After nearly a year and a half, Jiaming's latest fenix 7 has finally arrived. In addition to the first two generations, the follow-up fenix series maintains the rhythm of releasing new models every year, and the Fly 7 is a bit late - the new crown epidemic has not yet begun when the last generation of Fly 6 came out, does it feel like it has been a long time ago?
We got three fenix 7 series in advance, and the epix that was updated again six years later (which can be understood as a Fly 7 with AMOLED screen and no solar charging).
(From left to right, epix, fenix 7X, 7, 7S)
This late but arriving new fenix hardware and software upgrades are many, and it is difficult to tell the whole story in a single review. This article mainly talks about a few impressive new features -
Compared to 6, which of the 7 major upgrades?
The Fei 7 continues the numeral +S+X naming method starting from fenix 5, and is still a 1.2" (42mm) < 1.3" (47mm) < 1.4" (51mm) table screen configuration.
Divided into three versions, Power Glass Elite Edition, Power Sapphire Flagship Edition, Power Sapphire Premium Edition, a total of 13 new watches - this is also the characteristic of fenix's product matrix in recent years, and the single model will be subdivided into many blocks according to the case + mirror material.
- Solar charging comes standard throughout the range
The solar charging version of the Fly 6 began to be launched, becoming the standard of the full range of the Fly 7. And on the basis of the original Power Glass (Corning Gorilla Glass DX mirror), a Power Sapphire (synthetic sapphire mirror) with better scratch resistance was added.
From the appearance, the solar charging "ring" area of 7 is one circle thicker than 6, and the charging efficiency is obviously much higher.
Compared with the top 7X and 6X, the 7X endurance in GPS mode is 89+33 hours, and the 6X is 60+6 hours - the previous number represents its own battery life (in addition to battery capacity, it is also related to chip power consumption and software tuning), which represents the battery life brought by solar energy in an ideal state.
Of course, it is still necessary to emphasize that at present, solar energy can only supplement the battery life, and can not directly increase the power of the watch (for solar charging, please refer to the "in-depth evaluation of the solar version of Jiaming fenix 6, instinct and tactix Delta solar version charging effect"
In-depth evaluation: Jiaming Garmin solar series, how is the actual charging effect?
- Full range of touch screens
Fenix 7 is standard and still follows the traditional five-entity button operation.
The touchscreen experience will be detailed later. Put the conclusion first, the touch screen fluency is very good, wet hands + gloves do not affect the operation; greatly improve the convenience of data reading, to know that in the past by pressing the key to read the detailed value or input, is a very troublesome thing; not used to touch the screen / worry about accidental touch, the touch screen can also be easily closed in various modes.
The touch screen is probably also the biggest use change after getting started with flying 7.
- Dual frequency + multi-star positioning system
This is also the focus of the later mention. GPS running table evolution to today, to meet the needs of daily exercise has been more than enough, the most problem is often in the low signal environment (such as outdoor shade / under the overpass), environmental interference (such as running on high-rise streets in the city), dual-frequency multi-star positioning for such unsatisfactory, poor signal outdoor environment optimization, but also the biggest improvement in outdoor performance.
- LED flashlight
Available on 7X only. In addition to lighting and safety tips, the LED flashlight can also be adjusted to flash the prompt according to your cadence.
- Advanced training
For long-distance endurance runners, two of these features are worth mentioning: "UP AHEAD Fearless" and "Real-Time Stamina Real-time Stamina"——
- Introduce the line and mark the CP point before the race, and after the start, you can see how many positions there are in the next supply/punch/drinking water/reloading point, which is very practical for off-road super horses;
- Real-time stamina for running and cycling, based on your current exercise intensity and past assessed abilities, presents a "stamina blood tank". This blood tank is very interesting, for example, "10km of stamina / remaining 50%" means that according to the current intensity output, you can continue to run ten kilometers, with 50% of your physical energy left.
And this blood tank will also tell you the maximum amount of stamina that can be restored by suspension.
(After 7 kilometers of aerobic fitness, the stamina is shown to be 83%, and the physical fitness returns to 85% after running for half an hour.) ）
- NFC bus card
In addition to the original garmin pay support for mobile payment/transportation travel, the 7 series supports NFC transit cards. The follow-up will be slowly upgraded, and the vast majority of domestic urban buses and subways can be used.
