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Garmin's fenix 5, 5S and 5X: Improve your Workout, Improve your Life

Garmin's fenix 5, 5S and 5X: Improve your Workout, Improve your Life

Garmin's line of fēnix watches includes the 5, 5S and 5X developed to help you "rise above your limits."

From rugged and sporty to sophisticated and well-tooled, one of these watches was built just for you. Whether you're a CrossFit athlete, avid runner, hiker, yogi or gym goer, the Garmin fēnix 5 is the perfect sidekick to daily life. Watches don't just tell time anymore; demand more from your watch, and let fēnix fill that empty void on your wrist.


fēnix 5

The original fēnix 5 is the compact multisport GPS watch with wrist-based heart rate, advanced fitness features and QuickFit™ bands that let you go from workplace to workout without breaking stride. Whatever sport or activity you want to track, fēnix 5 has it covered with built-in activity profiles and performance metrics. Installed are two complimentary navigation systems, GPS and GLONASS satellite reception for accurate distance and pace tracking. The bright, high-resolution screen allows you to read real-time stats as well as any incoming notifications, and wrist-based heart rate monitor and VO2 Max estimates help assess activity intensity and progress. There are too many features on this watch to name, but some of my favorites are:

    • Its race predictor, running dynamics and personal records display
    • Pool swim metrics (lengths, distance, pace, stroke count/rate, calories)
    • Hunt/Fish Calendar and sun and moon information for outdoor recreation
    • Time/distance alerts for cycling (triggers alarm when you reach goal)
    • A digital scorecard FOR GOLFERS!

SHOP AVAILABLE FENIX 5 WATCHES

fēnix 5S

The fēnix 5S is Garmin's smaller-sized GPS watch (I like to think 'S' as in 'smaller'), but small doesn't mean less capable. This watch is ready for any outdoor or fitness challenge you throw at it. It’s packed with sport features such as wrist-based heart rate, built-in activity profiles, performance metrics. navigation functions and everything that came with the fēnix 5! Including that cool moon information feature (it's so easy to Google or look up at the sky, but something about that seems so fun).

SHOP AVAILABLE FENIX 5S WATCHES

For those of us less interested in the moon phases and more interested in the activity and performance benefits, read what one reviewer had to say about the fēnix 5. "After having a miserable experience with the Fenix 3 when it first came out (it cut corners badly which resulted in 0.02-0.05/mile lost for me) I switched back to Forerunners. Pulled the trigger on the fēnix 5 and it's been great so far with ~170 running miles in the 3 weeks I have had it. Gives mile splits very close to my trusted FR235 and on a 'certified 10k' last weekend reported 6.24. Since I was at least 30 feet back from the starting line that even chews up some of the 0.02 over. Can't ask for better than that in my opinion," says Scott of 'Chicagoland' collected from our review site.

And with each of the fēnixes, you have your choice of interchangeable QuickFit bands that let you match your watch to any lifestyle or adventure. The Sapphire editions include an extra silicone QuickFit band and feature Wi-Fi® capability for automatic activity uploading. So go far and get fit with this iteration, the fēnix 5S, the smaller multisport watch that fits (and can potentially match your hair)

fēnix 5x

Now the fēnix 5X is the ultimate multisport GPS watch with full-color TOPO mapping and outdoor navigation features. When it’s time to train, fēnix offers a set of running and training features so advanced, it’s like training with a coach. Full-color Mapping helps you understand your surroundings with the use of its Future Plot tech and Around Me POIs and features like Round Trip Routing - which lets you enter how far you'd like to run or ride, receive course suggestions complete with easy-to-read cues for upcoming turns, so you can venture with confidence. The fēnix 5X is pictured below in the middle along with the 5S (left) and 5 (right). Using Garmin's ConnectIQ, you have the ability to change your watch face to whatever photo you like, including premade faces for folks who don't feel like picking a photo out of their thousands on Google Drive.

Shop Available Fenix 5 Watches or Shop Garmin Fenix 6

Suunto in the Movies & Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Suunto in the Movies & Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Suunto is one of the coolest sport watches around. Complete with built-in altimeter, barometer and compass, the Suunto Vector is perfect for almost any outdoor activity.

In 1936, Finnish orienteer Tuomas Vohlonen founded Suunto. (For those of you who don't know, orienteering refers to sports which require navigational skills and using a map and compass to navigate through diverse terrain.) Just in case you were thinking that orienteering doesn't qualify you to make world-class GPS & sport watches, Vohlonen was also the inventor of the liquid-filled field compass. Suunto is based in Vantaa, Finland.

Not only are Suunto's extremely hi-tech, durable and pretty much perfect for whatever activity you want to do, they are very, very cool looking. So cool, that Suunto watches have been spotted in a variety of movies and TV shows.

