The Garmin Instinct sequence stands out for its rugged, solar-recharging watches. Not counting the spin-off fashions for truck drivers, troopers, or surfers, most Garmin Instinct 2 patrons most likely select it for its long-lived simplicity. You strap it in your wrist, begin an exercise, after which overlook about it.With the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar, the prolific health watch model modified its technique a bit. On the software program entrance, the 2X is much much less bare-bones than its predecessors, including in style instruments like Training Readiness and the Morning Report that the sluggish Instinct 2 chip could not deal with. And for {hardware}, Garmin poached the extra environment friendly photo voltaic panel and LED flashlight from the thousand-dollar Fenix 7X. I liked the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar after I reviewed it final 12 months, however what a distinction a 12 months makes! The Instinct 2X Solar is not simply an iterative improve: its enhancements to ruggedness, battery life, and software program instruments make it much less of a stark downgrade in comparison with Forerunner or Venu fashions that value the identical however have a lot better software program suites and shows.The newly enlarged Garmin Instinct 2X Solar might really feel too cumbersome for smaller wrists, and it lacks key options that extra specialised Garmin watches provide. Despite that, this new mannequin is well probably the greatest health watches of the 12 months, even when — like the opposite Instincts — it is not for everybody.Garmin Instinct 2X Solar (Red) at Amazon for $449.99Garmin Instinct 2X Solar: Price and fashions(Image credit score: Garmin)The Garmin Instinct 2X Solar launched in April 2023 at $450, the identical value because the 2022 Garmin Instinct 2 Solar — although that mannequin typically sells at a reduction as we speak. It’s out there by means of Garmin’s personal web site, in addition to just a few outdoorsy retailers like Backcountry and (technically) Amazon through third-party sellers.Garmin additionally sells a Garmin Instinct 2X Solar Tactical Edition for $500, with all the identical specs and perks together with just a few particular software program instruments like a Kill Switch, Stealth Mode, Night Vision Mode, Jumpmaster Mode, and Ballistics software program. Our Instinct 2X vs. 2X Tactical information runs by means of the variations in additional depth. Unlike the usual Instinct 2 sequence, you will not discover a non-Solar model of the 2X for $100 much less. Also, the opposite Instinct 2 special-edition fashions (Camo, Surf, and dēzl) didn’t switch to the 2X sequence.The most important Garmin Instinct 2X Solar colours embody Graphite, Moss, Whitestone, and Flame Red; the Tactical Edition ships in Black and Coyote Tan. Garmin Instinct 2X Solar design and showThe Garmin Instinct 2X Solar (proper) and a couple of Solar (left) (Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)If you examine the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar vs. 2 Solar on the floor stage, it is clear the newer mannequin took the identical design and made it bigger, with just a few tweaks. Unless you’ve got educated your wrist muscular tissues with the bigger Fenix or Enduro watches, the Instinct 2X Solar goes to really feel heavier than you are used to.The unique Instinct 2 Solar weighed on the larger finish of a “normal” Garmin watch at 53g with strap, however due to the thick, elevated bezel, it may solely squeeze in a 0.9-inch show, a part of which is taken up by the second round window. That, mixed with the wimpy backlight, meant you needed to maintain it fairly near your face to learn notifications. Choosing the Instinct 2X Solar means the case dimension jumps from 45mm to 50mm. That further house boosts the show to a extra affordable 1.1 inches however provides one other 14g of weight. The 2X rests flat towards your wrist, and the bigger case means the additional mass distributes extra extensively in your wrist. It’s extra snug than I anticipated at first, however I am unable to deny that it is heavier and extra noticeable than earlier than.On its personal deserves, the monochrome Instinct 2X Solar show is low-resolution and never particularly nice to take a look at, even in comparison with different memory-in-pixel Garmin shows. It’s a trade-off that pays off in higher battery life. But within the context of the Instinct lineup, the 2X has the perfect show as a consequence of its dimension and brightness. And the elevated bezel appears to be like extra pure on the 2X as a result of the bigger show does not really feel as tightly enveloped by it. It’s extra proportional, in different phrases.The Instinct 2/ 2X watches with the backlight set to 20% (Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)At the usual 20% backlight manufacturing facility settings, the Instinct 2X show is infinitely extra readable than the final era. Better distinction between the white textual