Once the stuff of Bond films and Silicon Valley fever dreams, the smartwatch began life as a glorified pager strapped to your wrist—useful if you wanted to check emails mid-meeting without looking like a sociopath.
Then came Apple, who turned it into a polished lifestyle accessory with the soul of a personal trainer and the ego of a tech bro. While Fitbit was counting steps like a concerned auntie, Apple Watch quietly evolved into the wrist’s answer to the iPhone—refined, intuitive, and always one update away from doing your taxes. But the category didn’t stop there. Enter challengers like Whoop: strap-on performance cults with no screen, all stats, and the ominous vibe of a Peloton coach whispering in your sleep.
Which brings us to the Garmin Fēnix 8—a beast not content with counting steps but demanding you conquer a mountain before breakfast.
There are smartwatches. There are adventure watches. And then there’s the Garmin Fēnix 8—a wrist-mounted slab of arrogance that seems genuinely convinced you’re about to solo Kilimanjaro before your morning espresso.
At £1,039, it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer in a salad bar. You could spend that on a long weekend in Cornwall. But Cornwall won’t tell you your lactate threshold or guide you out of a whiteout using military-grade GPS. The Fēnix 8 will. And it won’t even flinch.
Looks Like a Watch, Operates Like an Armoured Vehicle
This is not something you wear. It’s something you strap on and negotiate with.
While some Fēnix 8 models come with Power Sapphire™ solar charging, the AMOLED version favours brightness and clarity over battery-harvesting trickery. The AMOLED display is bright enough to signal a passing aircraft. It’s as if a Rolex Deepsea and an F-35 cockpit had a child and raised it in a survival bunker.
There are inductive buttons (posh speak for “works in a monsoon”), and a built-in torch you’ll mock—until your dog bolts into a hedgerow outside Waitrose at 11pm. There’s even a red strobe mode that syncs with your running cadence, in case you want to look like a rave-ready Special Forces operator on your local towpath.
Garmin, best known for its aviation-grade GPS and marine navigation tools, brings that same overkill ethos to the wrist. It’s brilliant. It’s absurd. It gave me a rash. (The stock silicone strap—solved with a nylon swap, though at this price point, one expects not to exit with medieval forearm boils.)
Battery Life: Basically Immortal
Charging isn’t part of the routine. It’s more of a quarterly event.
- Smartwatch mode: Up to 48 days with solar
- All-systems GPS: 82 hours
- Expedition mode: 139 days
Unless you’re walking across Australia, uphill, backwards, without sunscreen—this thing will outlast your interest in fitness.
Features: More Than Any Human Actually Needs
This isn’t a smartwatch. It’s a digital survivalist fantasy.
- Offline voice commands (“Start run,” “Resume hike”) work without your phone
- Make and take calls on your wrist (when paired)
- NextFork navigation tells you exactly when to turn on a trail
- Preloaded TopoActive maps, ski resorts, and golf courses
- ECG, Pulse Ox, respiration, HRV, stress, sleep tracking, and something called Body Battery, which assigns you an energy score—perfect for confirming how tired you already feel
- Emergency messaging via Garmin’s Messenger app—if the other person has it too. They won’t. But it’s comforting to pretend.
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If you’re used to Apple Watch? Prepare for whiplash. The Fēnix 8 doesn’t do elegant. It does thorough.
There are three Garmin apps, a multi-level menu system, and a setup experience that feels like applying for a firearms licence in a foreign country. But once you’ve survived the admin? You’re rewarded with terrifyingly granular data and more sport profiles than the Olympic Games.
Before long, you’ll be tracking anaerobic load while climbing Westfield's stairs to Pret.
Who Is This For?
This is for:
- Endurance athletes
- CrossFit dads with topographic tattoos
- The type of person who says "I don’t believe in rest days" and means it
Not for:
- People who “just want to know the time”
- Anyone who says “I’m not really into data”
- Casual walkers with low tolerance for firmware updates
Final Verdict: Brutalist Luxury at Its Most Unapologetic
Would I buy it again? Yes—but only if I had real plans to leave civilisation behind.
The Garmin Fēnix 8 isn’t a lifestyle device. It’s a technological dare. It doesn’t fit in. It doesn’t care if you like it. It just works—ruthlessly, silently, and without asking permission.
Is it absurd? Yes. Is it overbuilt? Definitely. Do I love it? Yes, although not as much as a weekend away in Cornwall's June sunshine.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to outpace a storm in the Highlands—on foot.
The Quick Kit Breakdown
Garmin Fēnix 8 – 51mm AMOLED
- Price: £1,039
- Battery: 48 days (smartwatch mode w/ solar), 82 hrs GPS, 139 days expedition mode
- Display: 1.4" AMOLED
- Water Rating: 10 ATM
- Best For: Ex-commandos, ultrarunners, people who’ve “done Everest base camp twice” and still won’t shut up about it
- Avoid If: You get overwhelmed by your central heating controls
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