Garmin Instinct 2S Solar Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Graphite

Product Information

The main difference is the display, with the Fenix 7 offering a colour display, which makes the Fenix 7 offer considerable better mapping capabilities especially when looking for details like elevation profiles.

Garmin Instinct 2S Solar Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Mist Grey

Released in 2022, the Garmin Instinct 2 and Garmin Instinct 2s is a major update to the popular Instinct line of watches. Featuring a sleek design and new features, the Instinct 2/2S is perfect for athletes and especially outdoor enthusiasts.

Followed then by the compass. The compass also has calibration options, as well as the ability to change the mode, for example, from the display (degrees or mils), to how it displays North (true, magnetic, grid, user); And the effectiveness of the updated solar panel with lower battery consumption means that there’s a very strong chance that certain groups of people will indeed be able to have forever power for likely months at a time in the summer. It’s not hard if you’re spending even just a few hours outdoors in sunny summer conditions. In any case, if you go down once you’ll see your VO2Max. These are calculated separately for cycling and running. Cycling VO2Max requires a power meter. This also shows your trending direction. I can see “Do”, “View”, “Skip” when a strength workout is on the schedule (calendar), but again I don’t see a “Delete”.

Garmin Instinct® 2 Solar | Rugged GPS Smartwatch Garmin Instinct® 2 Solar | Rugged GPS Smartwatch

And in fact, when you dig into most sections, whether be in map or satellite view, they’re all mostly within a meter or two of each other: As I said above, the Instinct 2 has a wrist-based optical heart rate monitor and comes with an impressive amount of everyday health monitoring features. And just to help clarify, here’s the two buildings I’m talking about. They’re maybe 10-15 stories tall each, but otherwise there’s nothing around them. Further, there’s no support for any sort of smart-wake features, such as timed to a given sleep phase. Though, given how unreliable and inaccurate most sleep phase detection is on most wearables (and even supposed gold standard devices), this probably isn’t such a bad thing. You can still set regular alarms though.But even that doesn’t put me off. This is a fantastic watch for the adventurous that I wouldhighlyrecommend. I always loved my Instinct 1. Unlike Ray I personally like the aesthetic. Had to give it up for a FR935 though when I took up triathlon. Since then I’ve had the FR945 and several Fenix series but always felt nostalgia for the Instinct which I gave to my son. First up, we’ve got a 5-hour long gravel/MTB bike adventure. The first chunk of this was in tall pine forests, with hazy skies. I eventually broke out of that, though still a bit hazy. So yesterday my Instinct 2 Solar arrived and I’m glad to say it’s everything I’m looking for. I do use Garmin Pay (I chose my bank [Staling Bank in the UK] when I moved banks because they support it!) but I don’t use on-watch music so that’s fine by me. With the Instinct 2 Solar series, Garmin has basically doubled down on that. They’ve done it with two specific changes:

Instinct 2/2S/Solar In-Depth Review | DC Rainmaker Garmin Instinct 2/2S/Solar In-Depth Review | DC Rainmaker

Finally, switching over to some indoor lifting, I’ve got a workout from my wife. She was wearing the Instinct 2S Solar, and then a chest strap (HRM-PRO). The first portion of the workout was about 30 minutes on an indoor bike, and then she transitioned mid-way through to weights for the next 45 minutes. Now, I’ve had varying failures with the quirky 50-course point max limitation. My 80km planned gravel bike adventure failed this strongly, yet road rides were fine. And even more oddly, the above trail hike was fine one day, but failed it the next day. The Instinct 2 series significantly expanded the sport types, notably now including triathlon/multisport modes, as well as a slate of cycling-specific modes (like MTB with MTB-specific metrics). Here’s your complete look at all the sport modes you can configure (some of these fall within the sport menu, even if they’re more like utilities, but I’m listing them here for simplicity’s sake):And then of course, all of these things are displayed as well within the Garmin Connect Mobile app, as well as Garmin Connect itself. In terms of the box contents, there’s the charging cable – the same as almost all other Garmin watches the last half a decade or so:

Garmin Instinct 2S Solar Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Graphite

GPS button> select run> up(to get options)>workouts>scroll down and select a workout> now there are three choices for the run workout: 1. Do Workout 2. View 3. Delete As well as choosing to do the route in reverse, directly on the Instinct 2, you can view the map and the elevation profile. Unlike the Garmin Fenix smartwatch (which Mike reviewed last year), though, the Instinct 2 doesn't include Garmin's ClimbPro feature which helpfully breaks down the details of ascents so it's easier to judge your pace. Battery life: Varies based on model and enabled functions. “Unlimited” on 45mm Instinct 2 Solar models, in smartwatch mode with at least three hours per day of moderate sunlight (50,000 lux) Santander is really the only one in the list that stands out as being a common bank, so I don't really see the feature being useful for many right now. You can find the full list here to be sure. Battery life

There are of course numerous other details based upon those three foundations. For example, without maps, you can’t have the unit automatically create a 10KM or 50KM route for you at a new location (officially called ‘Round Trip Routes’). Similarly, there’s no ‘Up Ahead’ feature that was introduced on the Fenix 7, showing a breakdown of waypoints. Still, for years people have gotten by just fine and dandy without maps. Sure, I prefer maps because they give context to the surroundings, but that’s fine – and I’ve navigated just fine with the Instinct on numerous hikes in places I’ve never been before. In terms of elevation accuracy – things are generally good/stable here, though sometimes minor drift can be a problem in changing weather conditions. I could mitigate that by manually calibrating if I had known values to go off of. As always, I love lists. They’re easy to understand, easy to skim, and easy for me to type. Thus, here’s the massive slate of newness that’s on the Instinct 2 series compared to the previous Instinct – and I’m almost certain I’m missing things. I’ve been adding to this list for over a month now, even up till yesterday with new features I’ve discovered compared to the existing models. You’ll notice that every single item on this list has already been introduced on other Garmin watches over the last few years – except for the very last line item, for the Tactical editions. But here’s the thing – they’re all really good, and basically identical between the units, no matter where I look at this 5-hour adventure.