Earlier this year I trained for and ran the London Marathon while wearing the Garmin Epix Pro and Apple Watch Ultra 2. Both are among the best sports watches I’ve tested, but it was the Garmin that impressed me most, and now it’s heavily reduced in the Black Friday sales I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it over the Apple Watch.
Right now can get the 51mm model of the Garmin Epix Pro for $749 at Amazon. This is the largest version of the sapphire Epix Pro, which is the model I tested and offers the best battery life, but if you want a smaller watch the 47mm sapphire Garmin Epix Pro is also $749 at Amazon.
I wore the Garmin Epix Pro for a year in total, and only took it off to start testing the Garmin Fenix 8 when it launched. The Epix Pro impressed me in many ways during my marathon training. The GPS accuracy is second-to-none, the training analysis genuinely useful in helping you to get fitter and the battery life is extraordinary for an AMOLED watch — it lasted me 10 days on a charge even when running 70-80 miles a week with the screen set to always-on.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was also great during my testing, and outdoes the Garmin on smart features, but the sports tracking is not as impressive and the Apple Watch didn’t have any training analysis at the time — the new training load feature on the Apple Watch is good, but still not at Garmin’s level. And, of course, I had to charge the Apple Watch every other day.
One of the big reasons that I still considered the Apple Watch Ultra 2 competitive was price — it’s much cheaper than the Epix Pro when both watches are at full price. However, with this deal the Epix Pro 51mm is only $50 more than the Ultra 2, which has dropped in price itself in the sales — you can get the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for $699 at Amazon. Unless you are focused on smarts over sports, I’d say the Epix Pro is the better deal.
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