The experience of viewing these maps feels nearly identical, though you do have that added touchscreen functionality with the 7 series to scroll through maps. You still need to use the buttons to zoom into sections of the map.

What that means is that you can custom-build the features you want to use and turn off anything you don’t need. The result means that your overall battery life is largely dependent upon your preferences. The watch will update you on the effect your preferences will have on the overall battery life as you switch things on and off in the settings. If maps are one of your primary reasons for looking into the Fenix series, this is where the 6X Pro model, with its larger screen, comes into its own. To be honest, viewing maps on a watch screen is never going to be perfect, but the TOPO maps used across the pro devices are by far the best we’ve used, acting as a smart balance between navigational data and visual aesthetics. There are obvious issues with the system, mainly around zooming in and out, but we’ve yet to see anyone handle those effectively.The GPS mode is, for example, doubled from the Fenix 5/5S Plus to the Fenix 6/6S. Garmin Fenix 6 also has a completely new Power Manager that tells you how much battery life is left, among other things – and this is noticeably in HOURS rather than PERCENTAGE. Power Manager also makes it super easy to change from different Power Modes, so that you can control its battery use and save power when you do not need all the functions of the watch. The first thing you’ll notice about this watch is that huge watch face. The ‘X’ in the name ‘6X’ signifies the large 51 mm case size – the largest in the whole Fenix lineup. It’s made up of a large titanium bezel to protect the 280 x 280 pixel watch face. Garmin Fenix 6 comes with a pre-installed topographical Europe map with a real turn-by-turn navigation that we know from a driver’s navigation.

Heart rate accuracy for interval training: Fenix 6X (left), Polar Ignite (center) and chest strap (right) Straight out of the box the Garmin looks fantastic. The design of the watch is sleek and modern. It has a very appealing slightly utilitarian look. There is a slight factory and rubber smell when you first open the box but that completely goes away after about a day or so. There is a USB charger, the user manual and safety information included in the box. The Fenix 6X Pro comes with an impressive range of mapping already built into its 32GB internal storage. We’ve always found that Garmin nails things in the mapping department, and this is certainly true with this timekeeper.One major upshot of the Fenix 6X pro addition is the prolonged battery life in the unit. Garmin claims that it will give 21 days' use as a smartwatch, up to 60 hours of GPS, up to 15 hours of GPS and music, 120 hours in max battery mode, 46 hours in expedition mode and 80 days in battery saver mode. All watches in the Garmin Fenix 6 collection also have the so-called PulseOx sensor, which can measure the oxygen level in your blood. This function is especially important for mountain hikers and everyone else who is up high. What it can indicate is how well your body adapts to the lower oxygen level when you are up high, which helps indicate how fast you can climb upwards. The full set up and personalization of the dial took slightly longer for the sole reason that there are so many customization options. The amount of customization has to be one of my favourite features of this device. Everything from the layout of the dial to the colour of the second’s hand can be tailored to your preference. The 6X comes with several pre-set dials from which you can choose or you can create one to show exactly the information you need. There is a wide range of options and you can select to have anything from the weather to the altitude and your blood oxygen levels. An interesting option is that once customized the dial can be saved. You can tailor a dial to show specific information for an activity, for example climbing. This means you can easily switch out the information from what you need on a daily basis to what you need during climbing in less than a minute and saves you the hassle of having to set up the dial over and over again each time you do a climb. The biggest design upgrade, however, can be seen on the display, which is now 17% larger, jumping from a 1.2-inch, 240 x 240 resolution display to a larger 1.3-inch, 260 x 260 offering. While that doesn’t sound like much, it does mean that fitness information is displayed in a much more intuitive way than before as it can now show extra (customizable) data fields. In the table below, you can see the differences between the Fenix 6S, the Fenix 6, and the Fenix 6X. All functions or properties that are marked as NEW are new relative to the watches in the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus collection.