Garmin Instinct - is this what I need?

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 Tony the Blade 27 Sep 2021

Good evening, I've recently had to retire my Suunto Core (My old Vector, which was used as a back up, recently gave up the ghost as well). I've loved both of these watches and am considering another Core. However, someone pointed out the Garmin Instict to me and I must admit I like the look of it.

I'm after something that will give me altitude (barometric rather than GPS), rate of climb/descent and it should be able to show me the time However I note thatit has heaps of other features such as tracking routes, HRM and hook up to phone stuff (Calendar, texts, social media etc).

It's general use would be summer walks/hikes, occasional Alpine hikes, winter hikes (Starting my WML journey this winter), occasional cold water swims and office use. I also run, twice or three times per week, including orienteering and trail running.

Should I just stick with the Core or look towards the Instinct?

Many thanks

 VictorM 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

I think that most watches nowadays have a lot more features than you are going to use so feature wise I'd say the Instinct is a solid choice. I'm personally not a fan of the look (I find it too bulky and blocky) so I went with a Suunto Traverse when my previous Suunto (Ambit 3HR Peak) sadly broke after a fall in the Alps. 

The Ambit was a great watch but I found myself only using certain features (GPS (WGS/MGRS), Altibaro, rate of ascent and time) and the Traverse looks better and has all of those. 

 Philip 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/catalog/product/compareResult.ep?comparePro...

That is a comparison of the Instinct to the Forerunner 645 Music - which is available from Argos for £180. Depending on which features you really want (beyond time and barometer) it might be a suitable option. Steel case and gorilla glass.

In reply to Philip:

I have an Instinct and I’m happy with it, but the 645 Music looks good for the money in that comparison. The OP mentions that he likes the occasional cold water swim; I wonder if the metal-bodied 645 would get to ambient temperature more quickly than the Instinct which is some sort of plastic. The Instinct takes an age when I’m swimming, longer than my wife’s metal-bodied Olympus camera. 
The instinct doesn’t look like a massive watch but I do find myself knocking against stuff more than my everyday watches. 

 Ridge 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Philip:

I think the main issue with the 645 for the OP might be battery life with GPS, it's quite old tech compared to the 245, hence the reason it's heavily discounted.

 ewanjp 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

I just got a instinct solar and so far I'd recommened it. It's got a different chip set to the original instinct and much better battery life. I'm currently about 10 days since I last charged it and it's showing 10 days of battery left - that's with notifications, HR, etc all on and a few hours of GPS use. I thought it might be a bit bulky on my fairly slim wrist after coming from the Vivoactive 3, but it actually weighs less and is totally fine. Not used any of the navigation features in anger (other than my constantly fiddling). I think it's currently on offer for 209 quid which is a bargain in my view.

 Gareth 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

Bought an instinct last winter, very happy with it.  Not too big on my skinny wrists.  Can't comment on other choices, but the instinct delivers on what it promises

1
 Philip 28 Sep 2021
In reply to Ridge:

> I think the main issue with the 645 for the OP might be battery life with GPS, it's quite old tech compared to the 245, hence the reason it's heavily discounted.

Yes. It's been replaced by 745 now. But for some reason Garmin abandoned the 645 ages ago but continued to update the 645M (music) firmware until recently.

In reply to Tony the Blade:

Many thanks for all the replies, it really is appreciated.

You've helped with my research and offered other considerations.

Cheers

In reply to ewanjp:

I must admit, I'm swaying towards the Instinct Solar, can you send me a link to where you saw it for £209 please. I can also use that to price match at Go Outdoors and get another £20 off the price.

Cheers, TtB

 StuDoig 29 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

I've had the solar version for over a year now as a replacement for an old Fenix.  Does everything that you list and the battery life is great, esp if it's sunny.  On hiking mode I had a stomp up Cul Mor (with 3yr old in tow so not quick!) on a stunning day and battery level barely dropped.  

