Pros
-
Incredible battery life -
Lighter design -
Boosted nav smarts/Offline music -
Price drop
Cons
-
Only one size -
No AMOLED
The Garmin Enduro 3 is the latest installment of Garmin’s longevity monster. The headlines include improved solar-harvesting skills that power an insane 120-hour GPS battery life (320 with solar).
Garmin also promises a lighter design, and a brighter screen, plus an updated UI and some extra navigation and strength training skills.
It now tracks for longer, is easier to read, and feels more comfortable to wear. It also comes with a price drop – a rarity in the wearables world.
So is this multi-sport endurance beast a better bet than the Fenix 8? Should you upgrade if you already own the Garmin Enduro 2? Here’s what I found.
How we tested
Kieran Alger is an experienced ultrarunner and athlete with decades of experience with running tech. Kieran trained with the Enduro 3 for over a month, hiking, running the New Forest Marathon in the UK and the and 5 Valleys 56km ultra-marathon. He also used it for training runs, as well as hitting the pool, gym, and even the sauna.
Price and Competition
The price drop now puts the Garmin Enduro 3 at £769.99 / $899.99. For context, the Enduro 2 went on sale at £929.99 / $1099.99.
The Enduro 3 also undercuts the new 51mm Garmin Fenix 8 Solar (£1039.99 / $1199.99) and the sapphire 51mm AMOLED Garmin Fenix 8 (£1,119.99 / $1199.99).
Despite that Enduro 3 price drop, most of the rival premium outdoor sports watches still come in cheaper. The Polar Grit X2 Pro is £649 / $749, the Suunto Vertical is £599 / $629, and the Coros Vertix 2 is £599 / $699.
Garmin Enduro 3 Key Features
- Sapphire display / titanium bezel & case
- 120-hour GPS battery, extends to 320 hours with solar
- 1.4-inch, 280 x 280 transflective display
- Touchscreen and button controls
- Size: 51 x 51 x 15.6 mm
- Weight: 63g
- New-look user interface
- Focus Modes
- Offline TOPO Maps
- Garmin Messenger
- Dynamic round-trip routing
- New strength training plans
- Spotify/Deezer offline music storage
- Built-in torch
- Interchangeable 26mm straps
- Waterproof up to 100m
- Solar charging
Battery Life
- Unrivalled battery life
- 60 hours of All Systems Muktiband GNSS battery from our ultramarathon testing
If you’re considering the Enduro 3, chances are the never-die battery life is much of the appeal. So let’s start there.
The Enduro 3 now offers the best battery life in the sports watch business, with longevity gains across almost all power and GPS accuracy modes.
However, it’s not all upward. When you’re not capitalizing on the solar smarts, the official battery life estimates drop in the highest accuracy All Systems + Multiband mode and the Max Battery mode.
Still, on paper, the Enduro is an impressive endurance machine. The Enduro 3 claims up to 120 hours of GPS-only battery life, 60 hours using the accuracy-boosting all-systems multiband, and up to 210 hours in Max Battery mode. That rises to 320 hours of GPS-only in the right light conditions, with the new, more efficient solar tech harvesting rays to extend the Enduro 3’s staying power.
Claimed general smartwatch usage is 36 days (90 with solar). Non-solar Expedition mode lifespan stays at 77 days but now offers unlimited use with the right Lux loads.
The Enduro 3’s impressive staying power generally means you don’t need to, but I love that you can choose from a range of preset workout power modes to eke out more juice. Or dive into Garmin’s Power Manager tool and really customize how your watch uses its resources. The tool lists estimated energy savings by sensors and features so you can see what costs the most energy and adjust accordingly. You can also create and store custom power modes to optimize the battery life and features for whatever challenge you’re tackling.
Enduro 3 battery life estimates
- Smartwatch: Up to 36 days / 90 days with solar
- GPS Only: Up to 120 hours / 320 hours with solar
- Max Battery Mode: Up to 210 hours / Unlimited with solar
- Max Accuracy All Satellite Systems + Multi-band: 60 hours / 90 hours with solar
- Expedition GPS Activity: Up to 77 days / Unlimited with solar
- All Satellite Systems + Music: Up to 22 hours
Enduro 3: Battery life real-world testing
In our tests, we got 20 days of usage on a single charge. That included 8 hours of training, covering a mix of indoor sessions and outdoor GPS-tracked workouts in various power modes.
