Garmin’s top Apple Watch Ultra alternative is more affordable than ever before

by techlowdown · 22 May 2023

While rugged smartwatches have been a thing years before the world’s largest vendor decided to enter this market segment as well, there’s no denying that the Apple Watch Ultra has almost instantly become the most well-known and probably the most popular representative of said product category.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for companies like Garmin, which are also enjoying more mainstream attention than ever on Apple Watch Ultra rivals part of the Fenix or Epix families. While most of these super-robust alternatives with stellar battery life tend to be at least slightly cheaper than Cupertino’s costliest intelligent timepiece to date, the Epix (Gen 2) roster typically starts at a whopping $899.99.

That’s actually higher than the Apple Watch Ultra’s base retail price of $799, but for the first time ever, you can purchase a second-gen Garmin Epix beast for as “little” as $699.99. That obviously still doesn’t put this bad boy in the budget smartwatch division, although it’s certainly a lot easier to swallow than nine whole Benjamins.

Best Buy is currently selling all three Epix (Gen 2) variants at special and unprecedented prices marked down by $200, which means that you need to cough up $799.99 instead of $999.99 if you prefer titanium over steel for this thing’s rear cover and bezel, as well as sapphire crystal over Gorilla Glass as far as display protection is concerned.

Whichever one of the three deeply discounted models you’ll end up choosing, you’re looking at the same 47mm case size, same beautiful 1.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen with Always-On functionality, and of course, an identical (and identically impressive) set of health and fitness monitoring tools.

Technically, the Epix (Gen 2) is not advertised by Garmin as a rugged smartwatch, clearly looking more elegant and refined than a bulky Fenix 7 while undoubtedly being capable of surviving out in the wild with relative ease and promising to keep the lights on for up to an amazing 16 days between charges in “smartwatch mode.”

This “premium outdoor smartwatch” you can get at a lower than ever price is compatible with both iPhones and Android handsets, and in addition to keeping an eye on fairly basic things like your heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, and stress, it also aims to improve your fitness by tracking every aspect of your indoor and outdoor workout sessions and anticipating just when and how you can push yourself to the limit without hurting yourself.

What’s missing is standalone cellular connectivity and ECG technology, which is certainly not ideal at $699.99 and up but… it is what it is.