I wouldn't ever get a refurb. With the prices so close, I would be the opposite and get the brand new unit.

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I'd be a little nervous of the refurb, even if it comes with a warranty. Garmins are known to do some weird things

Yeah I wouldn't go with refurb. I picked the 935 since it's lighter, no frills (looks) and does everything I want. Fenix series is overkill to me. It should just come down to looks though they both function the same.

Love my 935 but I would strongly consider the F5Plus if buying now. I'd love to have music on my watch.

If you plan to wear it as a daily watch I'd go with the Fenix 5 for durability reasons.

I have had a few instances on my 735xt just rough housing with my kids or doing yard work and bang my watch on something, luckily nothing beyond a minor scratch.

The 935. All. Day. Long.

Depends on your uses. For tri related activities and racing - 935.

But if you want to wear it as a daily watch or do other outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, skiing etc. that you want mapping or activity tracking the Felix line is the way to go. Quick change watch bands, sapphire glass, and if wanted music on the plus line makes it is one quiver watch for you.

Or if you are a diver - step up another level to the descent mk1 which is a Felix 5X with full dive planning and computer built in. I have this and used it on a multi day dive trip a couple months ago. My guides were impressed with it particularly the compass functionality for underwater navigation.

935, have had mine since it’s release and no issues. Excellent battery life but do yourself a favor, by a two pack of the glass screen protectors off amazon or the like to protect the original bezel.

This all the way, daily wear the Fenix is the way to go, especially with the sapphire glass. I'd also spring for it new vs refurb, I have not had good luck with the refurb watches.

I've had both and would go with the 935 no question. Lighter, smaller, more accurate GPS (my experience), all the same features. Slap a tempered glass screen protector on there and you can't even tell it's there. If it gets scratched you just pull it off and put another one on. They are like four bucks.

I have only used the 935 but am extremely happy with it.

That is an easy solution. Amazon has super cheap screen protectors. $8 for 4!

Out of curiosity how often does everyone charge their watches? I’ve been using a VAHR and my biggest gripe is the battery life. Any decent workout outdoors and I’m running low.

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I still lapped everyone on the couch!

I charge my 735 every 10 days to 2 weeks. I use it for about 7-8 hours/week of workout (about 5-6 with GPS). I do not wear it otherwise, but I also do not turn it off between workouts. The battery on the 735 is fantastic, and the Fenix 5 & 935 are supposedly even better.

Back to your original question... between those two, I would choose the 935. But that is solely driven by the aesthetics and their optimized intended use cases. I would not use it as an everyday watch (I have an Apple Watch for that), so I prefer the lighter weight and slightly smaller size of the 935.

I went with the 935 because it was lighter and I thought it looked better. At the time I bought it the fenix was having issues with their bluetooth and 935 had wifi so that was a consideration too.

I upgraded from the Fenix 5 to Fenix 5X Plus to get music and mapping, and I couldn’t be happier. Both are awesome features and as a daily wear it’s great too.

If you want GPS accuracy, 935 is the way to go. The following is some strava data mining from hundreds of devices in NY and Valencia marathons this year:

NY: https://twitter.com/.../1081126122400698368
Valencia: https://twitter.com/.../1080428508143411200

As you can see, results look consistent, and this means you should stay away from phone apps, Suunto watches and the whole Fenix family :-)

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Sr. Salitre

I have the 935 and love it but what you say is contradictory to this data which saw zero difference when he tested the Fenix and 935 head-to-head. Also shows that Suunto is more accurate:
http://fellrnr.com/wiki/GPS_Accuracy

Not sure what to believe anymore!

Don’t believe the fellrnr conclusions. That protocol is garbage.

You can buy a Fenix 5 with sapphire glass for $450 from Garmin on Amazon. They are new and not refurbs.

I have been looking at these watches. From what I have found the pluses for the 935 are it's lighter weight and possibly better gps accuracy from having a plastic body. While the fenix has better styling for use as an everyday watch and possibly more robust metal case, at a possible cost of less GPS accuracy.

I like the idea of music and mapping in the plus series fenix's. However the lighter wieght particularly for swimming and running appeal in the 935.

Still not made my mind up though as I have currently not been racing multisport events just bikes the Fenix plus appeals for use of maps on a couple of walking holidays we have a year and for its alround appeal. However I have started to try and run a bit more so if I can over come the injury issues the curtailed my tri/Duathlon racing then the 935 may become a better racing and training tool.

They're basically the same watch, except that the 935 has a plastic case vs. the metal one in some of the Fenix models. That said, the firmware has been less glitchy with the 935 than with the Fenix 5, so if you're pairing accessories (especially power meters), it's probably your best bet. I have been super happy with my 935, and have a friend who is similarly happy with her fenix 5 (although she doesn't pair a PM with hers, whereas I do). That being said, while I know folks who have had great luck with Garmin Refurbs, you're always better off with a new watch and a fresh battery. In terms of charging, it depends on how much I use it, but with the 935, I can usually go 7-10 days with moderate training (and that's doing things like broadcasting the HR from the watch for Zwifting), maybe a bit less with heavy training or racing.

