Garmin Enduro 4 Review

Introduction

If I were to describe the Garmin Enduro 4 in artistic form, I’d borrow heavily from popular spirit adverts and call it the distilled essence of Garmin, quadruple filtered.

What I mean is that – while it lacks some things you might get on the Fenix – its stripped-back nature is actually its biggest strength.

I’ve been using Enduro 4 for the past couple of weeks, and I like it a lot more than I thought I would.

Design

• Lighter than the Fenix 9 Pro despite its size
• Comfortable, adjustable fabric strap
• Only available in one 51mm size and colour

What surprised me most about the latest Enduro’s design is how light and comfortable it feels for a watch of its undoubted heft. It’s wider and thicker than the 47mm Garmin Fenix 9 Pro I’ve been wearing for a lot of this past month or two, and yet it’s lighter and feels better balanced on the wrist.

It’s 10-20 grams lighter than the Fenix 9 Pro, depending on which band is on the Fenix, and a full 33 grams lighter than the comparably sized 51mm version of the Fenix. That makes it more comfortable to wear at night when sleeping, and also means it’s less likely to shift around while you’re in the middle of a workout.

It has the kind of lightness and balance that keeps it glued to my wrist. Part of that is down to the materials used. It has a fibre-based polymer case with a titanium bezel, rather than a full titanium case. It’s also missing some of the hardware features of the Fenix.

The Enduro 4 also happens to ship with what I consider the best out-of-the-box Garmin strap. Its fabric construction is durable, but thin, flexible, breathable and infinitely adjustable – which only adds to the comfort of wearing the Enduro for long periods. Plus the velcro that holds it shut is super grippy, and so doesn’t easily open accidentally.

Otherwise it bears all the hallmarks of a Garmin, and is quite old-school in its approach. There’s the five-button control system, the transflective MIP display – which also happens to be a touchscreen – and a built-in flashlight in the top edge.

This light has four brightness levels for the white light and a single red light option. Sadly no green light on this one, but it’s plenty useful as it is. In fact, one evening when I went out for a run at sunset, the watch knew the light levels would be low and offered to activate a strobe light effect automatically during my run, making me more visible to anyone else along my route.

Where it lacks a little is in variety. It’s clear the Enduro isn’t the most mainstream of Garmin’s ranges, because it only comes in one size: 51mm. There are no smaller options for smaller wrists. It also – currently – only ships in one colour, with one band option. That’s this dark grey case with the lighter titanium bezel and a green fabric strap. That’s it.

It’s a really durable watch, designed to tackle the elements. Its sapphire glass lens is supremely scratch-resistant, and the 10ATM water resistance rating means it can handle any rainstorms or water activities. Saying that, it doesn’t have the dive-proof buttons of the Fenix lineup. On the one hand, that means it’s no good for diving. But on the other hand, it means the buttons are less spongy-feeling and have a shallower, clickier feel to them.

Display and smart features

• Always-on 1.4-inch MIP touchscreen
• Hard to read in dim light
• No LTE, satellite or calls from the wrist

It’s when you look at the display and the smart feature set that the Enduro starts looking very much like a Fenix Lite. Garmin built this as an expedition watch; it’s stripped of the more battery-hogging smart features like the bright OLED display. There’s also no mic or speaker for passing through phone calls to your wrist, or any cellular or satellite connectivity.

The bare-bones approach to the speaker also means that the only audible alerts or noises available are really simple, quite tame beeps. They’re nowhere near as loud as the sounds you’ll get from the loudspeaker on the Fenix – so when I was on my runs using Garmin’s training plans with built-in countdowns to the next interval – it was harder to hear those.

The software interface is displayed on the 1.4-inch MIP display, which very much reminds me of older-generation Garmin. It’s not contrasty, bright and vibrant like the more modern OLED displays. Instead, it’s similar to E Ink, in that it uses the ambient light around you to light up the display. And so – it’s always on.

The brighter the surroundings, the clearer the display is. So if you’re out in the hills on a summer day, it’ll be crystal clear. Indoors, not so much. It’s noticeably dimmer indoors than the OLED-fronted models, and so harder to read. But – like classic digital watches, if you’re in a darker environment and need to illuminate it – there’s a light button you can press that floods the panel with a cool light for a few seconds.

In fact, even outdoors in the daytime – a bright, backlit OLED display, especially those approaching 3000 nits peak brightness – will still be more clearly visible because of the higher contrast level between the black background and the vibrant, colourful data on top.

It’s lacking a couple of other features too. While it has Garmin Messenger, there’s no cellular LTE or satellite connectivity, so if you’re out in the wilderness and need to contact a loved one or the emergency services, you’ll need to rely on your phone’s connection to do it. There’s also no voice assistant, but – I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Apart from that, it’s got pretty much everything you’d find on other Garmin models. There’s Garmin Pay for contactless payments (for banks and credit cards that support it) and offline playlists from popular music streaming apps like Amazon, Spotify and Deezer.

The interface is even arranged in an identical way to the other models. Your ‘Glances’ as Garmin calls them make up the predominant way you’ll interact with your data. This vertical stack of different data points is easily accessible by swiping up from your watch face, or pressing the down button on the left. Or you can get to your phone notifications by swiping down on the screen or pressing the ‘up’ button.

