- Joined
- Nov 1, 2018
- Messages
- 10,360
I have family members whose friend works at Garmin and get us watches at an extremely fair price. I had been running the the first gen Garmin instinct solar for ~4 years or so now. I’ve practically never taken the thing off and beat it to death and it’s always worked great until earlier this year when the battery started having issues. So enter getting a new gen 2 watch. My wife’s Garmin Vivoactive 3 was on its last battery life too so after about 6 years she was due for an upgrade too.
The nice thing about the gen 2 is that they incorporated different sizes so they have a 2s for ladies, 2 (regular size), and the 2X. My wife originally wanted to stay with the touch screen version of Garmin but what convinced her to go the instinct button route was the battery life. After many camping, scouting, skiing activities she saw my instinct always outlasted her watch 3 to 1. So she picked up the 2s and has been very happy. It took her a little to get use to the buttons but now she’s good to go.
I planned to go with the regular sized instinct solar 2 which had all the same features but was actually a little smaller but my wife sent the family member the wrong part no and I ended up getting 2X which has about twice the battery life but also twice the size. It felt huge on my wrist and I still think it is large because it does limit wrist extension some if I wear it too tight. The singular thing that got me to keep the watch is the even longer batter life over the 2 and 2s as well as the Torch feature they now have which is mini LED light.
This light is awesome. I use it all the time. On high setting it is actually very bright. It also has a red light which is nice for getting around the house at night without making your eyes adjust or getting in your hunting pack etc. as a test I got out of the woods well after last light with the watch the other day. The first two pictures were taken with apples night time mode so it does look brighter than it was, the second was taken without. Neither camera mode captures the brightest well, I would say it probably in the middle of the two. I’m very impressed.
The nice thing about the gen 2 is that they incorporated different sizes so they have a 2s for ladies, 2 (regular size), and the 2X. My wife originally wanted to stay with the touch screen version of Garmin but what convinced her to go the instinct button route was the battery life. After many camping, scouting, skiing activities she saw my instinct always outlasted her watch 3 to 1. So she picked up the 2s and has been very happy. It took her a little to get use to the buttons but now she’s good to go.
I planned to go with the regular sized instinct solar 2 which had all the same features but was actually a little smaller but my wife sent the family member the wrong part no and I ended up getting 2X which has about twice the battery life but also twice the size. It felt huge on my wrist and I still think it is large because it does limit wrist extension some if I wear it too tight. The singular thing that got me to keep the watch is the even longer batter life over the 2 and 2s as well as the Torch feature they now have which is mini LED light.
This light is awesome. I use it all the time. On high setting it is actually very bright. It also has a red light which is nice for getting around the house at night without making your eyes adjust or getting in your hunting pack etc. as a test I got out of the woods well after last light with the watch the other day. The first two pictures were taken with apples night time mode so it does look brighter than it was, the second was taken without. Neither camera mode captures the brightest well, I would say it probably in the middle of the two. I’m very impressed.
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