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Review on 💪 Revolutionize Your Fitness Tracking with Garmin Vívoactive GPS Smartwatch Gunmetal by Bryan Turner

Revainrating 2 out of 5

A sad entry in the vivoactive line

This was to become a replacement for my Vivoactive HR which I have been using continuously for the past two and a half years. The HR was perfect for me as a runner, nothing more than what I needed other than a solid GPS. I had high hopes for the vivoactive 3. First of all, it feels very weak compared to the HR. It feels like cheap plastic. The band is also much thinner. As for the functionality of the vivoactive 3, it seems a lot less intuitive than the HR. I had to scroll through more screens trying to get to the feature I wanted/needed. The touch screen is SUPER sensitive. It was just that my sleeve touched him and he started scrolling through the menu. I had to lock the screen to prevent this, so quick access to the watch's functions wasn't possible, as I then had to unlock the watch before I could use it (including the ability to only view my messages). I was also very disappointed with the battery life. My heart rate lasted a week or more on a single charge even when using GPS with runs 3-4 times a week. Just a 12-mile run used about 25% of the vivoactive 3's battery. This made me wonder if the watch would turn into a full marathon (especially if I turned on the Garmin Live Track). One night I charged the watch right before bed and when I woke up the next morning it was already 93% charged simply because I was sleeping. I ended up returning it because I think something inside was weakened; Whenever it vibrated, I also heard a loud rattle in the watch, which shouldn't have been. This particular Garmin seems so cheap that I don't think the starting price (without the discount) should be higher than $199. I decided to pay a bit more and settled on the Fenix 5 and am very happy with it.

Pros
  • Satisfied so far
Cons
  • Will write later