But in the absence of a bike computer and in the absence of ‘nothing’ the Fenix 5S Plus is certainly a move in the right direction. Would I ever use it as a Bikenav? Yep, maybe. Although I do have better BikeNavs. When I transfer funds by phone from my First Direct account to my Starling account, the money is available to use on the watch within 10 seconds. Other banks may take longer.

As for heart rate based running, Garmin doesn't claim to have improved the optical heart rate tech since the standard 5S. As you can see in the graph above, things went pretty smoothly there. But on a HIIT run, performance was less impressive. Firstly, note how it took the watch more than five minutes to laser onto my heart rate. This was more of an exception than the rule, but it's still not great to see at all. Secondly, during those rests between intervals it took the Fenix longer to come down, so the difference in the troughs is quite a lot in some places. Display // Navigation – The screen size on the Fenix is clearly smaller than on many of the best cycling computers. If you take cycling seriously you have a couple of options: buy another computer and leave the Fenix at home; buy a bike computer for display purposes but still use the Fenix as your main workout recording device; buy a specialist dummy bike computer like the Edge 130 – dummy in the sense that data FROM the Fenix can be cast onto the Edge 130’s display. The Fenix is supplied with Garmin’s routable, cycling-specific street map – that’s pretty cool but the screen size will limit its usefulness when cycling at any normal speed on intricate routes, especially on trails where turns are less obvious. But as the name also alludes, this is more of a small bump-up on last year's model than a full jump. At first blush it looks just the same as the 5S, but the watch now comes loaded with new features like onboard music, Garmin Pay and full-colour topographical maps, the last of which had previously been available only on the big bad Fenix 5X. If going for the preset sushi, you’ll start by choosing your continent, then country. In some areas (such as the US and Canada), you’ll also choose the state/province. You’ll see that it automatically selects the coverage area in the map below. Garmin-branded suede and steel band options are available. Different colour options and band options are offered by default with the Sapphire version. Some colour versions are available in the 5 PLUS and others in the 5X PLUS. Interior Components

Why is Garmin Fenix 5 better than Garmin Fenix 5S?

UltraTrac mode (mentioned above) – records stuff less frequently. This is different to SMART recording which records only changed data ie maintaining full data quality (in theory)

What Garmin present in their music offering is flawed. But the same is true of nearly all of the other competitive Running-With-Music options. There’s a Looong way to go before the perfect running+music device exists, much of the delays will be caused by music licensing restrictions. Although this software is believed to be reliable, it has not yet been released for production and should be used at your own risk.

System requirements

The CPU is sufficiently powerful to properly handle routable navigation and all the demands that come with it