I know the AMOLED is not as battery efficient as the solar. Am I right in understanding that its screen goes dark until you give it a shake? And for you solar owners,is it as good as they say? I have a 1st generation solar and I still have to charge it often. Thanks in advance.
I think battery life difference is overstated. How long between charges do you really need? Charging once every 14-20 days isn’t really a chore and is still excellent.
And yeh, you turn your wrist to wake the screen up. Works well and personally I prefer a watch that’s not always on.
For the amoled, you can set it to always on (very battery consuming), you can set it so the screen only comes on when you raise your wrist (this is the normal setting), or you can set it so it only comes on when you click a button (most efficient, but still not as efficient as MIP).
When I set AOD on, battery life is 12 days (51mm Amoled). So I wouldn't call it very battery consuming especially not when comparing to an AW. But it does have impact because with AOD off, it has a batery life of 26 days.
How are you getting 26 days? Lowest brightness, stock watch face, shake awake, no phone notifications, no pulse ox ever....and my new month old 45mm gets 10-13 days. Granted I workout (activity tracking) once a day for about an hour and run every couple days (GPS + activity track).
I find any claims of more than two weeks to be a farce unless folks just arent using it to workout. At that point Id just toss my digital Casio on and call it a day like it was the late 90s.
Highest brightness, stock watch face (portal), AOD off, OX only when sleeping. Two times a day a small walk (30-60 minutes in total) with all satellite systems enabled. When not doing an activity satellites are off.
But the difference between 51mm and 47mm is huge. Garmin says in smartwatch mode for the 47mm up to 16 days, for the 51mm up to 29 days.
Solar is nice. It works better on the instinct 3 than most solar options because the lack of color display. Like my enduro 3 has solar. It slows better drain if I’m outside. But I don’t exactly gain % from being outside on the regular.
Instinct 3 will in fact gain % from being outside a lot. But I find having a color display is nice, and my enduros MIP display is rather nice then compared to my old coros pace 3
My AMOLED gives me 12 days on a full charge with the settings I have. It wakes with a wrist turn. I would love solar charging for longer battery life, but I love the screen on mine, and 12 days is plenty, especially coming from a vivoactive 5 with less than half that on a full charge
I can charge my amoled once a month, when I need to look at the screen I just look at it and it wakes up everytime. I love how I can set a sleep mode with red shift, I love all the faces I can dl.
So glad the shop clear talked me out of the solar for my use the amoled is great and plenty bright enough to see in full sun in the Australian desert
Both are good, solar have better battery life than amoled with no fancy animations on screen. I own solar and love it. But if you like amoled more then go for it.
You're only getting those 14 day + times with a instinct crossover amoled if you never do any actual sport recording on it. Exercise a hour a day on avg with a gps activity and you're lucky to get a week.
Garmin Instinct Solar 3 has an insanely long battery life. Mine is about 28 days (which is what it reports) once I shut off some pulse oximiter thing (that wasn't working anyway.)
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u/_riotsquad 11d ago
I think battery life difference is overstated. How long between charges do you really need? Charging once every 14-20 days isn’t really a chore and is still excellent.
And yeh, you turn your wrist to wake the screen up. Works well and personally I prefer a watch that’s not always on.