Other upgrades include the fourth generation of optical heart rate meter (Gen 4.0), which mainly improves the accuracy of heart rate under shorter heart rate feedback time and strenuous exercise, which is also the largest gap between the previous photoelectric heart rate and the heart rate belt;
7 series of memory at least 16G (elite version) started, the flagship version and the honor version are 32G;
Each generation increases the battery life. In GPS mode, each 7 Series can meet the off-road of 100 kilometers or even 100 miles, even if you open a more power-hungry dual-frequency multi-star positioning, it is no problem to cope with many super horses. (Affirmative tone) Fenix 7 users do not have any battery life anxiety.
Let's talk about the new features.
Touch screen: The biggest improvement lies in the ease of reading data
Fly 7's touch screen gestures are relatively simple, sliding up and down the left and right sliding screen, right sliding back, clicking to confirm, all can be completed with one finger during the movement. Recent Use Conclusions:
- The main improvement is the ease of reading/entering data
Subjectively, we divide the data provided by fenix into three categories, the current external environment data, the wearer's physiological data, and the current/past exercise data. These three types of data are subdivided into many values, often frequently viewed at the same time.
For example, outdoor high-altitude hiking, will check the altitude, air pressure, direction, and map and other information, pay attention to possible storm warnings; and then will pay attention to their heart rate, pulse blood oxygen (especially at high altitude and low end), body power, breathing, etc., how much distance, time, speed of travel, etc. - the use of touch screen operation is obviously too much time and effort saving in reading.
Specific to running, when the key to view the data, most people need to thumb + index finger to fix the dial, while pressing the button, how much will affect the running rhythm, the touch screen can be in the short time one finger swipe view.
- Some input interactions are possible
In the past, trying to type characters on fenix was painful, and I had to rely on the keys to type them verbatim. The addition of touch screens at least makes input interaction feasible.
- Wet hand/glove touch screen success rate
There is no problem with the touch screen sliding after the watch screen is wet, and the gloves with the touch screen function can complete the operation - in fact, we can complete the touch screen sliding through almost all the chemical fiber fabrics commonly used in sports equipment, and the smoothness has no impact. Less than ideal is woven plush, wool material, bath towels and other woven flannel, of course, this situation is rarely used.
There has been controversy about whether outdoor watches require touch screens, including concerns that touch screens will cause more accidental touches. We believe that fenix is different from watches such as Apple watch after all, itself touch screen more services to access data, there are not so many interactive input application scenarios, even if sometimes unintentional touch, it will not cause too many problems (such as dialing out a call / sending a message and the like).
Of course, you can completely turn off the touch screen in some occasions (outdoor/sports/sleep), or simply turn off all of them and still use the physical key operation. Blind guessing touch screen will become the standard for outdoor/sports attribute smart tables in the future. However, the physical key will still have a lot of fans, and the combination of the two may be the best operating experience.
GPS dual-band multi-satellite positioning system: what dual-frequency and multi-satellite represent
fenix 7 uses the latest search star positioning chip, flagship version + premium version of fenix 7 series support dual frequency (L1 + L5 band) multi-star (GPS + GLONASS + Beidou + GALILEO + QZSS) positioning ——
GPS signal was originally only civilian L1 (carrier frequency 1575.42MHz), and later added the second civilian signal L2 and the third civilian signal L5; L5 adopted a different operating frequency band from L1 and L2 (carrier frequency 1176.45MHz), its wavelength is longer, free space attenuation is smaller, so the signal reaches the ground under the same conditions The power is higher; in the case of low signal, L5 can achieve a faster star search rate; in addition, the accuracy of the position calculation of the L5 band is much higher than that of L1/L2.
Therefore, watches that support L1+L5 dual frequency can use the observations of the two frequencies to combine them for precise positioning + possible data correction.
To put it more bluntly,
Dual-frequency positioning of the watch search speed will be faster, in the outdoor shade, next to the tall buildings, short tunnels and other places can also maintain the connection, and the GPS trajectory will be more accurate - many runners who have run through the Chicago and Singapore marathons may have experienced, through the long distance between the skyscrapers in the urban area, the surrounding runners watch reminder sound after sound, the distance and pace error is extremely large, dual-frequency positioning can alleviate similar problems.
