Garmin refreshed its fēnix lineup today with three new models named with the popular Plus moniker used in many smartphones over the past few years. Similar to these smartphones, the fēnix 5S Plus, fēnix 5 Plus and fēnix 5X Plus all sport larger displays with an increase of about 20% when compared to the previous generation.
We have covered a few new smartwatches over the past week. The Suunto 9 and Garmin’s very own vívoactive 3 Music have either been announced or released. With all of the releases, one thing is for certain, smartwatches are not going away anytime soon.
With Apple Watch being on its fourth iteration and Samsung Gear having also released multiple versions, it is clear that consumers want wearables and companies are fiercely competing to snag as much market-share as possible. Garmin is no-exception.
The company’s new lineup offers larger screens with three body sizes that range from 42-51mm, and Garmin claims they are a great fit for most wrists, including smaller ones. Up to this point, Apple Watch offers one of the smallest, if not the smallest, full-fledged smartwatch size which measures just 38mm.
Garmin’s refreshed watches are more competitive than ever now that they offer features like Garmin Pay for mobile payments and syncing offline music from services like iHeartRadio and Deezer. The new Plus models offer 16GBs of storage. Garmin says users can expect to store 500 songs on the new watches which equates to over 24 hours of music to take on-the-go.
We’ve added some of our most sought-after features like built-in mapping, music and contactless payments to each new model in the fēnix 5 Plus series,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales, “…and with the introduction of the Pulse Ox feature in the fēnix 5X Plus, our customers can now have more confidence taking their adventures to even greater heights.
The new models offer Galileo in addition to typical GPS to ensure that tracking continues to function even in more challenging environments like larger cities and places where the sky may not be immediately visible.
New QuickFit band colors will be available alongside Garmin’s new smartwatches. The new color options include frost blue, seafoam, and solar flare orange. Of the new options, my eye is drawn to the solar flare orange.
You can order the fēnix 5S Plus, fēnix 5 Plus and fēnix 5X Plus from Garmin today with processing times ranging from 1-3 business days to 2-3 weeks. Prices start at $699 and go as high as $1149.
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