Garmin Instinct 3 smartwatch review – a great way to keep track of what’s important to you anywhere

Garmin’s Instinct 3 is more than just a smartwatch – it is aimed at the customer who likes to go adventuring, who wants to keep fit, stay on top of their health and not have to charge the device every day.

Tech Guide has been using the Garmin Instinct 3 with a 50mm case and AMOLED display. It works with both iPhones and Android smartphones.

Garmin has built its reputation with sports and fitness watches and the Instinct 3 falls in that category but it also has plenty of smarts to go with it so it’s giving users the best of both worlds.

One thing to note about the Instinct 3 up front is that there is no touchscreen display on the device.

Admittedly that took us a little by surprise but it didn’t take long to learn how to navigate the system via the five buttons on the case.

Each button has a short press and long press function.

In fact, the long press function is written beside that particular button.

For example, a long press of the ABC button gets you the altimeter, barometer and the compass.

Learning the buttons did take a little while but before long we knew our way around pretty well.

The payoff of having buttons instead of a touchscreen this is that it uses far less battery power.

As a result the Instinct 3 has a battery life that can be measured in weeks.

The customer that will be attracted to the Instinct 3 is someone who spends as much time outdoors than they do in the gym and who doesn’t mind a swim or a hike and enjoying a wide range of activities.

Garmin’s Instinct 3 has got you covered.

The Instinct 3 is 14.4 millimetres thick and has a rugged design that doesn’t look too bulky and is suitable to wear on all occasions.

What we like about the device is the brighter AMOLED screen which makes the instinct 3 really easy to read at anytime and anywhere including in bright sunlight.

For your workouts or adventures the Garmin Instinct 3 has modes that can track cycling, walking, running, mountain biking and many, many others including skiing and surfing.

The companion Garmin Connect app makes it easy to adjust the settings and preferences on your watch including marking favourite activities.

This means they are faster to access at the press of button when you’re ready to go.

The Instinct 3 also has GPS tracking which is noticeably improved over Instinct 2 and it finds your position quickly so you can start tracking your activity.

We found the GPS tracking worked well whether we were in built up areas or out in the open.

The Garmin TrackBac feature provides breadcrumbs to get you back to the starting point of your tracked activity so there is no fear of getting lost if you’re in an area you haven’t visited before.

As we expected, you get a pretty comprehensive overview of your activity with all the usual things like distance travelled, total time, heart rate and even your maximum and minimum elevation among many other stats.

Instinct 3 also has sleep tracking if you’re willing to wear the watch to bed.

If you are it’ll tell you all the usual metrics including how long you slept and how long you spent in the different stages of sleep including deep sleep and REM.

It can even coach you on how to sleep better and longer and even give you a Training Readiness Score based on how well you slept.

So if you’ve banked a good night’s sleep, the Garmin Instinct 3 will tell you to step it up in that day’s training.

On the smart side, the Garmin Instinct 3 delivers your notifications so you can see what’s happening at a glance.

You can see who’s calling and texting but you can’t reply on the device as there is no microphone or speaker onboard.

And for those who love dictating their SMS responses with their voice on their watch – the Instinct 3 won’t be able to help you out there – you’ll have to type it on your phone the old-fashioned way.

It does have a feature called Incident Detection which will provide an alert in the event of an incident.

If no response is given a message will be sent to your emergency contacts. If you’re OK you can easily cancel that assistance.

But it does require you to have your phone with you as well as the Instinct 3 has no standalone cellular connectivity.

Another favourite feature is the torch.

Yes, the Instinct 3 sports watch has an LED torch which is located at 12:00 on the outside below the bezel.

It has four levels of brightness and even a red light mode for those times where you want to preserve your night vision.

It is surprisingly bright and helped us navigate a few dark spots.

A double press of the top left CTRL button will turn it on and off.

One of the best features of the Garmin Instinct 3 is the extraordinary battery life which can run for up to 24 days.

Obviously if you’re using GPS tracking and the many other features the battery life will come down a bit but you can still reliably get more than two week’s use before you need to recharge with the supplied cable that attaches to the port on the back of the watch.

The Gamin Instinct 3 50mm with AMOLED screen is available now and is priced at $949.

VERDICT

The Garmin Instinct 3 is an excellent allrounder smartwatch that can be used for a variety of purposes in a variety of places and keep an eye on your fitness, health and wellbeing while still offering all the smarts we expect as well.