The Garmin Fenix 7 is finally here with a surprising new feature

Are you into exercising, be it casual or hardcore? Are you a professional athlete? Then the news of Garmin’s Fenix 7 launch will probably be something right up your alley.

The Fenix 7 series was officially released today, with a starting price of $700. There are three sizes to choose from in total: Fenix 7S (42mm), Fenix 7 (47mm), and Fenix 7X (51mm). You can also pick between the standard edition, a solar one that allows the battery to be charged by staying in the sun, or a solar sapphire edition that adds the scratch-resistant lens in the mix.

The most surprising and probably noteworthy addition to the Garmin Fenix 7 lineup is the new touchscreens. Previous Fenix models were entirely controlled by buttons. In addition, there is also an added multi-LED flashlight which, of course, functions as a regular tool to illuminate your path but can also switch between red and white in sync with your pace to make you more visible.

Now, just as a side note here, a smartwatch with no touchscreen might seem weird for folk who are not too big on training and exercising. However, such activities usually include rough outdoor conditions, which a touch screen doesn’t quite play well with. While the Fenix 7 series has a touchscreen, it locks automatically throughout activity tracking to avoid accidents.

As mentioned earlier, you can get a solar edition of the Fenix 7. Garmin claims that the new screen can gather as much as double what the Fenix 6 could, thanks to the larger surface area. Supposedly, this could make the watch’s battery last up to five weeks before having to charge it again. That is if you don’t use the GPS for any navigation and such.

On the software side, the Fenix 7 comes with a myriad of advanced training tools. Some of these include Recovery Time Advison, which tells you when you’ve fully recovered, Real-Time Stamina that lets you know how much energy you have left, and more.