content and black background makes the two Solar show look surprisingly boring in hindsight. Just make certain to allow the “After sunset” setting for Gesture raise-to-wake; with out it, the Instinct 2X is totally unreadable away from direct lighting till you press a button. Garmin additionally made the newer watch MIL-STD-810 compliant for thermal and shock injury; despite the fact that the Instinct 2 Solar was thermal and shock resistant, you needed to pay further for the Tactical Edition to get “official” safety. Not anymore! Perhaps that is simply affirmation bias, however the Instinct 2X Solar bezel polymer appears to be barely firmer than the older watch, which tracks with this variation.I additionally admire that the Garmin Instinct 2X buttons provide a satisfying click on once you press them, a returning high quality from the final mannequin. I’ve discovered many Garmin Forerunner and Venu watch buttons annoyingly squishy and unreliable, however the Instinct offers you a pleasant textured really feel and deliberate tactile suggestions. Still, you are going to miss the dearth of a touchscreen once you click on one-by-one by means of quite a lot of Settings and Glance widgets. (Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)The two-window show makes use of the devoted round house to point out necessary information like your coronary heart price throughout a exercise, or an icon when a notification or menu. Generally talking, I discover this mini-data window helpful. Since I have not examined a Garmin Fenix but, that is my first mannequin with exterior screws on the outer case. I’ll admit my ignorance right here and say I do not know what the profit is of exposing these, besides maybe for simpler repairs or match changes. Subjectively, I’d say they give the impression of being fairly neat, however others will not like how they conflict with the remainder of the bezel. Garmin Instinct 2X Solar sensors and software programSwipe to scroll horizontallySpecsGarmin Instinct 2X SolarMaterialsPolymer case & bezel, Power Glass lensDisplay typeMonochrome, sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP)Display size1.1-inch, 176 x 176Protection10ATM, MIL-STD-810 for thermal, shock and water resistanceSize & weight50 x 50 x 14.5 mm, 67gWatch band26mm band, 145-228mm wrist circumferenceLED flashlightWhite (4 intensities), Red (low), Strobe: Blink, Blitz, Beacon, Pulse, and CustomPositioningGPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, All Systems GNSS, Multi-Band GPSSensorsAltimeter, Compass, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Thermometer, Pulse OxMemory/ historical past64MBColorsGraphite, Moss, Whitestone, Flame RedGarmin gave the Instinct 2X Solar all the sensors you’d want in a mountaineering watch: an altimeter to correctly measure elevation, a compass for orientation, and an accelerometer and gyroscope to correctly measure (amongst different issues) distance calculations, swimming motions, and gymnasium train reps.Like the Forerunner 265 and different latest Garmin fashions, the Instinct 2X Solar has each All-Systems GNSS and Multi-Band GPS monitoring choices, supplying you with rather more pinpoint outcomes to your runs and hikes. I discovered the Instinct 2X Solar extremely correct to my real-life operating path on the upper settings, sticking to my precise path even when my routes took me beneath satellite tv for pc obstacles.The solely factor it is lacking is the brand new SatIQ system that auto-switches between settings every time it senses these obstacles, so that you solely use the battery-guzzling multi-band setting once you want it. Even although the Instinct 2X Solar has an absurdly {powerful} battery life on paper, it is not limitless; SatIQ would have been a welcome addition. (Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)Rather than listing out each Garmin software program characteristic out there on the Instinct 2X Solar, I’ve grouped them into classes under displaying what you possibly can count on from it.Health monitoring: As with most Garmin watches, you get all-day coronary heart price monitoring, stress monitoring, respiration information, and (should you allow it) blood oxygen ranges, in addition to detailed sleep monitoring information. It makes use of this information to assist generate a Body Battery rating. A much less widespread device is coronary heart price variability (HRV) standing, which may be very helpful for precisely judging your restoration from powerful exercises (or an excessive amount of ingesting). Training information: Using operating for instance, your Instinct 2X Solar will present you the coaching impact of a run, suggest how lengthy it’s essential get better afterward and counsel day by day exercises primarily based in your vitality stage and coaching readiness. You’ll see your present efficiency situation and certain race tempo earlier than an occasion, and get guided throughout a run should you’re off your goal tempo. New options: The Morning Report widget