The New AMOLED Garmin ‘Venu’ — Delays, Issues & Concerns.

by Anura Guruge

Click to ENLARGE. From U.S. ‘garmin.com’.

Folks are claiming that it is available in Australia.

Garmin AUSTRALIA does have a shorter delivery period.

Click image to access the ‘VENU Forum’ @ ‘Garmin Forums’.

ISSUE: The U.S. availability for the new Garmin VENU is still stated as being 5 — 8 weeks, the SAME it was when it was announced 4-weeks ago, on September 5, 2019. Ideally it should now be saying, worst case, 3 — 5 weeks. Yes, Garmin could change this tomorrow to say ‘1 — 3 Days’. It does happen.

The Garmin Forums, however, have had an active ‘VENU’ Forum for at least the last couple of weeks. There are some interesting posts on that Forum. There are those that claim that they already have a VENU. At least one claims he got it from Australia. As you can see, above, I checked. Plausible. But, it doesn’t make sense UNLESS Garmin is using Australia as a big beat-site.

And to add further credence, on the Forum, ‘Garmin’ has announced that they are rolling out v.3.40 of the software.

CONCERNS: There is also a post, on the Forum, from what looks like a Garmin ‘insider’ that speculates that the delay may be due to the US-China trade war and tensions. They are not sure, but there is a concern. YIKES! Not good. This could hit all of us hard.

At this rate it is going to be touch and go whether the VENU will be available for Black Friday. Maybe that is not a bad thing. You don’t really want it discounted that soon.

In terms of the availability being stuck at ‘5 to 8 weeks’, it reminds me of the infamous Vivoactive 3 roll-out exactly 2-years ago. Same scenario. Makes me nervous because I had a lot of bad luck with the Vivoactive 3.

ISSUE: Because AMOLED displays can be a drag on the battery there is a ‘low-power’ ‘always-on’ display ‘mode’ (which just shows the time) on the VENU. The ‘Fitbit Versa 2‘ has that too. Appears, however, that this always-on mode has issues. Only a few watch faces support it. ‘Crystal’, which I tried on my Garmin MARQ, being one of them. But, I also see that ‘Crystal’ and a few other watch faces are now claiming that they are permanently ON, impacting battery life, even IF they are not your chosen watch face! Yikes. That is bad. I didn’t install ‘Crystal’ on my Fenix 6 because of this.

CONCERN: Will more and more watch faces end up being permanently on because they want to support the VENU always-on display mode? That would be a shame.

ISSUE: I am seeing, on the Forum, sensor (e.g., barometer) and software bug issues very similar to what I saw with the initial roll-out of the Vivoactive 3. That worries me. Yes, the VENU, theoretically, is still in beta-test phase. So, maybe they will iron out these issues. But, I doubt whether they will opt for new sensors this late in the game.

CONCERN: I had two Vivoactive 3s die on me. I just don’t want to go through that with the VENU.

So, those are my issues & concerns.

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by Anura Guruge