Connect app which provides incredible insights into your workouts and activities. The data can be easily transmitted to any third party apps you have authorised such as Strava.
Other features
Recharging is with a proprietary Garmin cable. The interchangeable straps are quick release.
Fenix 7 also has Bluetooth, ANT+ and WiFi connectivity.
Verdict
Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar is the ultimate adventure sports watch.
Pricing and availability
Garmin Fenix 7 costs from €699.99. Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar costs from €899.99.
