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- Rugged MIL-STD design
- Superb battery life
- Reasonable price
- No Garmin Connect IQ apps
- Breadcrumb navigation only
Garmins Fenix range of sports watches are peerless in terms of the features and performance they deliver, but theyre expensive. The superb Fenix 5 Plus, for instance, will set you back anywhere from £450 to £600, depending on how good a deal you can find.
Garmins new Instinct smartwatch is a little different. It has many of the features youd normally associate with Garmins Fenix range such as GPS tracking, navigation tools and 14-day battery life. Crucially, though, at £270, you wont need to remortgage your house to buy one.
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Garmin Instinct review: What you need to know
The Garmin Instinct is a smart sports-tracking watch aimed squarely at those keen on outdoor activities. This much is obvious from the outdoorsy design but also from the huge selection of outdoor activities it counts among its activity tracking modes from mountain biking and open-water swimming to snowboarding and kayaking.
It has a crisp, black-and-white display and, thanks to its MIL-STD 810G credentials, its waterproof to 100m and super rugged. Plus, it includes a huge array of sensors and tracking tech, including a heart rate monitor, embedded GPS, a three-axis compass and altimeter. Theres also ANT+ and Bluetooth connectivity so you can connect it to your phone and a huge array of external sensors.
Although it can be used like more basic Garmin fitness trackers for simple step, sleep and activity tracking, this is a serious sports watch a poor mans Fenix 5 Plus, if you will and it lacks only a few key features that its more expensive siblings include, such as full mapping, a colour screen and cycle power meter connectivity.
Garmin Instinct review: Price and competition
At £270, there’s nothing else that offers the same combination of features, performance and ruggedness you get with the Garmin Instinct. For a £100 saving, you can pick up the Ticwatch S2 a Wear OS watch that’s MIL-STD tested but it’s hampered by poor battery life.
Alternatively, £450 buys you Casio’s Pro Trek WSD-F30. This tough Wear OS watch has the upper hand over the Garmin device in that it offers full maps, but there’s no heart-rate monitor and no mobile app for reviewing data recorded during your adventures. And despite offering a variety of battery modes, you’ll be hard pushed to squeeze more than a day or so out of its battery whenusing the mapping app.
If you can forgo the tough credentials and navigation, though, Garmin’s Vivoactive 3 and Vivoactive 3 Music have very similar feature sets to the Instinct, along with NFC payments and, in the case of the latter, music playback. Both have batteries that last about a week between charges, too.
Garmin Instinct review: Design and display
Much like Casios WSD-F30, the Instincts look is reminiscent of a G-Shock watch. Its a design that will likely split opinion but, to my eye, its more attractive than the Mobvio TicWatch S2. It appears robust and well-built, as youd expect from a device thats made to accompany you on all manner of outdoor expeditions. And you can get it in a large range of colours, including graphite, tundra, flame red, sunburst, lakeside blue and sea foam theres something for everyone, whether youre after an eye-catching or a more understated look.
Despite its slightly brutish appearance, the Instinct is surprisingly comfortable. The optical heart rate sensor sits almost flush with the rear of the casing and the soft silicone strap never cut into my wrist as the Casio WSD-F30s band did. And, although its almost as thick as the Fenix 5 Plus at 15.3mm, its a considerable 34g lighter (52g versus 86g). Thats still some way heavier than the Vivoactive 3 Music, but not so much as to make it an annoyance.
As its designed for use in all manner of environments, theres no touchscreen. Garmin has instead opted for the classic five-button arrangement of its Fenix range. Thats a sensible decision because theres nothing more frustrating than trying to use a touchscreen in the rain or cold or, indeed, when you have gloves on. The buttons functions take a bit of getting used to, but once youre up to speed they make navigating the smartwatch simpler than swiping and tapping.
What’s slightly unusual about the Instincts screen is its two-part design. Depending on the screen youre looking at, a small, circular complication in the top-right corner highlights a single piece of info. On the default watch face, it shows the date, while the current temperature is shown on the weather screen. Its a nice design touch and certainly makes it easier to see key info, but I cant help feeling that this unique layout is likely one of the main reasons Garmin hasnt opened up the option to install Connect IQ apps.
