In case you’re not a YouTube subscriber, I’ve posted a full comparison of the Apple Watch Ultra vs Garmin Epix in New York City, on an epic route through the city, including up and down some of the tallest buildings-dense streets I could find. This includes starting at the tip of Manhattan near the Staten Island ferry docks, then walking up about 80 blocks along the edge of Manhattan, passing under highways and buildings. From there, I cut through the densest part of town before hopping around Central Park for a bit, before heading back through the buildings towards Times Square.
In this test, I actually had four watches with me:
– Apple Watch Ultra (Multiband/Dual Frequency)
– Apple Watch Series 8 (Multiband/Dual Frequency)
– Garmin Epix (Multiband/Dual Frequency)
– Garmin Forerunner 955 (Multiband/Dual Frequency)
Only the 8 series does not support multiband, the other three were all in a forced multiband configuration. Also, as shown in the video, I actually swapped wrists part of the way through the river/perimeter section, to make sure they had equal skywatching experiences (it’s turns out it didn’t matter too much).
In the video, I dive into each section one by one, including an analysis of the GPS tracks and where they fared well…and not so well.
Here are the full distances recorded by the files, along with a link to the DCR Analyzer where I have all the data loaded for your viewing pleasure:
Apple Watch Ultra: 15.56km
Apple Watch Series 8: 15.50km
Garmin Epix: 15.43 km
Garmin Forerunner 955: 15.58km
Finally, in case you missed it, earlier this year my wife and I did a test in Manhattan with 7 GPS watches:
– CORROS Vertix 2: Multi-band/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7 Solar Sapphire: Multi-band/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7S Solar Sapphire: Multi-band/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7 base: All satellites (mainly GPS + GLONASS + GALILEO)
– Sapphire Garmin Epix Gen2: Multi-band/dual frequency
– Garmin Instinct 2 base: GPS+GLONASS
– Garmin Descent G1 Solar: GPS+GLONASS
You can dive into that post here, or in the video below:
Having used these watches now for almost a year, I’d say we’ve seen continued improvement on the Garmin side (however, it was pretty good at the time), but especially in the all-systems area (it’s i.e. non-multiband – multiband is of course great too, but non-multiband continues to impress). And we saw minor to modest improvements in the Vertix 2. I suspect, based on more I’m learning from various sources, that the antenna design is a big part of Garmin’s success on their multiband implementation (and , also why Apple is very strong too). With COROS pre-announcing today that they’ll be announcing a new APEX 2 and APEX 2 Pro on Thursday, it’ll be interesting to see what the GPS accuracy/options look like there – and specifically what lessons they might have had of the Vertix 2 released a year ago. I suppose you can find this kind of information on Thursday, at your usual sports technology information dealer.
With that, go ahead and enjoy, and thanks for watching!
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