Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is generally a watch designed for the uber-sports guy/girl, but I'm not. I do some open-water swimming and general workouts, but I'm no triathalon guy running 20 miles with sensors all over my body. I'm pretty much a lazy bum who sits in front of a computer all day. So why the fenix?? Well, my last watch was a pebble steel. This is truly the closest comparison. I've been through several, most recently the fitbit ionic (which I returned after a week). Here are the priorities: 1. Always On. Sorry apple watch people and ionics, etc... If I've got a kid on one hip and a bag of groceries in the other, I don't want to be doing some weird flex/gyrate to get my hand in the right position to see the time. I want to glance down at my wrist that's already facing me and see the time. You'd think this isn't a big deal, but next time you look at your watch,bring it up level, close your eyes then roll it towards yourself and open your eyes when it's facing you. It's a slight pause but that's what you get with a watch that isn't LCD. Sure, it's pretty when it's on, but seriously? I want the time or the text, period. 2. Sunlight. The Fenix/Pebble use a color LCD screen. In the sun it's even more bright and crisp. At night, it's dark, but it has a back light, just like the apple watch or fitbit ionic does, where you have to roll it towards yourself, or pick it up just right (except it's much more adjustable). Like most people, however, I don't hang out in the dark all day. When I'm out and about, I want to see the time/texts 3. Readability. The Fenix/Pebble let you read the entire text or email. I don't know why, but the ionic didn't let me see anything but the date, part of the subject and who it was from. The fenix lets you see that and then read the rest if you want. (like the pebble). 4. Connectability. The Fenix/Pebble both maintain a solid connection. With the ionic, I had terrible trouble keeping it connected. I had several others that were even worse, but cost less than $100, so I can't compare. 5. Interface. The Fenix/Pebble are button nav. This is a 2 way street, but think carefully about your life here. I happen to swim, meaning my hands are wet and that isn't good for touch screens. I go to cold places where I have gloves on, and that isn't good for touch screens. It took some getting used to, but after a week or so, I could navigate around the Fenix even faster than the pebble. It's very snappy and you can reach various items from more than one direction. Pretty cool. 6. App Store. Both the Fenix and Pebble have custom apps made by both Garmin and independent programmers. It's not nearly as large a selection of programmers, but I think it's coming up. Ionic actually uses a javascript/typescript base for it's app, so my guess is that their app-store will grow quite faster, but I think the hardware itself has some problems that a software fix isn't going to help. The Fenix has a bunch of cool gadgets that I'll never use, but it's cool to have them. If you bike or hike or do things where you need to track your GPS location and altitude and heartbeat.... the Fenix does it all. For me.... meh. Oh.... and just a note again about the #1 issue of "always on". Look at the pics I have posted. It's me at work with my hand on a keyboard. If I'm coding away like the geek I am, and I get an email, I want to glace at my wrist and see if that's something I can ignore and just move on without even stopping typing. If you're a coder, you know exactly how debilitating it is to take your hands off your keyboard to check something or even switch over from whatever app you're coding in to your email..... even if it's just a few keystrokes.... you lose your flow.