Garmin has unveiled its newest watch, the Intuition 2X Photo voltaic: a super-sized 50mm, 67g model of the Garmin Intuition 2 Photo voltaic, which shares the smaller 45mm watch’s ‘limitless’ battery life. Offering you’re utilizing the watch in sunlit situations of fifty,000 lux or extra, it’ll by no means want charging even in max battery GPS mode.
Regardless of the very fact it’s a complete 5mm larger than the very best Garmin watch, the 2X has the identical 176 x 176 px memory-in-pixel show because the 45mm mannequin, though it does include a brand new function: an LED flashlight.
The flashlight can emit mild in a strobe impact to match your working cadence, or as a purple security mild to keep away from nighttime blindness and show you how to keep seen to vehicles and different passers-by. It may well alternate between each purple and white for additional visibility, nice when out working after darkish.
A brand new multi-band GNSS sensor additionally improves the watch’s positional accuracy in GPS routing and TracBack modes. Different new stuff contains Impediment Course Racing as a selectable exercise profile for the primary time, permitting you to manually report splits between obstacles to differentiate between working and impediment navigation sections, identical to you would possibly do when recording power exercises with a Garmin.
In any other case, the watch appears to supply a lot of the identical options and experiences as a Garmin Intuition 2 or 2 Photo voltaic. Devoted exercise profiles for working, swimming, power coaching, mountain climbing, snowboarding, and biking, amongst others, make it an awesome all-rounder, whereas this multidisciplinary strategy continues to make the Intuition 2 collection an awesome triathlon selection, particularly with 10ATM water resistance score. Away from daylight, the watch will final for an unbelievable 40 days in smartwatch mode (smashing the Apple Watch Extremely’s paltry 36 hours) and 60 hours in GPS mode.
Like different Intuition watches, an Intuition 2X Photo voltaic Tactical Version can be obtainable. Its LED illuminates inexperienced as an alternative of purple, and it contains further options like Stealth Mode, which avoids sharing GPS knowledge, and Jumpmaster Mode designed for skydivers. The gadget detects robotically when you have got jumped to start navigating robotically utilizing the barometer and compass. It is a neat trick, however will not see a lot use exterior of the army and devoted thrillseekers.
The Intuition 2 is priced at $449.99 / £399.99 and is out there now, with AU costs TBC. The Intuition 2X Photo voltaic-Tactical Version has a urged retail worth of $499.99 / £449.99.
Evaluation: One dimension doesn’t match all
Tremendous-sized out of doors watches are all the fashion proper now. From the aforementioned Apple Watch Extremely to the brand new Huawei Watch Final (at present being examined), watches designed for large races, path runs, and wilderness adventures are getting larger and greater.
That is probably right down to an effort to increase battery life additional and cram extra GPS-orientated options in there, however both means, the very best Garmin watch simply bought even larger.
It’s probably that is going to be too huge for informal city and metropolis put on. As the dimensions and worth of Garmin watches creep up, they usually develop into extra specialised instruments. Most individuals trying to monitor their weekend runs and day by day biking commutes are higher off saving cash and getting the smaller Intuition 2.
For those who like to run at night time, the LED flashlight goes to be extremely helpful (no extra reflective straps or jackets? Huzzah!) however regardless of the bigger dimension, the show is identical dimension because the Intuition 2 Photo voltaic. It’s all bezel, case, and flashlight.
Outside gear junkies are going to like it, because it’s probably the most rugged-looking watch I’ve ever seen from Garmin (and that’s saying one thing). Maybe much more so than the Garmin Enduro 2.