Also, when tens of thousands of watches at the beginning of the marathon are preparing to search for stars at the same time, dual-frequency positioning can also minimize interference and become the fastest star search.
Previously, Jiaming watches supported up to three satellite navigation systems, and now fenix 7 flagship version + premium version supports GPS (United States), GLONASS (Russia), Beidou (China), Galileo (EU), QZSS (Japan) five, when you need to locate and navigate, you can also choose a variety of modes. If you don't mind the battery life, after turning on multi-star positioning, the connection stability and accuracy will be greatly improved. These satellite navigation systems have their own advantages.
The oldest GPS has previously opened up the accuracy limit, the error ellipse diameter of single-point positioning is about 2 meters, which can fully meet the daily outdoor applications; and the old Hair's GLONASS performs better in high latitudes (such as polar expeditions / high-altitude climbing) while ensuring accuracy (has not been limited); our own Beidou has now reached the third generation, and is also the third global network positioning system after GPS and GLONASS (no longer limited to the Asia-Pacific region) As for Japan's QZSS, in the core urban areas where Japanese cities are lined with high-rise buildings, precision has its advantages. In short, if you are very concerned about and need to locate the ultimate accuracy of navigation, dual-band (L1+L5 band) multi-star (GPS+GLONASS+ Beidou+GALILEO+QZSS) is obviously the best answer at the moment.
A few practical experiences:
- Even without updating the ephemeris and map information, fenix 7X outdoor star search is still almost every second, which is the fastest connection speed of all Jiaming watches so far;
- In the past, fenix more or less had a problem, the metal case fenix showed no instant pace during the run as much as its own forerunner series (it was no problem to look at the data after running, but the real-time pace during the exercise was often drifting or lagging). On fenix 7, this situation does not exist at all;
- Compared with the single-band dual-star fenix 5X Plus (the top flagship three years ago), the accuracy between the shade and high floors is higher.
The epidemic has interrupted the outdoor travel plan, and the follow-up has the opportunity to supplement more fenix 7X to the valley, jungle, ancient town covered bridge street and other most tested GPS accuracy performance. Dual-frequency multi-star positioning system is currently only available in the flagship version + premium version fly 7, as the core function of outdoor smart watches, if you are not bad money, or go to the top of it.
LED flashlight: What can it do besides lighting and improving safety?
The fenix 7X dial adds an additional LED flashlight, four levels of white light + red light, which can be used as a safety indicator effect for hiking/running/cycling at night.
The following figure shows the contrast of the brightness of the iPhone 8 (left) and fenix 7X (right) in four steps (the difference in flash brightness of recent generations of iPhones is not obvious):
Fenix 7X's highest white light illumination brightness is between the 1-2 gears of the iPhone flashlight; the color temperature is warmer than the mobile phone flash. In a totally dark environment, the intensity of 3-4 levels can be used as a night reading light (flashlight is 30cm away from the book):
When the FENIX 7X LED flashlight is used as a lighting, it is more suitable for camping at night to find objects, and compared to using the flash of a mobile phone, the watch LED can also free up a hand (especially when rummaging through the bag to find small objects).
However, it cannot be used as a street light, or a camp light; when the brightest gear is turned on, after 5 minutes, the LED begins to heat up slightly, but the heat is not obvious, and there is no continuous heating. That is, the heat generated by the flashlight is almost completely offset by the heat dissipation of the case itself; when the LED is at its highest brightness, the watch function is fully open (heart rate/blood oxygen monitoring, etc.), and the 75% battery display watch endurance is 4 hours. Up to 30 minutes on, -7% charge. It is estimated that in extreme cases, it is only used for lighting, and other functions of the watch are turned off, and the battery life of the high-brightness flashlight is 7-10 hours.
In addition, led flashlights can define flashing methods, change long flashes/short flashes/fade flashes, etc., which can obviously come in handy in outdoor scientific expeditions and team members communicating.
In addition to night running/night riding as a safety flashing light, another major role of the LED flashlight is the cadence prompter.
