Review: Garmin Fenix 7S Sapphire Solar

One of the country’s largest urban forests goes by the uninspiring name Forest Park, and it stretches across the west side of Portland, Oregon, like a great, tree-covered blanket. It’s accessible by car, bike, or foot, but once you’re inside, the trails feel quiet and remote. It’s an urban legend that people live in the park undetected for years, like in an M. Knight Shyamalan film.

This combination of being extremely rugged, yet accessible, makes it the perfect place to test GPS-enabled fitness watches. On a recent Sunday afternoon, I parked at a trailhead, got out, and started recording a trail run. Unlike other low-end watches I’ve tried, Garmin's new Fenix 7S Sapphire Solar connected to GPS instantly, even under dense tree cover.

At every trail crossing, I compared the Fenix 7S’ recorded mileage to the trail markers. I clicked down through the stats to compare the Fenix’s maps to the maps posted along the trails. It was dead on. About two miles in, the sun came out, and I pulled my sleeve up to let the watch recharge in the sun. If you also spend a lot of time in the woods and are sometimes nervous about finding your way back home, the expensive Fenix 7S can give you peace of mind.

Photograph: Garmin

This year, Garmin debuted a mind-blowing six new updates to its product line, which I’ve spent the last few months testing. That includes the entry-level Vivomove Sport; an update to my favorite watch, the Instinct 2 Solar; and two new high-end adventure watches, the Epix and the Fenix 7S Sapphire Solar.

Of the two new premium adventure watches, I decided the Fenix is the best candidate for anyone looking for a top-of-the-line Garmin. We've been fans of watches from this series over the years—multiple reviewers have loved them—and importantly for people with little wrists, the case size comes as small as 42 mm. The most noticeable difference between the Fenix and the Epix is the screen. The Epix has a 47-mm case size with a big, bright AMOLED touchscreen versus the Fenix's memory-in-pixel (MIP) display. Yes, the Epix's screen is gorgeous, but it has significant downsides. 

Garmin claims the watch has up to 16 days of battery life, but in my testing, the Epix barely lasted three days. It's hard for me to recommend a GPS watch you can't use on a basic weekend camping trip. There is a Battery Saver mode, which lets you strip the watch down to its basic functions to save power, but uh, what’s the point of a full-featured watch if you can’t use the features most of the time? On outdoor excursions, the Epix's size—for someone with a smaller wrist—makes it harder to use. I tried to record my runs on a recent snowboarding trip, and every time I sat down, adjusted my jacket sleeves, or took off a glove, the watch slid, the buttons hit the back of my hand, and the recordings toggled on or off randomly. It was so annoying to use that I stopped trying. 

Perhaps the biggest difference between this iteration of the Fenix and 2019’s 6S Pro is that it has new colorways and a touchscreen display. Plus, the solar charging function has improved tremendously. It was always a classy-looking sports watch, but my dark bronze model looks good enough to pass as a fashion accessory. The touchscreen also doesn't seem as sensitive as the Epix’s—I never accidentally triggered it while trail running in the rain or when pulling my sleeves up and down.

On 2020’s Garmin Instinct Solar, I got five days of battery after spending a few of those days in the sun at the height of summer. With the Fenix 7S Solar, I now get at least two weeks of full-featured battery life per charge, with only a few hours in the sun, wearing long sleeves, in a cloudy Portland winter. You get the idea.

Photograph: Garmin

You get a Garmin watch because it can access multiple satellite systems with multi-frequency positioning. In practice, this means you’ll never be standing around at the trailhead, shivering in tights and a base layer, waiting for your watch to connect to satellites so that it can properly record your run.

If you enjoy multiple outdoor sports, the Fenix 7S Solar has pretty much everything you need. You can set your preset activities to record every biometric under the sun, as well as sport-specific data for anything from ultrarunning to gravel biking, swimrunning, and bouldering. It has the requisite outdoor navigational requirements, or the ABC—altimeter, barometer, and compass. As I'm someone who is constantly getting lost, I appreciated the ability to record ski runs and swipe down to check the preloaded trail map on SkiView (you can check if your resort is one of the 2,000 global ones here).

The heart rate measurements are consistent with my previous testing. Not only that, the Fenix 7S Solar can record your blood oxygen levels, track your sleep, and calculate your Body Battery—or how much energy you have for the day. Garmin has a remarkable software suite for calculating your fitness levels in different ways.

One caveat is that Garmin Connect’s Training Status routinely records whether your workout for the day was productive, unproductive, maintaining, and so on. I do many different types of workouts on different days for different reasons, not all of which align with Garmin’s evaluation. It can be weirdly dispiriting to go on a two-hour trail run just because it’s a nice day and see that your watch has logged your workout as “unproductive.” It was productive mentally and emotionally, OK, Garmin?

Every iteration of the Fenix gets a little pricier than the last—$900 is significantly more expensive. You can economize by downgrading to the standard edition, and Garmin's Fenix 6S Pro Solar frequently dips below $600. Even earlier editions often go on sale. If you want a more affordable watch with about 80 percent of the Fenix’s capabilities and 40 percent of the Fenix’s looks, I would suggest the new Instinct 2S Solar. My new Garmin buying guide might help you figure out which model is right for you.

But if you want the best Garmin has to offer, I’d stick with this Fenix. It even comes in a much beefier 7X Solar Sapphire edition, if you find yourself pining for that bigger screen.