On average, an hour’s GPS-only training with the Enduro 3 burned no more than 1%.
My 3-hour New Forest Marathon test in All Systems + Multiband GNSS burned just 5%. That extrapolates to 60 hours of tracking in the most accurate mode. Bang on target.
My 8-hour 5 Valleys Ultra Marathon test run in GPS-only mode burned 14%. That is shy of Garmin’s estimates – and shows there can be many factors involved, including the kind of terrain and tree cover that you run in.
Overnight, the battery burn rate averaged 1% without the Pulse Oximeter on. And over a 24-hour period of general use with no workouts, the Enduro 3 dropped 3%.
Using the right power modes to track your efforts, the Enduro 3 easily swallows weekend-long adventures and most week-long multi-day endurance challenges. There’s also enough life in this new dog to track a month-long workout streak for anyone running, riding, or swimming for an hour a day.
Here’s some more happy thoughts for lazy or forgetful chargers: most of us will only need to charge the Enduro 3 a dozen times a year. Your Enduro 3 can be on less than 5% and you can still head out for a two-hour hike with confidence.
Basically, if battery life is your top priority, the Enduro 3’s staying power is virtually unrivaled. Only the Coros Vertix 2 gets close in my experience, and that’s only in some settings. And if your Enduro 3 isn’t capitalizing on Garmin’s solar life-extending powers.
The Garmin Enduro 3 is the death of battery anxiety.
Design
- Only one size
- Tough and scratch-resistant
- Big and heavy
There’s just one size and style on offer. The 51mm Garmin Enduro 3 combines a classic black titanium bezel and back case with a toughened sapphire crystal screen. In terms of durability, after a month of testing, ours still looks brand new.
The Enduro 3’s aesthetics are now simpler, with less bezel and more screen. It’s a good-looking watch that sticks to Garmin’s rugged, adventure DNA, but it now looks a little less ‘Fenix.’
At 63g, the Garmin Enduro 3 is 10% lighter than its predecessor and the Fenix watches (though heavier than the original titanium Enduro). It’s impressively light for a big watch and definitely easier to wear 24-7 to unlock all the health and recovery insights. But it’s still chunky and might swamp daintier wrists. That’s where the lack of a smaller option is a bit of a letdown.
There are key updates to the screen and solar tech. You get the same color 1.4-inch, always-on, 280 x 280 transflective Memory-In-Pixel (MIP) display as you’ll find on the Enduro 2 and the new Fenix 8 Solar 51mm.
The solar ring around the display is bigger, but it’s 120% more effective at snaring the sun’s rays, which allowed Garmin to ditch the screen-covering solar lens – making the display brighter. The solar panel is also black and stands out less than the red ring on the Enduro 2.
In my tests, in a wide range of light conditions, I found the Enduro 3 easy to read. However I often found myself firing the backlight to boost visibility. I tested it alongside the Fenix 8 AMOLED, and you really notice the difference. The Enduro 3 is nowhere near as crisp and colorful. But it’s easy to read on the move, with room for up to six customizable metrics on a single screen. Those can be easily changed on the watch too. No app faffing is required.
When it comes to sensors, the Enduro 3 packs the same hardware as the Fenix 7 and the new Fenix 8. That includes the latest Gen 5 Garmin Elevate optical heart rate tech, a barometric altimeter, compass, gyroscope, and thermometer plus a SpO2 pulse oximeter for monitoring blood oxygen saturation. There’s Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity, which means you can hook up to third-party trainers like Wattbike and Peloton while simultaneously using a chest strap. Plus Wi-Fi connectivity, too.
The controls are standard Garmin fare, combining a snappy touchscreen with five easy-to-use, nicely responsive buttons. You can do everything with either the touchscreen or buttons – or a mix – and there are plenty of customizable shortcuts. This best of both worlds made it easy to jump from swipes to button presses when things got wet and sweaty.
