Garmin Fenix 8 review: only kind of smart

There used to be a clear divide between smartwatches and multisport watches. On one side, you had Apple Watches, Fitbits, and Galaxy Watches, with their snazzy screens, voice assistants, and third-party apps. On the other, you had Garmin, with its rugged watches, killer tracking, and great battery life.

That line has gotten a lot blurrier in the past few years. The Apple Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch Ultra have taken several pages from Garmin’s playbook. And now, with the $999.99 Fenix 8, Garmin is striking back. If its rivals want to add fitness features, well, Garmin’s just going to make the Fenix 8 smarter.

The big additions to the Fenix 8 are a speaker and microphone. They mean you can now interact with the watch in more ways than fitness tracking and training. You can take calls from the wrist, use an on-device voice assistant for setting timers and starting activities, and connect to your phone’s built-in assistant for more complex queries. If you can convince your loved ones to download the new Garmin Messenger app, replying to messages on the wrist has also gotten easier.

Theoretically, these are all good updates. In practice, it means the Fenix 8 doesn’t play to Garmin’s strengths. 

The Fenix 8 is the top dog in Garmin’s extensive smartwatch lineup. While it’s not as chunky as older Fenix models, it’s not meant to be a sleek lifestyle watch like the Venu series or sporty, lightweight option like the Forerunner. There’s gravitas to its design. It’s the premium choice for serious athletes who want everything Garmin can throw at them — and that’s why Garmin is bringing a lot of these smart features to the Fenix 8. 

The bulk of the “smart” updates zero in on the addition of the microphone and speaker — namely, voice assistants and calling from the wrist. But there’s a big factor holding back the Fenix 8’s smart features: the lack of LTE. 

Yes, you can make and receive calls with the Fenix 8… so long as your phone is within Bluetooth range. Yes, you can talk to a voice assistant… but it’s limited unless your phone is nearby. Yes, you can reply to texts, but… you get my drift. If you get a cellular Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch, or Pixel Watch, you can leave your phone at home. That’s not really an option with the Fenix 8.

The friction is particularly noticeable with the on-device voice assistant. The assistant works pretty well, but it’s mostly limited to commands that don’t require an internet connection. You can start activities, set timers, and tweak settings. (It can tell you the weather, provided it’s loaded the day’s weather from Wi-Fi or… your phone via Bluetooth.) But say you want to send a text message. This nameless assistant can’t do that. Instead, you’ll have to scroll to a different menu and launch your phone’s assistant. It’s good to have that option, but at that point, you’re probably just going to whip out your phone anyway. 

Part of the problem is that Garmin has always been staunchly platform-agnostic. I happen to think that’s a good thing, but the price you pay is never having your watch work quite as seamlessly with your phone. For example, it’s great that you can dictate voice memos now, but their usefulness is limited because there’s no easy way to get them off your wrist and onto another device. That’s unlike the Pixel Watch 3, where I can just record something, and boom, it’s magically on my Pixel 8 Pro.

Another prime example is the new Garmin Messenger. Ostensibly, this is to help iOS Garmin users reply more easily to messages on the wrist. (Android users have always been able to send quick replies to texts, but Apple gon’ Apple.) Good luck convincing friends and family to download yet another chat app so you can reply to messages on your Fenix 8! I roped one friend into it. It worked, but it was kind of a hassle to use: you can’t dictate messages, the canned responses are limited, and for some reason, Garmin thought bringing back a T9 keyboard was a good idea. At the end of the test, I asked my friend if she’d ever use the Garmin Messenger app to reach me. Her words: “Only if I had to.” Followed by “Also, can I delete the app now?” 

A good chunk of this smart feature awkwardness would be solved with a cellular option — and it’d enhance Garmin’s existing safety tools, too. But there’s a reason most third-party smartwatch makers don’t offer LTE options: dealing with carriers is a pain. It took Fossil ages to offer an LTE option, and even then, it only ever managed a single carrier before quitting smartwatches entirely. Garmin has LTE options for its Forerunner 945 watch and its Bounce kids tracker, but those require a separate Garmin subscription and are limited to safety features. 

I’ve often criticized Garmin for making way too many smartwatches. The Fenix 8 thankfully makes things simpler at the top end by combining the Fenix and Epix lineups. 

The second-gen Epix, introduced in 2022, was essentially a Fenix with an OLED display. The problem was that Garmin then had two premium watches that were very similar. The main difference was the memory-in-pixel (MIP) display on the Fenix and the OLED display on the Epix Pro. The MIP version gets better battery life, whereas OLED offers much better visibility indoors. It’s a clear choice for ultra-athletes but confusing for everyone else.

Now, you can just choose between an MIP or OLED Fenix 8. It’d be perfect if not for just one baby beef: petite-wristed folks don’t get to pick anything other than the OLED display.

The MIP Fenix 8 only comes in 47mm and 51mm sizes. In principle, I’m annoyed for the small-wristed athlete who wants an MIP display. But the reality is the battery bump from an MIP display isn’t quite as impressive on the smaller watches. I got nine to 11 days on last year’s 42mm Fenix 7S Pro. This year, I got eight to nine days on the OLED 43mm Fenix 8 with the always-on display turned off. (That dwindles to about four days with it on.) I still think you should give people the option, but I also understand why Garmin didn’t. For what it’s worth, I tested the OLED, and that’s what I’d recommend if you want good indoor visibility. If you’re trekking out in a lot of harsh, direct sunlight, MIP is the way to go. 

Even with that quibble, consolidating with the Fenix 8 was a refreshing and welcome change. I’d love to see Garmin streamline some of its other smartwatch lineups. I don’t know that it will, as Garmin rarely passes up a chance to do more, but one can hope.  

It’s a shame. Despite the upgrades, the Fenix 8 is only sort of better at being a smartwatch. It’s still an excellent training watch, and its battery far outlasts both Apple and Samsung’s Ultras. But I’m simply not convinced anyone’s going to ditch either one for a Fenix just because they can now interact with a voice assistant or make calls from the wrist.

Everyone I’ve ever met with a Fenix watch has been a triathlete, ultramarathoner, or someone who casually qualifies for the Boston Marathon with a sub-three-hour marathon time. These folks pick something like the Fenix because they need a tracker with mondo battery life, stellar GPS accuracy, in-depth training programs, and maps for traversing trails. Those are the features that people would leave Apple or Samsung for — and they don’t get a major upgrade with the Fenix 8.

To make matters worse, I almost choked when I saw the Fenix 8’s starting price was a whole $350 more than the Fenix 7. That’s not a $50 to $100 hike where you grumble and then begrudgingly admit that inflation is a bitch. For $999, you could buy a laptop. Hell, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is $800, while the Galaxy Watch Ultra is $650. And those do come with LTE. If you’re determined to get a Garmin, there are literally dozens of cheaper options. (Might I suggest the $450 Forerunner 265 or a discounted Fenix 7 Pro or Epix Pro?)

It’s frustrating because Garmin is right to shore up its smart features. There’s not much to improve on the fitness front, so making its watches more useful outside of training makes a lot of sense. It’s also crystal clear that Garmin has some catching up to do, and progress isn’t going to happen overnight. The Fenix 8 might be on the right track, but it doesn’t quite nail the price or execution.