 

SUUNTO IN THE MOVIES

Clockstoppers (2002) was a sci-fi movie for tweens. In the movie the NSA is developing some top-secret techonology called HyperTime. Hypertime speeds up the user's molecules so much that the rest of the world appears to be standing still. This world-changing and potentially dangerous tech can, of course, fit into a wrist watch, which, of course, is found by one of the scientists sons. As you can imagine there are pitfalls to using Hypertime, chases, dangers, Einstein and more. Oh, the watch that the entire movie is about? A yellow Vector Suunto.

Alien vs Predator aka AVP (2004) was another sci-fi movie, albeit a bit more grown up than Clockstoppers. A mysterious heat source, an oddly grouped team of archaeologists, linguists, drillers, mercenaries, and, oh yes, one guide, plus a super-rich guy footing the bill… I know, this sounds like the beginning of an entire genre of movies. If I was compiling a team to head off into some long forgotten middle-of-nowhere island with a weird "heat bloom" I’d sure as hell bring a few less linguists and a few more mercenaries. Oh, and I’d definitely bring more than one guide. Anyway, the humans head to the heat source as do the Predators. There’s a mysterious pyramid and human skeletons. And now the fun starts. The Predators arrive and start killing, a structure is accidentally powered up, and the Alien queen wakes up and starts lying eggs which hatch amazingly fast. And, the Suunto X6HR is featured.

The Hurt Locker (2008) was a phenomenal film. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. It's about a reckless bomb tech during the Iraq war... and in the movie Contractor Team Leader (Ralph Fiennes) wears a Suunto X10.

127 Hours (2010) is based on a true story about the mountain climber/hiker Aron Ralston who got trapped in a ravine by a falling rock and had to cut his own arm off to survive. On that arm... a Suunto yellow Vector. James Franco played Aron Ralston and did a fantastic job. He spends a lot of time on screen alone trapped by the rock. It sounds like it could get boring; however, this movie is anything but, and the Suunto gets prominent placement.

In the movie Shooter (2007), Mark Wahlberg plays a marksman who comes out of retirement when he learns about a plot to kill the President. A bunch of double-crossing ensues and while Wahlberg is tracking down the real killer, he wears a Suunto Vector.

Suunto Vector

SUUNTO ON TV

The Suunto Vector has shown up on all kinds of TV shows, from Stargate Atlantis and Stargate SG-1, where the entire teams wear Vectors to The Big Bang Theory where the character Zack sports a Suunto Vector. In the TV Series Supernatural both main characters, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) wear Suunto Vector watches while they battle demons and save the world. And, in NCIS: Los Angeles Special Agent Sam Hanny (LL Cool J) wears a Suunto Vector to help him fight crime.

 

SUUNTO & SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

So, if you're looking for a GPS watch that truly goes the distance and is cool enough to be featured in some great movies and TV shows, check out Suunto. Even if you don't care about movies the extra built-in features will be more than enough to sway you. In fact, the website www.endoftimesurvival.com lists the Suunto Core as a must-have to survive a zombie apocalypse. As they say, "If you are fleeing a zombie outbreak, altitude, barometric pressure, sunrise/sunset times, and your magnetic bearing are all important things to know. The Suunto Core provides all of this information in one device. Its impractical to carry a compass, altimeter, depth gauge, and barometer with you everywhere. You would need a small kit bag for all these devices. Instead wear a watch that incorporates all of them. The Suunto Core will provide you the info you need to survive and is a must have for zombie survival."

Just in case you aren't worried about zombies, they go on to say that it doesn't look out of place with regular clothing and it's great for camping, skydiving, mountaineering and predicting storm fronts.

See? You can't go wrong. Perfect for surviving the zombie apocalypse and looks good with regular clothing. Could you really ask for more?

See more from Suunto at Holabird Sports!

Gary's Garmin Tip #2

Gary's Garmin Tip #2

With the use of the built-in accelerometer in the new Forerunner 220 and Forerunner 620, questions have come up about how it works and how accurate is it.

These watches use a three-dimensional accelerometer which measures movement in all three dimensions, just like our foot pod. This is not to be confused or compared with a pedometer which just measures one dimension (or basically just counts steps).

There is no manual calibration for this. Every time you run outdoors with GPS, the accelerometer gets calibrated to your running style. Basically, a table is created on the watch for many different paces, so the more you run outdoors with GPS and at different paces, the more accurate it will be when you run without GPS. If you have never run outdoors with GPS under 9-minute miles and then run on a treadmill at 7-minute miles, your accuracy will not be as good.

Because a person's arm swing is not as consistent as their foot strike (you can't skip a foot strike but you can miss an arm swing by drinking, scratching, giving the #1 sign to the driver that cut you off), you should generally see greater accuracy with a foot pod.

The accuracy of the different ways to generate speed and distance in order typically are:

    • GPS (typically well over 99% accurate)
    • Foot Pod (typically around 98%)
    • Wrist-worn accelerometer (typically about 97%)

Have a question about your Garmin Forerunner 220 or 620? Leave it in the comments below and we will answer it as soon as we can.

Looking to upgrade your current Forerunner? Shop our Garmin Forerunner collection.

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