In this article I’m going to produce a clear answer on the question: What are the differences between the Garmin instinct and the Garmin instinct solar?
Not too long ago I covered an article named: Garmin instinct vs tactical It seemed like many of you also had questions about the comparison between Garmin instinct and Garmin instinct solar.
In this article I will be talking about Garmin instinct 1 vs Garmin instinct 1 solar. However, I will also include a paragraph covering Garmin instinct 2 vs Garmin instinct 2 solar.
Quick overview: Garmin instinct vs solar
The very quick summary would be that these two watches are identical. The difference is -obviously- that one can be charged through solar power. In other words, simply wear the watch on a sunny day and it wil charge itself.
Except for this feature the two watches are basically the same. As you can see, they also look the same. However, you might have some other customisation options (like the color of the strap etc.) depending on the which one you choose.
I will discuss the differences in price and give more information about the charge speed, battery life without the solar charging ability etc. just so you can figure out which one is right for you!
Price
One of the most important questions is how much do we have to pay for the solar functionality? The answer is between $100 and $150 more, it depends a bit on what promotions are available online (as always).
Considering that the regular Garmin instinct can be bought today for less than $200, this feature is really expensive, it’s at least +50% of the regular price.
Therefore it’s important to make sure that you actually need the solar charging functionality. Especially because the battery is already pretty good on its own.
I will get more into that in the next paragraphs, but I just wanted to establish that you do have to pay quite a lot more if you want the solar feature.
If the additional was $20 or $30 I would probably recommend it to everybody, just for the convenience. However, at this price, I would only recommend this to the select few who actually need it and would really benefit from it.
Battery life
Garmin instinct
Garmin instinct solar
The battery life is a very important factor to consider when you are thinking about whether or not you should buy the garmin instinct solar. For a lot of you, the battery life of the Garmin instinct would be sufficient and you might find that you don’t need the solar at all.
So let me give you the specifics according to the manufacturer:
- 14 days in smartwatch mode
- 16 hours in GPS mode
- 40 hours in UltraTrac
These statistics seem to be pretty accurate. However, everything depends on what features are enabled on your device. Also, battery life will eventually degrade. That being said, there have been no reports (that I know of personally) of people complaining about degrading battery life. So the garmin instinct is definitely not worse than the average smartwatch on that aspect.
You might need to play around with the modes and enable/disable certain features in order to get better results (just browse google for specifics).
Not bad for a watch that costs less than $200… Actually, that’s really impressive.
Long story short, this learns us that if you are using this watch for daily excursions -and you can recharge every night- you don’t need the solar charging functionality.
So, I would recommend the solar version to people who either love the convenience of having to charge the watch a lot less or for people who would use it for multiday excursions and don’t like to be reliant on a powerbank (However, you are still reliant on the sun, an important detail you should keep in mind).
By the way, for those of you who are wondering what UlraTrac is, it’s a mode where the device periodically turns of the GPS and uses the accelerometer instead. In essence this means that you speed, distance and track data will be less accurate, but you do end up with a lot more battery time.
For a complete report on garmin watches battery life, make sure to check out this article: Garmin watches battery life | Complete overview.
Garmin instinct solar
Okay, I have mentioned many times that the solar functionality is pretty pricy and that there is a big chance that you don’t need it.
However…
The people who did decide to go with the Garmin instinct solar are more than happy with what they got!
First, the basic Garmin instinct is already a phenomenal watch, but also the solar charging works really well. Many people even got the feeling that they almost never have to charge their watch again (I guess they live in sunny places), if they don’t use the GPS function ofcourse.
The testing results are often even better than what is claimed on the Garmin website, I will quote the report from outdoorslab:
“While running in GPS mode, we got about 29 hours of juice, and in smartwatch mode, we didn’t need to charge it for three months when it was exposed to the sun regularly”
I’m still a bit surprised by these results because they are just so positive. That being said, most test results that I have seen where closer (usually slightly less) than what is claimed by Garmin.
However, the almost never needing to charge when you don’t use GPS claim is definitely verified multiple times (once again, this does depend on the amount of sun).
Also nice to know is how long it takes to fully charge the watch when it’s exposed to full sunlight, it takes around 3 hours. Charging the watch from a powerbank would take around 3 hours.
For those of you who are thinking, well I might just rely on my powerbank to charge the Garmin Instinct. There is one last argument in favour of the Garmin instinct solar: emergencies. If you do end up in a situation where you run out of power and you need to have that GPS, you are going to be very happy with the Garmin Instinct Solar.
A last word about the garmin instinct
Before I wrap up this article I just wanted to mention that I’m a huge fan of the Garmin instinct watch.
Especially for those of you who are looking for a budget-friendly gps watch that’s perfect for outdoors usage. There is no other watch (at least that I know of) that comes even close to this one.
A while ago I even wrote a post about The 5 best cheap hiking watches where the Garmin Instinct was listed as one of the best cheap hiking watches.
Also, it made it on the list of The best garmin watch for hiking where I described it as “This watch is truly amazing, it has all the “important” features for hikers and it’s very rugged. Especially considering the price…”.
However, one downside is that this watch does not have the option to connect with Garmin Connect IQ. For some of you this might not matter, but for some of you it might, just so you know.
Garmin instinct 2 vs Garmin instinct 2 solar
As I mentioned at the beginning this post covers the differences between Garmin instinct 1 vs Garmin instinct 1 solar. Therefore it seems really helpfull to also include a section about the newer version of the instinct, the Garmin instinct 2.
The same story applies, the watches are very similar, the main difference lies in the price and the battery life. Let’s start by comparing the battery life.
Garmin instinct 2
Garmin instinct 2 solar
These numbers are based on the regular edition (there is also an S2 edition, which is smaller and has a slightly worse battery life). As you can see the Garmin Instinct 2 has improved a lot in terms of battery life in comparison with the older version.
However, on top of the battery life, the solar does have the Garmin pay functionality on board, the non-solar version of the Garmin instinct 2 does not have this feature.
In terms of price, the Garmin instinct 2 comes in at around the $350 mark (at time of writing). The solar edition will cost you an additional $100. Not a bad investment if you need the battery life.
Cheapest price can usually be found on amazon:
* Garmin Instinct 2
* Garmin Instinct 2 Solar
Conclusion: Garmin instinct vs solar
Just to come to a very clear conclusion let’s answer the question whether you should buy the regular Garmin Instinct or the Garmin instinct solar?
You need to ask yourself if you are willing to pay the additional price (between $100 and $150) for the solar functionality.
The solar functionality makes the watch very convenient because you will almost never have to charge it (when you don’t use GPS mode).
Also, it’s probably the right choice for those of you who intend to use the watch multiple days without having a power source (long distance hikers for example).
If you have any other questions related to Garmin instinct vs solar, make sure to leave a comment.