If you turn on GPS tracking on the Apple watch the battery will only last about 6-8 hours.

On the Garmin devices, you start recording when you are performing an activity. The idea is that when you're running, riding, whatever, you start recording it as needed. The GPS doesn't run unless you're active.

You can leave the other sensors like HRM and pulseox enabled when outside of "activities," and bluetooth is connected by default when in an activity or not, so I don't know where your "everything is turned off" assertion comes from.

So this is 73 hours of actually being active. Even if you're moving all day, you wouldn't ever set it to record GPS data while you're resting, and you'd over double the battery life from what you describe.

I'm a moderately active person, riding and/or running several hours a week, and have an older Garmin device with HRM always on and pulseox enabled during sleep. I charge the thing maybe once a week, usually during a shower after a run. There's really just no way you can squint at this and come to the conclusion that Apple is in the same ballpark on battery life.

> On the Garmin devices, you start recording when you are performing an activity.

I know, I've owned and used Garmin watches since 2011.

> your "everything is turned off" assertion comes from.

Garmin's own measure of battery life - GPS, Pulse Ox, etc. all turned off => smartwatch mode.

> There's really just no way you can squint at this and come to the conclusion that Apple is in the same ballpark on battery life.

Indeed not.

The Apple Watch battery life quote seems misleading due to this: "1. During normal use, Apple Watch Ultra can reach up to 36 hours of battery life with iPhone present."

Normal use WITH an iPhone present. I have a feeling the Apple Watch by itself in GPS mode will be much less.

The watch can have more or less battery life without a phone nearby; if you don't have a watch cellular plan it'd probably have somewhat more, since more features are turned off. Of course, if you want to force it you can use airplane mode.

> I have a feeling the Apple Watch by itself in GPS mode will be much less.

That will be an interesting figure to find out when people start reviewing them.

In smartwatch mode, pulse ox, always on and gps is disabled: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=A1gzB6SLZF6e9nnyZOfFM6. The battery life is not very different from Watch series 7 if these things were enabled.