You can pair it with a metronome and add a flashing light to prompt yourself to keep your cadence. Especially when you are correcting the running posture, or running at a certain intensity of uniform rhythm, in order to ensure that you can keep up/complete the training; more importantly, visually, after turning on the LED flashlight at night, there is also a feeling of flying close to the ground of the incarnated civil aviation airliner.
Real-time Stamina: Use the Fitness Blood Tank to assess how long you can hold on
Real-Time Stamina real-time stamina is more valuable for running and cycling, especially for long distances. Let's talk about this fun new feature:
- Stamina represents the state of your body when you start running. Jiaming will evaluate the initial stamina value based on past exercise intensity, sleep, recovery time, etc., for example, one of our evaluators (VO2 max 54) ran for 4 consecutive days, totaling 60+ kilometers of aerobic, and his initial stamina value was displayed as 79% on the 5th day of running. And when you recover enough, your stamina will be 100%;
- Stamina blood tanks can be displayed as a percentage, or distance. Physical strength of 10km means that under the condition of unchanged external environment, it can continue to output with such intensity, and you can also run up to 10 kilometers;
- During running/cycling, the stamina will slowly decay according to your intensity;
- Longer distance hiking/super horse off-roading, when the middle CP point rests, physical fitness can be restored. This recovery condition is also presented in real-time stamina.
Because Jiaming itself can monitor other environmental data (altitude/barometric pressure/temperature, etc.) and physiological data (heart rate/blood oxygen/breathing, etc.) in addition to exercise data, this estimate will also become more referential as the number of exercises is increased, and the algorithm will become more referential after optimization - so we will measure its gameplay in detail over a longer distance.
Fenix7 is a summary of the use after the initial experience
Fenix's positioning of outdoor smart watches is like that of the iPhone to smartphones, this year's iPhone 13Pro Max further strengthens Apple's position in high-end mobile phones, and the fenix 7 series (especially the flagship and premium editions) is also likely to continue to win the position of top outdoor watches;
Among the current fenix users, Fei 3 and Fei 5 still have a large amount of ownership (the nail household often ridiculed in the digital circle), and Fei 7 is most suitable for these users to update. After the new features, updated UI interface, especially the strong battery life improvement, the experience upgrade will be quite obvious;
Of course, in addition to performance, fenix has always been the price of Jiaming watches, and most people may compare for a while before buying. Subjectively, we recommend these three models, the elite version of fenix 7, the flagship version of fenix 7S, the honor version of fenix 7X;
There is not much mention of epix in the article, the original was released in 2015, and it was updated again many years later, and the positioning is still an outdoor watch. It can be understood as a fly 7 without solar charging, which is also divided into elite version, flagship version and premium version (all 32G memory). Epix uses AMOLED screens, and the display effect is much more beautiful. epix will be very suitable for urban users who have certain sports + outdoor needs and prefer fenix, a hardcore outdoor metallic feeling;
(Using the epix of the A screen, the display effect is obviously more gorgeous under the same brightness)
In terms of hardware, fenix has always been the first model of Jiaming's most sophisticated new technology, and this time the GPS chip, optical heart rate module, solar charging, etc. have been upgraded, including the flashlight on the top;
After a week of use by several reviewers, the biggest change came from daily life (touch screen) + sports scene (night running strobe light / real-time stamina), and we also ridiculed the outdoor hardcore function, fenix is more and more suitable as a sports table (for example, real-time pace is the most accurate in the history of fenix);
Battery life and GPS accuracy, the value of the fourth generation optical heart rate meter is compared, and the data is supplemented (the current prototype cannot be connected to the mobile phone). Overall, these are also optimized compared to the old model - the progress from 95 points to 98 points may not be very strong, but the improvement is always the best.
Any questions about fenix 7 can also be exchanged in the comments section.
Reviews of past Jiaming fenix series:
In-depth review of the solar version charging performance of the Garmin fenix 6, instinct and tactix Delta:
Get started with MARQ Driver and experience the extreme speed of driving a Formula racer
Get started with Jiaming Fenix 6: In addition to the features, this is the most excellent generation of fenix
Garmin's newly upgraded fenix 5 Plus series, what are the highlights?
Jiaming's latest three fenix 5 Plus series, how should I choose?