What’s in this list of glances is completely customisable, so you get to decide which bits of data or information you find the most valuable, and order them accordingly.

Health and Fitness tracking

• Same Elevate Gen 5 sensor as newer Garmins
• Accurate heart rate and GPS tracking
• Adaptive Garmin Coach training plans

There’s not a huge amount new to be said about the health, fitness, sleep or recovery tracking on the Enduro 4, because it’s using the same Elevate Gen 5 sensor to track heart rate, SpO2 and other health metrics as most other newer Garmin models. And those are paired with the same upgraded processor, RAM and 64GB storage as the Fenix 9 Pro series were blessed with.

It comes as no surprise then that – on the whole – I found it performed almost identically to the Fenix 9 Pro, and I was able to swap the Fenix out for the Enduro, and carry on using it seamlessly.

The heart-rate sensor is about as accurate as it can be for a wrist-based sensor. Average measurements taken over the course of an activity generally matched what you’d find on the Fenix 9 Pro and Apple Watch Ultra 4. And that means largely in line with what a chest strap will read. If there’s a discrepancy – it’s one or two beats per minute, and typically only at the high peaks of the heart-rate readings.

GPS, similarly, is very consistent and records pretty accurate data even when running under tree cover on an overcast, rainy day. I didn’t see any indications of it getting distances or routes wildly incorrect, even while on a long run through one of our recent stormy days.

As I found when comparing its sibling – the Fenix 9 Pro – with the Apple Watch Ultra 4, typically the Apple Watch would measure a little further. On a run between 3- 5 km, that would usually be about 20-30 metres; on an 8km run, it was about 80.

So on average, the Apple Watch will measure about somewhere between 8-10 metres extra per kilometre. So well within the margin of error or discrepancy you’d expect to find on any wrist-worn GPS tracking watch. And is actually typical of any difference between Garmin and Apple, because of how they process movement and GPS noise.

Garmin’s system continues to be valuable to anyone who’s training up to cover distances, purely because of how it offers such a wealth of data but also translates and presents it.

So sure, you can deep dive and get any in-depth stats you want. But more important I think is how it feeds in to metrics like training readiness, or the body battery feature and performance metrics like the endurance and stamina scores.

The actual numbers themselves don’t necessarily mean a specific thing – but they’re colour coded so that you have an idea of where you sit generally in terms of your fitness, endurance and how well rested and ready you are. I like it a lot.

Plus, I’ve been making use of the Garmin Coach plans to get back up to a level of fitness I’m happier with. With it, it’ll judge how fit you are after doing a benchmark run and measuring your effort and pace, then build a multi-week plan on a week-by-week basis based on your performance during sessions.

Generally speaking, by following this plan to the T, I’ve found my training effect has been in the green ‘productive’ status the entire time, and I’ve seen some real gains in my endurance and fitness stats.

Whether you’re training to do 5K for the first time, or increase your distance running ability to 10K or even half and full marathon distances – you can start up a plan, and it’ll automatically sync to the watch and give you something that’s easy to follow on your run.

I’ve tried similar things on Nike Run Club, Huawei, Runna and other plans – and this one I’ve generally found to be the most effective – because it’s constantly adapting and basing its plans on my own performance and fitness level. It then gives me specific pace targets to hit that are just the right level of effort to keep my training effect in that productive zone, and keep my endurance level increasing at a sustainable rate.

Garmin claims this new processor platform can load apps 30% faster – particularly when panning and zooming within the app. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it loads instantly. It doesn’t. When you scroll down your screens during running or hiking to see your route, it can take a couple of seconds to load the actual map onto the screen.

It’s here that you’ll find the AMOLED-based screens on the Fenix series are better. Being more colour rich and vibrant makes it easier to see paths, routes and terrain. But if your main purpose for it is to lead you back to your starting point, the route it plots automatically during the activity is still very clearly visible and easy to follow back.

Battery Life

• Solar charging as standard
• Close to a month of battery life in testing
• Around twice the battery life of an AMOLED Fenix

By default – the Enduro 4 comes equipped with the solar-charging capabilities we’ve seen on a handful of Garmin’s other models. It’s something I’ve found makes quite a difference to battery life when the watch is used to track long activities like hikes during the summer months when the sun is high and bright.

Sadly, since it’s now basically winter in the northern hemisphere, the opportunities to see its strengths during testing were slim to none. Especially since most activities spent in wet, windy conditions mean the watch is generally covered by long sleeves.

Still, it’s not as though your biggest concern with the Enduro is that it’ll run out of battery. It won’t. In fact, its lower-spec display means you can get a full month of everyday usage from a full charge. Or, at least, that’s Garmin’s claim.

In my testing, using it to track GPS activities four times a week – with two of those being over an hour long and two being 30 minutes – it took 9 days to drain 41% of the battery. After two weeks it was down 60%, and predicting another 14 days until it was empty.

This pattern, continued over multiple weeks until the battery dies, would leave me looking at somewhere between 26-29 days of use from the Enduro 4. And that’s in the colder, darker months with very little extra help from the sun. In the summer months, it should go longer. And for context, that’s about twice the battery life you’d get with an AMOLED version of the Fenix.

Should you buy it?

FAQs

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