Charged it up yesterday and since done just under 3 hrs of running and charge has dropped from 26days remaining to 22 days remaining so circa 15% loss & that's with everything enabled, bluetooth, gps, barometer/alitimeter, wifi etc.  going into ultratrac mode would boost that massively.

Only criticism I've got of it is that the HR monitor doesn't work well for short sprint sessions - too slow to react and that you can't do multi-sport on it as no access to garmin's IQ store.  Neither of these are really problems for me though!

Cheers,

Stu

In reply to StuDoig:

Thanks for that, Stu. TBH I'm not overly worried about the HRM, so that wouldn't be a deal breaker. What do you mean by 'can't do multi-sport'?

Cheers

In reply to Tony the Blade:

I have the original instinct and it doesn't do triathlon. You can record the 3 activities separately but this is a little bit of a faff if you are racing/aiming for a pb, and every second counts.

In reply to mountain.martin:

Aha, thank you for the explanation - I'm in no danger of needing to be that precise :-D

 StuDoig 30 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

On my old Fenix you could setup tri/bi sport profiles so that it'd record them all as a single activity with transitions between the different disciplines.  With the Instinct Solar I've not been able to get that setup so you end up logging them as different, stand alone, activities.  Not really a problem for me, but some people find it irritating.

Cheers,

Stu

 ewanjp 30 Sep 2021
In reply to Tony the Blade:

It was just on Amazon. I believe it was also the same price on the Garmin website. The price varies quite a bit so if it's gone up again I'd just stick a price alert in camel camel and wait for it to come down again (even if not buying it from Amazon, they're generally bench marking their price against the lowest price). 

Edit. Currently 209 at John Lewis. Bargain. 

Still haven't charged mine!

Post edited at 20:03
In reply to ewanjp:

I got the Instinct Solar (Blue) for £188.10 - absolute bargain!

Thanks to all for all the advice.

Cheers

 jimfandango 03 Oct 2021
In reply to Thugitty Jugitty:

I have an Instinct Solar too and I absolutely love it. 

I briefly wanted to hijack this thread to ask if anybody knows if it is possible to display a 6 figure OS grid reference? I have changed it to (Format) British Grid and (Datum) Ord Srvy GB but it seems to give a 5 figure reference. What's up with that and can I change it? I feel like I can't.

Cheers

In reply to Tony the Blade:

That is a bargain! Where from? Although my googling suggests that price didn’t hang about for long

 steelbru 03 Oct 2021
In reply to jimfandango:

Is the 5 figures you get ( for both latitude and longitude ) not a 1m square ? Which is smaller than the accuracy of the GPS signal. Getting the fix down to a 10cm square with 6 fgures would be a bit pointless would it not ?

In reply to Stuart Williams:

John Lewis are selling them for £209, so I used that to price match at Go Outdoors where they also offer an extra 10% off.  

In reply to Tony the Blade:

Ah yes, thanks. Out of stock now at that price so I can’t do the price match but I’ll be keeping my eye on it

 Ridge 03 Oct 2021
In reply to steelbru:

> Is the 5 figures you get ( for both latitude and longitude ) not a 1m square ? Which is smaller than the accuracy of the GPS signal. Getting the fix down to a 10cm square with 6 fgures would be a bit pointless would it not ?

I assumed jimfandango wanted what is commonly referred to as a ‘6 figure’ grid ref, i.e. 3 eastings and 3 northings (for example NY437378).

 steelbru 04 Oct 2021
In reply to Ridge:

> I assumed jimfandango wanted what is commonly referred to as a ‘6 figure’ grid ref, i.e. 3 eastings and 3 northings (for example NY437378).

I did initially wonder if that's what he meant, except I couldn't imagine any scenario when a software supplier gave a 5 figure reference comprised of 3 in one direction and just 2 in the other - it would surely always be a 4 (2+2) or 6 (3+3) ? 

My Garmin, doing the steps he says, gives a 10 figure reference (5+5)


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