Have a galaxy watch active which I’ve tried to use to record my rides via strava as gps on my phone isn’t great. Watch is hopeless, battery barely lasts on a long ride and half the time it can’t get a gps signal or strava crashes and I lose my ride. So on the hunt for a replacement.

Looking for a decent quality gps watch with good battery that I could link to strava/komoot etc. Budget £250. I know the garmin fenix series seems to be the most popular ones but well out of my budget!

Any suggestions appreciated.

The Garmin instinct solar does 90% of the fenix for £260. The battery life is amazing.

I use a Vivoactive 4. Works great, but if all you want it for is recording so that you can look at the results on Komoot or Strava then even something like a Forerunner 35 will do it.

Have a vivoactive 3 music which I mainly use for telling the time. On occasions I use it for music and also recording spins. Been Faultless, you should be able to pick one up at a relatively cheap price as the vivocative 4 is out now.

I had a Vivoactive 3 before uograding to the Fenix 6X.

The Vivoactive 3 is good for recording your rides and data for up to about 5-6 hours (ish), and displaying the usual stats.

The last 20% of battery dies a lot faster the the first 20%, so I always had to make sure it was charged before exercise. Without recording exercise it lasted for a couple of days between charges.

The reasons I replaced it were:

1. I wanted to use it to display a route. Although the Vivoactive can do this, is doesn’t overlay it on a map, which can make it difficult to interpret, especially off road.
2. Using it for navigation drastically reduces the battery life to sub 2 hours
3. The touch screen is nice for operating the watch when your not using it outside for exercise, but can be a PITA during exercise, where rain, sweat or water (I also use it kayaking) interfere with it.

Whilst it is obviously more expensive, the Fenix is a much better device for what I need – no touch screen, bigger screen that displays proper maps, way better battery life (10 days without exercise, 6-7 days with multiple exercise periods. It also generates more data and has support for more sports (Vivoactive only does cyclng, not road or MTB). You can add apps for extra sports, but they don’t always integrate as well.

I got a Garmin forerunner 35 secondhand and it has been faultless at recording rides. Good battery life, also tells the time. It disagrees with my chest strap and Edge explore on heart rate though, it’s a few BPM lower.

“I had a Vivoactive 3 music before uograding to the Fenix 6X. 5 sapphire.

The Vivoactive 3 is good for recording your rides and data for up to about 5-6 hours (ish), and displaying the usual stats.

The last 20% of battery dies a lot faster the the first 20%, so I always had to make sure it was charged before exercise. Without recording exercise it lasted for a couple of days between charges.

The reasons I replaced it were:

1. I wanted to use it to display a route. Although the Vivoactive can do this, is doesn’t overlay it on a map, which can make it difficult to interpret, especially off road.
2. Using it for navigation drastically reduces the battery life to sub 2 hours
3. The touch screen is nice for operating the watch when your not using it outside for exercise, but can be a PITA during exercise, where rain, sweat or water (I also use it kayaking) interfere with it.

Whilst it is obviously more expensive, the Fenix is a much better device for what I need – no touch screen, bigger screen that displays proper maps, way better battery life (10 days without exercise, 6-7 days with multiple exercise periods. It also generates more data and has support for more sports (Vivoactive only does cyclng, not road or MTB). You can add apps for extra sports, but they don’t always integrate as well.”

EXACTLY THIS here too!!

You might be able to pick up a fenix around the £300 mark… i’m happy with my 5… a non sapphire 5 would be a good optin at your budget.

DrP

If it’s just to record and upload, then Polar M430 does a decent enough job. Uploads to Polar site, which then syncs with Strava (and others).
I think it’s about 8 hours battery with GPS and HRM on, but iirc you can tweak the power profile for each sport individually to make it last longer or shorter (previous version was about 6 hours for me before it dropped to low power mode).
For navigation, or loading a route on to it, one would need a pricier model.

I use a a Forerunner 735XT. Refurbished amazon job. Works great and battery lasts ages. Automatically syncs to Garmin Connect and Strava. I had an older and cheaper forerunner (35?) before. However, you could only pick “run” so had to change it once it got to strava. This regularly caused strava to fall over so worth avoiding any that do this.

If it’s just to record, any Fenix is overkill.

My Vivoactive 4 will record up to 16 hours GPS data, I’ve only ever had to use a battery pack once on WHW.

Something like a forerunner 35 or 45 will be perfect.

My Vivoactive 3 can’t record elevation correctly ever. If I go for a run, somehow I always end up running off a cliff into the Mariana sea trench!

Copy/paste the Fenix chat except I have a 5 saphire.

However echo the vivoactive 3 comments. Perfect for what you need.

Don’t bother with any Android wear watch with GPS as battery life is usually woeful, Even if i turn off notifications and the active OK Google listening it barely lasts 4 hours. GPS accuracy is usually rubbish unless you have it connected to your phone to use it’s GPS

Garmin Fenix 3. Second hand from ebay and recommended by this forum for c£85. A weeks worth of battery life, and great tracking. Bombproof and nice functional looking in a GShock kind of way. I’ve faffed with a GPS watch for 5 years and am really really happy with it.

My Vivoactive 3 can’t record elevation correctly ever. If I go for a run, somehow I always end up running off a cliff into the Mariana sea trench!

Mibbe an issue with your watch tbh, mine is pretty solid, always within 10′ of OS map..

Garmin Fenix 3. Second hand from ebay and recommended by this forum for c£85. A weeks worth of battery life, and great tracking. Bombproof and nice functional looking in a GShock kind of way. I’ve faffed with a GPS watch for 5 years and am really really happy with it.

