Instinct 2X Solar, Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Built-in Flashlight, Solar Charging Capability, Multi-Band GNSS, Whitestone

Two months in, and I'm loving this daily wear. I have a large watch collection, but wear this tool watch every day because it reminds me to do my daily workouts, track my progress, and learn about more features every week or so. If I was a hiker, the GPS and crazy long charge, with solar recharging, would make it the life insurance policy you didn't know you needed. Even as someone who sleeps at home and doesn't want to turn on the light and disturb my partner, the built-in flashlight is fantastic. It is used daily. Home screen layouts are flexible, easy to change and the app on my phone synchronizes automatically, allowing me to easily see calendar items on my phone.

So I previously owned the $300 Garmin Vivoactive 3 HR. The first year I was in love and obsessed with fitness. They have a 1 year warranty. WELL just after the 1 year mark my band broke...on the watch head, cheap plastic. Support didn't do anything to help. So I used a soldering iron to melt it back together. Slowly the 2nd, 3rd, AND 4TH connector on the watch head broke off. I created a live social media event smashing my watch to pieces with a hammer. Also spent about 3 years wearing my broken, melted watch negatively attacking all Garmin posts and social media. I hated them with a passion. Haha anyways moving forward, I decided to give this a shot since comparable brands didn't match up. Couldn't be happier. It's actually notably durable, I've never needed to connect my cell phone (which I prefer). Looks awesome, tracks all my fitness stats and I have a historical record on the watch of it all. With all the health features enabled and no smart features turned on, battery lasts like a month. Turn off consistent smart OX recordings it lasts 40+ days. The solar feature is nice, you'd think with me getting 15k steps outdoors every day you'd never need to charge but it still slowly depletes. Coolest functional feature for a dude, it has a flashlight! I'd recommend it, but if one of the bands breaks, Garmin better keep a lookout for me because I'd probably do something that would wind me up in jail.

Beautiful watch. Incredible battery life and having enough functions. It is a wonderful alternative to aw or before G shock. My last watch is aw Ultra. So boring charging every one or two days.

Bought this for my son who is in the Army. He is in basic training/Ait and needed a durable watch for the rigorous training they endure. This watch has all the bells and whistles yet still has the look of a basic black watch so it doesn’t stand out. Very durable and the functionality is quite impressive. My son was so thrilled to get this watch and he was equally impressed with all of the tools available to him in a watch! Highly recommend!

"I’ve been using the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar for a couple weeks now, and it has exceeded my expectations. As someone in the military, I need gear that is reliable, and this watch delivers on every front. Top Features for Duty: Built-in Flashlight: I use this feature constantly during night missions and tasks. The red light is particularly useful for areas where white light isn't allowed, making it perfect for maintaining light discipline. Solar Charging: Being stationed in the desert, the solar charging is a lifesaver. It noticeably extends the battery life and keeps the watch powered up even when I'm away from a charger for long periods. Size & Comfort: Even though I have a thinner build, the watch fits very comfortably on my wrist. It doesn't feel bulky or get in the way during daily tasks or training. Training & Performance: As a longtime fan of Garmin’s training features, the run tracking is my favorite. Whether I’m doing long-distance runs or interval training, the data is accurate and helpful for tracking my progress. Verdict: If you need a rugged, tactical smartwatch that can keep up with a demanding lifestyle, this is it. It’s the perfect blend of a dedicated fitness tracker and a reliable field tool."

In the past couple of years I've had three different expensive name brand watches die on me. Frustrating and expensive to say the least. I really like all the features you get in a smart watch. I particularly like the health metrics and work with those every day to help myself keep in shape. So just fed up with the fancy, colorful smart watches that keep dying on me. I figured I'd go down a different route. I settled on the Garmin. I've had this for about six months now and have submitted it to some pretty rough treatment. I hasn't scratched, it still looks great and when fully charged it has a 29 day battery life. No more taking my watch off every night to charge it. Garmin did this by not going with a color display on the watch. It's a sacrifice I've been happy to make. I don't have to give this watch a second thought no matter what I"m doing. My other smart watches I was worriend about the screen getting scratched mostly. But most of the time I just don't want to be worrying about the well being of my watch. With the Garmin I never have to. This comes with what to me has been a very nice phone app. So I really do get all the basic functionality of those "fancy" watches. But here's the thing. If I'm going to a function-which doesn't happen a lot in my life-where it's a dressy even. Well I've got all my nice pre-smart watch watches that I can put on for the event. I'm basically really happy with this watch. With one caveat. For me I get very frustrated with how many buttons I seem to need to push to get anything done. There are a ton of options and features on this watch. If you're somebody that does well with that sort of thing then you'll probaby be right at home with accessing all the features. For me I'm regularly going to watch Youtube tutorials to get to certain features. Which is tedious at best. After six months I'm still trying to get comfortable with accessing all the things this watch can do. You may fare better in that department. To sum up. This is a great rugged watch that I also think is great looking. I got the orange model. The battery life is bliss. I charge this (it charges quite quickly) and then I'm set for almost a month. This did cost about the same as I paid for my other "premium" watches. But from a performance and durability perspective I feel like I've more then gottn my money's worth.

Purchased the instinct solar 2X and was IMMEDIATELY sorry I didn't buy one sooner. If you like double or triple sensor outdoors/solar watches the solar instinct line is 99% perfect. Durable, subtle, low profile, and light weight. The only downside is you have to charge the 2X every ~40 days if you get an hour or two of sun per day. You can also go for ~3 days of activity with the battery saver and GPS tracking on during movement. I hear the 3 solar is even better on battery, solar, and legibility. It's also nice because it is very smart, but feels kind of early y2k dumb, using the watch does not feel like another screen to steal you attention span. It's just an excellent timepiece and fitness tool. With the 40 day battery mode, you will get text/call notifications, weather, constant heart rate, health stats, morning report, step count, sleep track, altimeter tracking, compass, daily alarm, stop watch/timer, and of course a tiny bit of red light use (seriously awesome to have a tiny red light at night to not ruin your night vision but not need a room light). When doing outdoor activity, you can set up or download .gpx files to form a course/trail to navigate with turn by turn directions. It is perfectly light weight to keep the map in your bag and just look at the watch if you lose the trail.

I wanted to wait a few months before writing a review on this watch, as I've never owned a Garmin and was aware they have a proprietary software that I would need to get used to. It's also more expensive, which took me a while to pull the cord, and I didn't know whether I would feel buyers remorse and let it cloud my feelings on performance. While I was not surprised per se, I had also expected this to take some time to navigate, as it has an immense amount of functionality. However, it was completely natural to use. Also great watch faces and really bright, easy to read info, which is notable given all the information on the face. Very easy to navigate functions. Sleep monitoring is (much) more accurate and consistent than the last two watches I had, neither of which were particularly cheap or lower quality. Battery life is amazing. I charge once a week out of habit, but it's usually around 50% so could last two weeks. I'm not a heavy user so assume that could be different for others, but any way you cut it, the battery will stay charged a long time. To charge, it is a proprietary cord, so that's the only downside, but unless you lose cords all the time you should be fine. I'm sold on Garmin now!