But even the data in your link show the 935 to be less accurate than Polar:

Yep, I have one on there, I'm not thinking about scratches but rather cracks or internal hardware damage. The nice part is the screen protector did actually make the minor scratch invisible.

Not my link. I do not know anything about a Valencia Marathon study. Did that study share the number of observations for each device type, the mean for all device observations, and the standard deviations? If the author does not understand statistical analysis, there is a pretty strong likelihood that the presentation is not statistically relevant.

I do know that my Garmin watches (multiple) are an order of magnitude more precise than my personal Apple devices. This is based on hundreds of runs and comparing standard deviations between the two types. I believe that the design of fellrnr's analysis is flawed in that it looks at individual activities in a way that exaggerates absolute GPS position errors that wash out over an entire activity. And, they virtually vanish when looking at many activities over time.

I prefer my 935 over the Fenix.
Had the watch for about 2 years now but still looks new. Few friends have the Fenix 5 and the wear & tear are showing through the powder-coat & doesn't look quite as nice outside of training/racing.

Exactly correct on the note about statistical relevance. I’m guessing this is just an aggregation with no significant statistical analysis or control. Also, it’s impossible to control for the actual path traveled (tangents, etc.) which can add distance. Running tangents is typically the most accurate, especially with a lot of turns. I’m not familiar with this course.

I would go with the 935 and not a refurb.

Oops, sorry for the misquote.

Yes it includes the sample size for each, as are means. Since there are error bars, I presume confidence intervals were calculated using a standard deviation and not just made up.

Apple seems to be spotty for multisport. I'm more curious about legitimate Garmin competitors like Polar, since fellrnr says the following: "The 935 has mediocre GPS accuracy at best, and I would not want to do any serious training using the 935 GPS. The level of error is large enough to really screw up a marathon training plan."

Due to the flawed design of the fellrnr test protocol and analysis, I would not trust any conclusions. In most cases, the foot pods were calibrated by GPS. Let that sink in...

Or, here is another simple illustration (the reality is more complicated, but this is a start)... say GPS has a ~20' accuracy for a given location and a foot pod has about a 0.3% accuracy per distance traveled. If you compare GPS distance versus foot pod distance for 1/4 mile using just two data points, the foot pod's error would be about 4'. That is pretty freakin' awesome. On the other hand, GPS might be off by 40' (3%). But go the other direction... compare total distances over 10 miles instead (still with just two GPS data points for the sake of the illustration). The GPS error would still be around 40', but now 0.08% as a percentage of the distance measured. Foot pod would still be 0.3% and 160' off.

Given that high-level information, think about how you would design a protocol to exaggerate the nature of GSP measurement versus the nature of foot pod measurements? Fellrnr pretty much hit it out of the park, and he is unaware of what he did. If I were running short distances in caves, tunnels, trees, and treadmills, foot pod is a no-brainer. That is effectively what his testing demonstrates, and little more.

Good explanation, thanks. Makes sense for footpod vs GPS discussions, but what about the variation between GPS units on the same protocol?

I have a 935 and charge it when it looks like it's getting low. About every couple of days. But I'm sure it could go a week or more without a charge. It has never died on me during a workout. I do, however, fully charge it before going on long, multi-hour workouts or ski days. Overall extremely happy with the 935's battery life.

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"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

The problem is that his protocol injects a significant amount of random noise in every device's data that masks the true accuracy issues that devices might have. I suspect that the absolute GPS position accuracy errors are even double-counted in the way he does his tests and analysis. Also, he does not apply a reasonable weighting to the things tough for GPS, which again introduces more random noise that invalidates any usefulness from the study. It's a shame, because he is collecting a crapton of data, but it is done in a way that masks real-life performance differences.

For example, his statement that the 935 is so poor he would not use it for marathon training fails the rational man test. I suspect that is driven by the random noise above. I have hundreds of miles running with a friend with a 935. His watch consistently matches mine within 0.2%. Most often, our watches are identical. That seems like pretty amazing precision to me, and those routes typically have tree cover, turn arounds, and semi-trail

If he had just done a single 5 mile course and counted that as a data point, he probably could have eliminated the random noise by an order of magnitude. Then, he has a very challenging route that is probably far worse than people encounter in real life. His intention is noble, but some watches may respond to turns poorly, while others may respond to obstructions poorly, and others may handle long straights poorly. Designing tests around those scenarios might also help people understand products that might match their real-world conditions better. As it is, the protocol is designed to make all GPS throw up without knowing why.