Garmin's new, high-end Fenix 8 Pro smartwatches are being advertised as having the brightest displays on the market.

The Fenix 8 Pro and Fenix 8 Pro - MicroLED are scheduled for release on September 8, the day before Apple's iPhone 17 launch. With price tags of $1,199.99 and $1,999.99 respectively, these devices are not intended as direct competitors to the Apple Watch Series 11 or Samsung's Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch Ultra.

Garmin's position in the smartwatch market is outside the top five vendors. One factor limiting its ability to compete with larger companies may be the absence of cellular support in its most popular models, a feature found in Apple and Samsung devices.

The Fenix 8 Pro family addresses this with standard LTE connectivity. However, its implementation differs from that of cellular-enabled Apple and Samsung watches, allowing voice calls only to other Fenix 8 Pro users or smartphone users with the Garmin Messenger app.

While not ideal, this is an improvement over the lack of cellular capabilities in most other Garmin watches. In addition to voice calls, the Fenix 8 Pro series supports 30-second voice messages and LiveTrack location sharing.

Cellular connectivity is enabled by Garmin's inReach technology, featured for the first time on a smartwatch, which also provides satellite functionality for messaging and location check-ins in areas without cellular coverage.

Although the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is rumored to have satellite connectivity, the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro is expected to excel in this area, which aligns with its higher price point and the $9.99 monthly subscription cost for the inReach service.

The focus of Garmin's press release indicates the uniqueness of the Fenix 8 Pro series, with less emphasis on health and wellness features. The primary selling points are its satellite and cellular connectivity, along with the MicroLED display of the higher-end model.

The MicroLED technology increases the screen's brightness to 4,500 nits, making it the brightest smartwatch. However, the MicroLED touchscreen reduces the standard Fenix 8 Pro's battery life from 27 days to 10 days.

While both models exceed the expected battery life of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Series 11, the $1,200 model includes a high-quality AMOLED panel, a large battery, and the same ECG, sleep coach, endurance score, hill score, daily suggested workouts, pre-loaded TopoActive Maps, and other features as the more expensive version.

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