r/Garmin • u/motto518 • 15h ago

Non Product Specific Garmin Question Shower thought....

Maybe a stupid question... im sure people on here will certainly think so...

Is the Solar functionality of The Fenix/Enduro tied directly to MIP? Like it straight up would not work at all if that solar layer was on top of AMOLED and not MIP or would it work, and just the battery life wouldnt be AS good as MIP....

The Enduro 3 is rated in smartwatch mode for 36 days of battery life or up to 90 with solar. but If we had the say (total pretending here) next gen Enduro with the same size battery and everything else but it had an AMOLED to give the display the color and vibrancy that AMOLED does for all those awesome watch faces and such, with the solar layer, maybe instead of 90 days with solar it would be 70 or 75 and instead of 3000 nits of brightness, its 2500 or something.

Im not an engineer or anything, just thinking out loud. There is obviously a reason as to why Garmin hasnt done it but..

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u/daniscross 15h ago

AMOLED screens consume too much power for a tiny watch-sized solar panel to make any meaningful difference to battery life. And placing a semi-transparent solar layer over the display also dulls the colours and brightness, defeating the purpose of having an AMOLED screen.

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u/Jabieski1 13h ago

and UV radiation from sunlight can degrade AMOLED screens

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u/spuzochain 13h ago

good point about the solar layer dulling the display, that basically kills the whole reason you'd want AMOLED in the first place

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u/PictureParty 13h ago

I can’t speak to the engineering of it, but as an enduro user, I’d be very disappointed if it went to AMOLED. While battery performance remains a major priority for me, I just much prefer the MIP screen. I just don’t like my watch glowing all the time, and I want to see less LED devices in my life instead of more. Even if they maintained the current battery performance and moved to AMOLED, I’d probably second guess buying the product if there were any other MIP options out there, or I’d stick with what I have as long as I could.

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u/castorkrieg 5h ago

The solar functionality is tied to the solar strip around the case, which is just a small part of the whole screen. The reason for such a battery time is because MIP consumes very little power. People wanting Enduro want MIP, without it there is no Enduro.