For all the innovative features sports watches now offer, many people value a fundamental quality like battery life above all. Charging stuff is a bit of a pain and the less often you have to do it, the better. And this aspect takes on even greater importance for trail runners who may be out all day or even for days at a time.
With that in mind, the new Garmin Enduro might sell on its mighty battery life alone. The watch offers 70 hours of GPS use as standard, but the Power Glass solar charging lens on the face can extend that number to 80 hours in sunny conditions – while in general use, you can get up to 65 days of use from the watch if you spend enough time in the sun each day.
Those are big, big numbers. The biggest we’ve seen elsewhere is the Coros Vertix, which offers 60 hours of GPS, and Garmin’s previous longest-lasting watch, the Fenix 6X Pro Solar, got up to 66 hours of GPS use in the sun.
Although the Enduro is a big watch with a 51 x 51 x 14.9mm case, it’s pretty light at 72g for the steel version, which drops to 58g if you opt for the more expensive titanium version. The Enduro comes with a nylon strap to help keep that weight down.
There are some trade-offs for its battery life of course, the first of which is the lack of music on the watch. Perhaps more importantly given that this is a watch aimed at the adventurous, the Enduro does not have the colour maps found on the Fenix 6 Pro and Forerunner 945 watches – a move made with battery life in mind. However, the Enduro does still offer breadcrumb navigation and an enhanced version of Garmin’s ClimbPro feature.
ClimbPro will analyse your route, find the hills, and give a breakdown of each while you’re running up them so you can see how much ascent you have left on your current climb. The Enduro is the first Garmin to also analyse your descents so you can track your progress through the downhill sections of your run.
As a bonus for the intended audience of trail runners the watch also offers trail run VO2 max estimates, alongside the scores you get for road running and cycling, This score will take into account the conditions of the trail you run on for more accurate results.
The watch also has a new ultrarunning mode that makes it easy to log your rest breaks at aid stations, a useful feature for those who want an accurate breakdown of their performance in long events.
The Enduro has some features that already appear on other Garmins, including key ones such as suggested workouts and training analysis that includes an assessment of your acclimation to heat and altitude. It also offers everyday activity tracking and Garmin’s Body Battery feature which gives a simple score out of 100 rating your current energy levels.
All of this comes at a hefty price. The Enduro costs £699.99 to £799.99 depending on the model you opt for. That’s a more expensive starting price than the Fenix 6 Pro (£529.99), and the Forerunner 945 (£499), both of which offer colour maps, even if they have shorter battery lives and lack some of the new ultramarathon-focused features of the Enduro.
Buy from Garmin | £799.99-£899.99