Fans of the multi-LED built-in flashlight will be pleased to know that remains. It’s no replacement for a head torch on the move, but it is excellent for situations where you might otherwise fire up your phone torch.
The Enduro 3 ships with an UltraFit (26mm) nylon strap, which I find more comfortable than the silicone straps. It’s adjustable on both sides rather than having one side fixed, making it easier to find a more precise fit – particularly on the move – than the classic hole-punched bands. But if you prefer silicone, the 26mm quick-fit straps are easy to swap.
You also get the same 32GB memory, just like the Fenix 7 and Fenix 8. It’s waterproof up to 100 meters, although it doesn’t have the new 40-meter dive protection of the Fenix 8.
There’s a new user interface with tweaks to how you start runs, change settings, and access things like Morning Report. When you hit the top-right workout button, you now get access to a few customizable pinned activities and a scrollable list of shortcuts to things like Maps, Clock, Messenger, Garmin Share, and the main settings.
When you’re in a sport mode, right before you hit go, you now have easier access to Training, Navigation, Activity, and Watch Settings, making it simpler to tweak those areas just before you set off.
Crucially, you won’t get these updates on the Enduro 2.
Sports and Training Features
- Garmin’s full roster of training features
- Not much new in this model – Enduro 2 is still a good option
When it comes to features, not much is new in this update. But the Garmin Enduro 3 remains one of the most comprehensive and capable sports watches.
Its line-up of training, racing, health, and navigation features is vast, stronger than its rivals, and comprehensive enough to compete with the latest-gen Fenix models. The only things you’re really missing are the speaker/mic and the voice activation/voice notes tools those enable. Plus, there are no new dive skills.
It boasts Garmin’s full gamut of run tracking, training, recovery, navigation, and health tools. Too many to list here, but they include everything from training effect, training load, and performance condition to HRV, Body Battery, recovery time, VO2 Max, and race time predictor estimates. You can also dip into progress-charting readouts like Hill Score and Endurance Score to see if you’re improving on your climbs or endurance.
There are dedicated activity modes for a wide range of sports, including running, cycling, indoor bike, swimming (both indoor and open water), skiing, surfing, mountain biking, hiking, strength training, adventure racing, and triathlon. Golf is well covered, too.
For gym goers—and for you runners and cyclists who need to stop skipping weights—the strength training smarts have been improved. There are new progressive, coached plans (similar to those for running and cycling) with pre-built sessions and animated drills. This adds to the workout builder tools and somewhat hit-and-miss auto rep counting.
As you’d expect on a watch at this price, it also boasts all the daily activity, sleep, stress, breathing, health, and wellness tools we now see as standard on Garmin devices. This includes hydration logging and menstrual cycle tracking.
For general health, there’s also an FDA-cleared ECG app that records your heart rhythm and checks for signs of atrial fibrillation, though it’s not yet available in the UK.
The Garmin Enduro 3 essentially has everything you need to train, race, and recover for almost any sport.
GPS & Heart Rate Accuracy
- Accurate GPS across all modes
- Some questionable heart rate data in testing
To test the GPS and heart rate accuracy, I put the Garmin Enduro 3 up against a range of watches, including the Garmin Fenix 8 AMOLED, the Garmin Enduro 2, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, using a Polar H10 chest strap for benchmarking.
The Enduro 3 carries the same hardware as the Fenix 7 and 8, including Garmin’s latest Gen 5 Elevate heart rate sensor tech and the latest multiband GNSS GPS capabilities, along with the SatIQ AutoSelect mode that dynamically determines the best GPS mode to maximize battery life without compromising accuracy.
For me, the Garmin Enduro 3 GPS performance was solid across all GPS modes. During the New Forest Marathon, with spates of heavy tree cover, the Enduro 3 wasn’t quite as reliable at pinning me to the trails and tracks as the Fenix 8, but the overall distances came within 0.05 mile of the Fenix 8. (Note: the course may have been short.)
