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Fenix 5X Review: Too Much of a Good Thing?

This car has too much horsepower.

This TV is just too big.

This computer is too damned fast.

This watch is way too advanced.


These are things I've never imagined myself saying, but I think I may have finally met my match with the Fenix 5X. The fitness tracking capabilities are top notch. Battery life worries are practically gone. The sapphire crystal is basically unscratchable. It looks exceptionally sharp and clean. And yet...

I'm not in love with it - at least so far. I've worn some large watches, but this watch requires that you reset your expectations of what a large watch looks and feels like. To give you some perspective, here is a side-by-side of the Fenix, my Casio ProTrek and my Citizen Eco-Drive field watch that I've been wearing recently:
It's hard to appreciate the massive size of this thing, even by this picture. Not only is it the widest watch I've ever tried on, it's also the tallest. I don't wear dress shirts that often, but it takes some tugging and pulling to fit your sleeve over it. It almost reminds me of my wrist-mounted dive computer, which is like wearing a hockey puck on your wrist.

However, the analytics are on this thing are the best. It kicks Fitbit's butt up and down in terms of fitness tracking. In Fitbit's defense, however, I am using a tracker from 2013, so I'm not getting a full dashboard view of their current potential. Still, Garmin's dashboard is exceptionally robust and feature-packed, and it actually integrates pretty well with MyFitnessPal as a nutrition tracker. You can dive into your activities and see every single metric you could possibly want from every workout:

However, when it comes to measuring steps and calorie burning activity, it's almost exactly the same as the Fitbit:

The Garmin does a better job zeroing out our steps during activities like cycling. I clipped my Fitbit on my shirt today as opposed to my pants pocket to try and prevent it from improperly registering cycling revolutions as steps, and it is super close. I suspect the 300 or so more steps on the Fitbit are from when I'm standing up climbing hills rather rather than seated while riding on the flats and downhill. I bet if I clipped it onto my bike frame while I was riding, the Garmin and Fitbit would be almost exactly the same.

It's cool having a heart rate sensor, but ultimately, it's not all that useful - at least for my purposes. It's nice information to see, but it isn't really necessary for reaching your cheapo fitness goals. It's cool that it has pre-loaded maps, but my phone has that capability too. Same goes for the sleep tracking, which this does automatically. I slept horribly the night before and great last night, but I didn't need this to tell me that.

The only thing I can really see where this thing shines is for GPS tracking while running. Again, this is something that my phone can do, but I can see how it would be really nice to see your speed, time and distance all in one dashboard on your wrist. I'm not sure that it's worth keeping a $540 watch for those specialized use cases. In fact, I have an old Garmin Forerunner running watch in a drawer that I can wear just for those occasions, and it's super small and light like a Timex Ironman.

I'll probably give this baby a few more days before I likely turn around and sell it. I consider myself a fitness geek, but eventually geekiness runs into the limits of practicality. This definitely toes the line if it doesn't hurdle it altogether. More and more I'm thinking I'm just a "dumbwatch" kind of guy.

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