sleep high quality, native climate, really useful exercise, and different information once you first get up. Grade-adjusted tempo reveals how briskly you are operating or biking relative to the uphill or downhill slope you are on. Training Readiness is my favourite new characteristic from the Forerunner sequence, combining your sleep and stress scores, acute load, HRV standing, restoration time, and different information to inform you should you’re able to work out — and at what depth.Compared to most Forerunner watches, you will miss out on particular instruments like Pacepro, wrist-based operating kind data, or full-color maps. But you’ve got many extra out of doors sports activities profiles like impediment course racing to take pleasure in, and you’ll pre-download mountain climbing trails and use breadcrumb path routing to comply with a mapped line to your vacation spot. Really, the most important downside with the Instinct 2X Solar, identical to its predecessor, is that it typically suffers from lag. You’ll discover minor delays when scrolling by means of menus, or lengthy loading screens in particular situations like ending a exercise. There’s no Wi-Fi for downloading updates or course information, both.Garmin Instinct 2X Solar flashlight(Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)The most fun characteristic of the Instinct 2X Solar is the LED flashlight, or “Torch” because it’s labeled on the watch itself. It offers you a technique to sign your presence or mild your path ahead throughout night time runs and rides.At any time, you possibly can double-tap the top-left button to show the flashlight on or off. Hold down that button, and you will find the Torch and Strobe settings. Torch allows you to select one in all 4 intensities for the white LED, the one purple LED, or (on the Tactical Edition) the inexperienced LED.Strobe allows you to select between completely different LED-blinking patterns: Blink, Blitz, Beacon, Pulse, and Custom. The latter allows you to select the sample, pace, and colour. Using a Strobe setting may be an effective way to sign to different runners and cyclists that you simply’re there. There’s additionally one final Torch setting: Cadence. If you go into your Run exercise settings, you possibly can allow it so the flashlight shines to match your operating stride, both always or solely after sundown. (Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)My smartphone digicam’s automated mild adjustment makes it tough to point out precisely how a lot the Instinct 2X Solar brightens an space. In individual, the white LED does handle to light up the realm in entrance of you at larger intensities…however provided that you retain your arm parallel to your chest, so the flashlight faces ahead. With a pure operating or strolling movement, you will get glimpses of what is forward, however then your arm will draw again. The Instinct 2X flashlight is undoubtedly useful, but it surely does imply holding your watch hand extra rigidly than you usually would. The different caveat to recollect is that the LED totally consumes the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar battery, particularly at excessive intensities and matched with GPS monitoring. When you activate the flashlight, the battery estimate on the watch auto-updates. When my watch confirmed 14 days of battery left, I began operating with the flashlight energetic and swapped between the 4 intensities; the estimated time remaining switched to 6 hours on the lowest depth and 1–2 hours on the highest depth, finally displaying a “Low” battery warning.In different phrases, should you go for a run with multi-band GPS and the full-power flashlight energetic, even at full cost, the Instinct 2X Solar might solely final you a few hours at most. But should you make do with a lower-intensity setting, it ought to simply final by means of an extended nighttime run with battery to spare. Garmin Instinct 2X Solar battery and photo voltaic recharge(Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)The largest enhance between the Instinct 2 Solar and 2X Solar is in battery life. Aside from having a bigger battery capability, the 2X Power Glass panel is (in accordance with Garmin) 50% extra environment friendly than the earlier era. I assumed to check this for myself by placing each watches in a sunny spot in my yard and see how the lux hours registered on each units. Unfortunately, I forgot that the older mannequin solely reveals a proportion, so I could not straight examine what a “100%” cost means for one or the opposite.So we have now to depend on the official numbers from Garmin, which inform a reasonably clear story:Swipe to scroll horizontallyBattery modeGarmin Instinct 2X SolarGarmin Instinct 2 SolarSmartwatch mode40 days / Unlimited with photo voltaic28 days / Unlimited with solarGPS solely60 hours / 145 with photo voltaic30 hours / 48 with photo voltaicAll Satellite Systems40 hours / 65 with photo voltaic🚫All + Multi-Band27 hours / 36 with photo voltaic🚫Max