I love my Fenix 3 – bought second hand on a whim 4 years ago. Use it every day, love it, and told myself when it dies I’ll get the top of the range one – which was a 5, now a 6 and I reckon the Fenix 8 will be out by the time this thing is toast.

Happy with my non-solar Instinct, bought new, is £189 in various places. Even without the solar they have a great battery life while recording GPS. Good daylight visibility, rugged, waterproof etc. Bit chunky perhaps, tried wearing it in bed as its my first fitness watch and curious to see what it would tell me – main thing I got is its bloody uncomfortable to wear in bed.

Copy/paste the Fenix chat except I have a 5 sapphire.

Ditto, apart from it’s a 5 plus sapphire.

love the maps (well, the free talkietoaster ones). Use them all the time. And the sapphire screen is very useful to someone who has a history of smashing watch screens.

I’m currently getting 30 days out of the instinct solar, with continuous heart rate monitoring, step counting and smart watch stuff. The few days this year when the sun has been out has extended the run time by about a day for every 3 hours of sunlight. That stacks up with the 54 hours quoted by Garmin

I’m thinking about but not certain of selling my standard Instinct non-solar for £130 to upgrade a Solar if the OP wants a cheaper option.

I second the Instinct Solar. Battery life is awesome and it does everything most of us need.CConnection is dead easy with strava, via garmin connect. I don’t bother with any of the lifestyle data, sleep tracking etc. It’s just a comfortable rugged watch, which also tracks my rides and runs.

I love going out on a sunny day and seeing the little graph showing how much sun it’s soaking up 😎

I’ve got the Vivoactive 3 and it works fine, though i use a garmin edge on the bike most of the time. DCrainmaker rated the 4 with the back button as much better version. My wife uses the fenix and its impressive, but way over the top for what i need.

Just got a Vivoactive 4 myself after sending a Ticwatch S2 back for being utterly crap.

Recorded a couple of rides and a 3-4 hour ride usually uses about 11% of the battery. The remaining battery lasts nearly a week before a recharge. Really impressed with it so far!

I have a 4 and a 3, was gonna sell 3 but they were only going for 70 quid, so kept it as a spare. Only advantage of the 4 over the 3 is battery life really.

Another Garmin Instinct solar user here. I got mine as a birthday gift and didn’t know if I should go for it or an iWatch. Glad I got the Garmin though! I get about 25 days out of a charge but I don’t use it for Blood oxygenation or sleep tracking which brings it down to 12 days. Syncs with Strava with no problems, in fact I stopped using my Wahoo Bolt for that and only use the Bolt as a speedo and map. I really rate the Instinct.

Cheers all for the suggestions. Looks like garmin is the brand to go with. Will have a look around and see what deals there are on them.

Amazon have a refurb store for Garmin devices. No instinct solar on there though (also got one, surf edition). Cex have them cheap too

Millets have the instinct solar for £209, just ordered one to try it on a 5 day trek in June.

Ah well, I shouldn’t known better. Advertised as the solar, arrived today and it’s not, even solar on my receipt. Another place of Ashley’s to avoid…

I have a forerunner 235 – and I hate it. It is flaky at best, has a habit of switching itself off during exercise, the HRM is all over the place. It is now paired with and ANT+ external heart rate sensor. Or at least I thought it was – today it didn’t pick it up!
Looked at the Fenix but very put of by the Garmin reliability

Instinct: solid and simple. Great battery life.
Vivoactive 4: more smart watch. Good battery life. Music and Garmin Pay
Fenix 6: combination of above but £££ and big.

If you liked the form of the Galaxy Active, I’d go for V4. The Venu is the V4 with a better screen but slightly reduced battery.

Garmin Vivoactive 4, don’t get the 4S unless you like dainty watches. I thought to myself I don’t have big wrists so it would suit, I was wrong…. it was like a ladies strap!

Returned for the mansize one, which is just the size of a normal one really.

Great watch and v happy with it

The touchscreen on the V4 is great, plus mine is clearer to read than the Fenix 6.

I’ve had a fenix 5x and now have the 6 pro. The 6 has a nicer UI and display, the bezel is smaller so it’s a lot less bulky looking than the 5X despite having the same size screen. Both watches have been faultless and the 6 pro with the Oximeter set to sleep only last around 10 days between charges and that’s with me doing 3-4 rides per week.

@TheGingerOne gps elevation readings are known not to be accurate enough Linky
Gps devices with a separate barometric altimeter exist if you want better height readings, but they need calibrating.

Creation deals – don’t know how they stack up but worth a look.

https://www.creationwatches.com/products/garmin-watches-506/index-1-3a.html

I hear good things about the Coros watches. No experience myself. They are on my wishlist. Reviews are on DC rainmaker.

Cheap one that does tracking is <£200 on wiggle.

I have a Fenix 6 Pro, which I absolutely love. However, my wife’s Garmin 245 Music is absolutely great for the money. Much lighter, good battery life and no issues.

Looks like Wiggle have a good offer on the 645 Music at the moment, which has to be worth a look.

Slight thread highjack – Mrs asbrooks wants an iwatch to monitor her heart rate and to wear as a general fashion piece. How good or bad is it? She’ll moan like hell about the battery life (When I mention the limited battery life, she says I’m being negative), but according to her it looks nie.

Incidentally the garmin instinct (non-solar) is avaialble here Instinct for £215. I don’t know anything about the store or if the price is good.

EDIT
Just noticed that there is a 10% discount code on checkout if anyone is interested.

This instinct solar is cursed. First millets sent a standard instinct, now amazon have sent any empty box! 😂