In case you’re not a YouTube subscriber, I’ve posted a full comparison of the Apple Watch Ultra vs. the Garmin Epix in New York City, on an epic tour of the city, including going up and down some of the most important buildings. dense streets that I could find. This includes starting at the tip of Manhattan, near the Staten Island ferry docks, and then moving about 80 blocks along the edge of Manhattan, dodging freeways and buildings. From there, I got into the denser part of the city before skipping to 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 Series 8 does not support multiband, the other three were all in a forced multiband configuration. Also, as noted in the video, I actually switched dolls part of the way through the river/perimeter section, to make sure they had the same sky viewing experiences (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 did well…and not so well.
Here are the full distances recorded by the files, also a link to the DCR analyzer where I have all the data loaded for your digging pleasure:
Apple Watch Ultra: 15.56 km
Apple Watch Series 8: 15.50 km
Garmin Epix: 15.43 km
Garmin Forerunner 955: 15.58 km
Finally, in case you missed it, earlier this year my wife and I did a test in Manhattan with 7 GPS watches:
– CHOIRS Vertex 2: Multiband/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7 Solar Sapphire: Multiband/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7S Solar Sapphire: Multiband/dual frequency
– Garmin Fenix 7 Base: All Satellites (Basically GPS+GLONASS+GALILEO)
– Garmin Epix Gen2 Sapphire: Multiband/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 worn these watches for basically a year, I’d say we’ve seen continued improvement from the Garmin side (although it was pretty good back then), but especially in the All Systems realm (ie not multi-band, the multiband, of course, is great too, but non-multiband is still impressive). And we’ve seen minor to modest improvements in the Vertix 2. I suspect, based on what I’m learning from various sources, that the antenna design is a big part of Garmin’s success in its multi-band implementation (and also why Apple is very strong as well). ). With COROS pre-announcing today that they will be announcing a new APEX 2 and APEX 2 Pro on Thursday, it will be interesting to see what GPS accuracy/options are seen there, and specifically, what learnings they might have taken from the Vertix. 2 released a year ago. I guess you’ll be able to find that kind of information on Thursday at your usual sports tech information dealer.
With that, go ahead and enjoy, and thanks for watching!
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