Battery GPS Mode150 hours / Unlimited with photo voltaic70 hours / 370 with photo voltaicExpedition GPS Exercise60 days / Unlimited with photo voltaic32 days / Unlimited with photo voltaicIf you persist with GPS or one of many extra intermittent monitoring settings like Expedition Mode, you possibly can observe your self for weeks at a time, although provided that you get at the very least 3 hours of daylight per day. The impact is lessened considerably should you use extra correct monitoring, however even then, the 2X Solar in multi-band mode lasts simply 3 hours lower than the two Solar in GPS mode (ignoring photo voltaic recharge).The Instinct 2X Solar will solely be “unlimited” should you persist with very fundamental well being monitoring and notification checking. The extra you activate GPS, or most particularly the flashlight, the extra you will miss out on battery life. Despite this, over 100 hours of GPS monitoring, or 65 with the default All-Systems monitoring, is head and shoulders above every other GPS watch I’ve ever examined. This is what makes the low-res show value it to individuals who want constant battery life for lengthy durations with no assure of with the ability to cost their watch. Without this {powerful} capability, you would not be capable to assist a built-in LED flashlight within the first place!As a remaining level, I like that I can truly see the real-time daylight information on my watch, each in graph kind and on the primary watch face. Like monitoring my day by day steps, it feels prefer it virtually gamifies the solar-recharging perk, as I attempt to get outdoors extra and hit a sure lux threshold to regain misplaced battery life.Competition(Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)As this evaluate has most likely made clear, the Instinct 2 Solar is smaller, has no flashlight, is lacking just a few key software program instruments, and has a much less readable show. But should you see one for $100 lower than the 2X Solar, and also you’re somebody with a smaller wrist, chances are you’ll settle for these downgrades. Or, you possibly can have a look at the hybrid Instinct Crossover mannequin with related options (together with a photo voltaic panel) and conventional watch arms for a extra retro look.If you desire a long-lasting smartwatch however do not persistently get open air sufficient for a photo voltaic panel to repay, take into account the COROS APEX 2 Pro. It truly beats the Instinct 2X with 75 GPS hours or 45 All-Systems GNSS hours (with out taking photo voltaic under consideration), and has a a lot greater colour LCD show, trendy titanium casing and Sapphire Glass, and loads of helpful software program instruments that mirror Garmin’s.Otherwise, you will clearly need to have a look at the opposite unbelievable Garmin watches on the market. The Venu sequence is, in some ways, the inverse of the Instinct sequence, focusing extra on a classy show and way of life options like music storage and a mic/speaker for telephone calls. Or, for rugged designs paired with higher shows, you will have to show to the dearer Fenix sequence.Garmin Instinct 2X Solar: Should you purchase it?(Image credit score: Michael Hicks / Android Central)You can buy the Instinct 2X Solar if…Long battery life is your primary concern.You want a design rugged sufficient to deal with something you throw at it.You cannot afford a Garmin Fenix, Enduro, or Epix watch, however need the following neatest thing.You should not purchase the Instinct 2X Solar if…You desire a watch that feels mild and breezy.Tons of battery life is superfluous to you. You care extra about smarts and telephone connectivity than health monitoring.The Garmin Instinct 2X Solar is not designed with me in thoughts. I, sadly, do not get sufficient outing within the daylight to profit from the photo voltaic panel or embark on excursions the place an ultra-rugged design is important. Still, I can admire an amazing health look ahead to what it’s, even when I’m not the audience.I do actually like having the flashlight for when my night runs take longer than anticipated, and I’d certain love for this device to finish up on different Garmin fashions just like the Forerunner sequence sooner or later. But it most likely will not work on one other mannequin since you want an ultra-powerful battery for it to persist lengthy sufficient to be well worth the addition. Ultimately, I extremely suggest the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar to anybody who suits the factors above and may deal with sporting a bigger watch than what most individuals are used to. I referred to as the Instinct 2 Solar the “marathoner of fitness smartwatches” in my evaluate final 12 months, which makes the Instinct 2X Solar the ultramarathoner.
A rugged design, improved software program, ridiculously good battery life and photo voltaic recharge, and the helpful new flashlight make the 2X probably the greatest health watches of the 12 months.
Garmin Instinct 2X Solar: Price Comparison