It seems that Garmin is preparing for its third smartwatch release of the year, having presented the Lily 2 and Forerunner 165 in January and February, respectively. While the company has not officially confirmed anything yet, there is now a wealth of evidence that it has developed not just Enduro 2 and Fenix 7 successors but also a new Fenix sub-division dubbed the 'Fenix E'.
Until recently, AMOLED and Memory in Pixel (MIP) displays were thought to be the main differentiators between the Fenix 8 and Fenix E. However, FitnessTrackerTest (FTT) now asserts that this will not be the case across the board. Instead, they claim that Garmin intends to sell the Fenix 8 in 47 mm and 51 mm sizes with AMOLED displays for some variants and MIP displays for others.
Inferring from a series of tweets, it appears that Garmin will equip the Fenix 8 with AMOLED displays in all but its Solar SKUs, which will feature MIP displays to maximise battery life. To that end, FTT adds that Garmin will advertise Fenix 8 Solar (51 mm) as achieving up to 48 days of battery life in smartwatch mode, compared to 37 days for the equivalent Fenix 7X Solar (curr. $648 on Amazon).
The adoption of AMOLED displays is not said to hinder battery life, either. In fact, the Fenix 8 (51 mm) with an AMOLED panel may match its direct predecessor with 28 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. Incidentally, all Fenix 8 sizes, including the smallest 43 mm variant, are expected to launch with larger display panels than their predecessors, full details of which we have covered separately.
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