The display is also a fairly low-resolution 128 x 128 pixels. Thats not as bad as it sounds when you consider its only 23 x 23mm in size and, importantly, the black and white MIP (memory-in-pixel) panel is easy to read in all light conditions, including bright sunlight. If youre using the watch in the dark, it can be illuminated with a press of the top-left button.
Garmin Instinct review: Basic features and sports-tracking tools
As with most of Garmins sports watches, the Instincts interface primarily consists of a series of widgets, or data screens, which can be navigated using the bottom two buttons on the watchs left side. Here, you can find heart rate, weather and calendar info, along with a summary of your activity levels of the day. By long-pressing the Menu button, you can also add widgets for sunrise and sunset, stress, music controls, temperature and moon phase, to name just a few.
Although its possible to add widgets for a compass, altimeter and barometer, these tools can also be quickly accessed by long-pressing the ABC (bottom-left) button. The latter two data fields are automatically calibrated when you use GPS but can also be set manually if you know your current altitude.
To use the watchs alarm, timer or stopwatch, all you need to do is long-press the Set (bottom-right) button and select the appropriate option. From this menu, you can also set sunrise and sunset alerts, which is a handy feature if you want to make the most of the early daylight hours or avoid getting caught out when the sun comes down.
Logging an activity, on the other hand, is initiated by pressing the GPS (top-right) button and then selecting the appropriate sport. Theres a huge list to choose from that includes run, trail run, walk, treadmill, hike, climb, bike, ski, row, pool swim, strength, cardio and yoga. The standout mode as far as this extensive list is concerned is open water. With the exception of triathlon watches, not very many wearables record open-water swimming, so its great to see it offered on a device under £300.
Having said that, there’s also one notable omission in the form of a golf mode. Thats probably not a deal breaker for most people, but its a little strange that its been left out when it exists in all of Garmins Vivoactive range of devices.
Garmin Instinct review: Navigation and performance
In most of the watchs outdoor activity modes, theres a navigation screen that shows your location history via a breadcrumb trail. That in itself isnt hugely valuable but the Instinct also has Garmins TracBack feature, which creates a route back to the start for you to follow based on the thirty most significant points on your outbound trip. Useful if you get lost out on the moors.
Alternatively, if you want to follow a predetermined route without having to retrace your steps, you can use the Garmin Connect app or the website to generate a course and export it the watch. Again, this only uses a breadcrumb trail and direction arrow to direct you but, if youre mountain biking or trail running, thats normally enough to be able to see at a glance if youre on the right course or not.
Whats most frustrating about the watchs navigation functions, however, is that theres no way of making sense of your GPS coordinates in the context of OS grid references. On other Garmin devices, you can download a third-party app that shows you this information at a glance, but with no option to download any Connect IQ apps on the Instinct, theres no way of doing this or extending its capabilities in any other way, for that matter.
Despite that, there are still plenty of handy features for outdoor activities such as Auto Climb, which gives you handy insights into your recent elevation gain so you can adjust your efforts accordingly. In a similar vein, 3D Speed and 3D Distance factor in your elevation change when calculating your speed and distance during hilly activities.
Sadly, though the Instinct lets you follow planned workouts, it offers fewer insights after youve finished exercising. Theres basic info on how long you should recover for before your next workout, but the Instinct wont show training load info or VO2 Max estimates as with many of Garmins other sports watches and fitness trackers.
As for battery life, the Instinct has an advertised battery life of 14 days in smartwatch mode. Thats largely in line with what Ive experienced while using the watch, although, as with any sports watch, how long it lasts between charges will depend on how much you use GPS tracking. For normal GPS recording, Garmin claims the Instinct lasts up to 16 hours but you can extend this up to 40 hours in UltraTrac mode.
Garmin Instinct review: Verdict
Whether the Garmin Instinct is the watch for you primarily comes down to how much you value its tough credentials and navigational tools. If you can live without MIL-STD robustness, breadcrumb routing and compass, you might be just as happy with the Vivoactive 3, which costs around £170
On the other hand, if youve always liked the look of Garmins Fenix range of watches but have previously been put off by the price, the Instinct is a tempting proposition. The plasticky design wont be to everyones taste, but the watch feels built to last and theres nothing else at this price that offers quite the same combination of features.