On my 55km 5 Valleys Ultra in the Lake District, the Enduro 3 and Fenix 8 were just 0.2 miles apart in total distance. I had no real concerns with real-time pace, either.
| Garmin Enduro 3 | Garmin Fenix 8 | Garmin Enduro 2 |
|---|---|---|
| New Forest Marathon | 25.93 miles | 25.87 miles |
| 5 Valleys Ultra | 35.80 miles | 35.99 miles |
The Garmin Enduro 3’s optical heart rate performance was more hit-and-miss. It sometimes shot higher than the chest strap during interval sessions with sharper changes in intensity. But that’s not uncommon for optical heart rate monitors.
On the longer Lakes Ultra, where I had big changes in effort from the flat to the climbs and stops at aid stations, it also struggled. There was a two-hour period towards the end of the race where it consistently read much higher than the chest strap and fared notably worse than the Fenix 8. (See below – the purple line is the Garmin Enduro 3).
During the New Forest Marathon—where my effort levels increased more steadily—it was much more on point. It almost matched the Polar H10 chest strap beat-for-beat, aside from a few sections where it was lower and the odd lurch higher.
The daytime readings were also roughly in line with other wrist-based heart rate monitors, and our resting heart rate tests matched the chest strap.
TL;DR:Â The heart rate performance is comparable with other Garmin optical sensors, and the GPS performance was nicely reliable too. If you need top HR performance, as ever, a chest strap is still the best option.
Navigation Features
- Mapping a standout feature and a huge draw
- Ability to upload routes a race-day lifesaver for ultras
The Garmin Enduro 3’s navigation, maps, and routing tools set it apart from the competition. This is a highly capable navigation tool with class-leading features. It’s stacked with the same suite of features you’ll find on the Fenix 8—though the maps don’t pop like they do on the Fenix 8 AMOLED screen.
You get multi-continent TOPO maps with added terrain contour lines, backed up by breadcrumb turn-by-turn navigation, with the ability to create, load, and follow routes. Plus, point-to-point, back-to-start, and trackback tools.
The biggest upgrade is the addition of dynamic round-trip routing. You can now create routes on the fly to get you back to your starting point without covering more ground than you planned to.
In testing, I plugged the 5 Valleys Ultra race route into the Enduro 3. I found the NextFork feature, which shows the distance to the next trail intersection, dead handy. The off-course alerts also saved me a couple of times on race day.
I’m also a huge fan of ClimbPro, which serves up the number of climbs you have left to conquer, the profile of your current climb, and how far you have left to hit the summit.
Smartwatch Skills
- Solid if unspectacular smart features
- Offline Spotify is a winner
The Garmin Enduro 3 prioritizes battery life, adventure-ready sports tracking, and training tools over smartwatch skills. The features largely stay the same as the Enduro 2. It’s certainly not a smartwatch and no rival for the likes of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 or the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra for managing daily life.
Most of the tools you’ll find on the pricier AMOLED Fenix 8 watches are here, aside from the mic/speaker power for voice controls, voice note tools, and music playback from the watch.
You get all the usual suspects of offline music and storage for up to 2,000 songs from Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music, so you can connect your Bluetooth headphones directly and run phone-free. Plus, Garmin Pay, smartphone notifications (with text response if you’re on Android), and weather.
The new Garmin Messenger app now lets you send WhatsApp-style comms to fellow Garmin Messenger users, and there’s access to additional apps, tools, faces, and widgets via Connect IQ.
Also consider
If you prefer a more compact watch but want similar features and set-up, it’s worth checking out the new Fenix 8 Solar 43mm or the older Fenix 7 Pro Solar 42mm.
If you’re desperate for a bright AMOLED screen but you balk at the Fenix 8 AMOLED price tag, the Fenix E, Suunto Race S, and the Polar Grit X2 Pro all pack smartwatch-esque displays but won’t hit your bank account quite so hard.
If you own an Enduro 2, there’s probably not enough here to warrant a speedy upgrade.
If you’re in for a new watch, it’s also worth monitoring price drops on the Garmin Enduro 2. You won’t get the new software updates, and the battery life is shorter, but it’s still a hugely capable watch that goes long and could be a bargain.
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