Especially if you do a bit of serious (long-distance) running, you can't get past garmin. My partner has recently reached the semi-professional level and nobody there actually uses anything else. A few apple enthusiasts often refuse at first, but they all switch at some point.

I'm not that deep into the fitness scene, but I'm convinced by the 14-day battery life. But I also understand if you find the look a bit unfashionable.

As a distance runner myself, this is accurate. I've known a few people who are hesitant to switch from Apple (or really any "smart watch"), but when they do, it's the same comment "Oh wow I didn't know these were so good!"

A common complaint I hear is "yeah but there's no apps! how do I add extra functionality to my watch?" .. they just don't believe you when you say "it's already there"

Smart watches are general purpose devices, more sandboxes than anything else.. where as Fitness/Sports Watches (Garmin/Coros/Suunto/etc) already have everything you need for Fitness/Sports, and things you didn't know existed. What's happened is that it's trivially easy for Fitness watches to add some smart offerings (Calls/Texts/Notifications) and also some apps...then it is for Apple/Google/Samsung to add fitness things.

Sure Apple and also Google did add in some training load/status/etc stuff.. which is great cool... but it's also still a device that I have to charge daily, instead of monthly. And then, when theres a fitness metric or long term stat I want to see, i have to give some third party developer my health data to do it.

An example of that last thing. I have a friend who's a triathlete, I'm going to travel to run a Half Marathon with him, he uses an Apple Watch SE, I'm on a Garmin Fenix 7x.

He's jealous of all the long term stats I have, like all the training load over time, adaptive workouts, etc etc. He's on that cusp of ditching a smart watch and getting a dedicated fitness watch. When I see him, and he sees what I can do on my watch.. he's gonna love it.

Even then, the no apps claim is false. You can make apps for Garmin stuff. They're written in monkey c, and are quite nice

I've got one for my smoker, a fireboard app. Useful to see the temp on my wrist when I've got a brisket finishing

I see it pretty much the same way; there are no apps and the appstore is very underwhelming. There is no quality control and one is not even able to purchase anything without credit card.

I think people who want apps on a fitness watch, ultimately want different things. Personally, apps on a tiny screen is not a good experience to me. So I never use them.

All the smart features i want on a watch is, Notifications, to know when someone is calling me, payments, and to find my phone.

Everything else is something I do on my phone.

Have had a Garmin Fenix for 4 years now. I will never again buy an Apple or Google smartwatch until they can complete on battery life.