As much as I’d like to get to every product in-depth review before Christmas, I’m very realistic that isn’t going to happen. I’m trying, but the backlog is real, and the onslaught of new products this past fall has been huge. Especially with overlapping products, and only so many wrists to work with. Add to that the fact that in general I overdo the testing bit, spending arguably too much time with the product (months) when a slightly shorter review cycle would have netted the same results.

As an almost universal rule, I will prioritize products that I have ahead of an embargo, to ensure that review hits on product announcement day. If I receive a product after that point, then I do my best based mostly on your demand. Most popular products tend to get done first, though, as you’ll see below, definitely not always (because again, other companies/products that get stuff to me earlier will push those ones down the queue). Rinse, repeat.

Which doesn’t mean the products in the queue are bad. In fact, they’re arguably some of the best products released this year. But, someone recently noted I hadn’t reviewed a number of products and asking if that meant they were bad, triggering this post. But again, there’s only so many wrists/rides/etc… Thus, here’s my consolidated thoughts on each ones, basically my elevator-pitch-review if you will. I could obviously write volumes on each.

Here’s the list of things in the backlog still, and then my roughly one-paragraph thought on each one. Feel free to ask questions in the comments, happy to try and give more nuanced answers.

Apple Watch Series 11 Elite Rivo DJI Mavic 4 Pro DJI Mini 5 Pro DJI NEO 2 DJI OSMO NANO Garmin Bounce 2 Garmin Edge 550 Garmin Fenix 8 Pro Garmin Forerunner 570 Garmin Rally x210 Garmin Venu 4 Garmin Venu X1 GoPro Hero 4K Lit Insta360/Antigravity A1 Polar Loop Wahoo KICKR Bike Pro Whoop 5.0 Whoop 5.0 MG

Finally, again, this doesn’t mean a review isn’t coming. In fact, one might drop tomorrow, or Friday, or next week. But, in case you need to make price/sale/holiday/gifting decisions, here ya go!

Apple Watch Series 11:

My wife has actually put the most time on this over the last few months, though I’ve also put in the miles too. As with most Apple releases, this is more incremental than monumental. Its goal isn’t to get Series 10 owners to upgrade, but to get Series 5 owners to upgrade. And I think it does that. I don’t have any real issues with it, it just works like in the past. It’s predictable hardware tweaks, but more critically, notable WatchOS 26 software tweaks as I’ve previously outlined.

Elite Rivo:

So far, so good here. Both my wife and I have been riding this trainer on and off for the last month or two (including me just last night). It’s a great option that’s priced quite reasonably. Accuracy has been spot-on perfect here in all our rides. In terms of features versus the Wahoo KICKR CORE 2, it’s got a slightly lower flywheel weight (and thus slightly less inertial feeling), but it’s also cheaper at retail prices (though the CORE 2 cheaper when on sale).

DJI Mavic 4 Pro:

I bought this back in May to eventually review, and put up my full ActiveTrack gauntlet test and more. It’s a cinematic powerhouse, though, so was the Mavic 3 Pro. I don’t think the upgrade is as clear-cut from a Mavic 3 Pro, and frankly, the entire new gimbal setup is just downright dumb. The entire point of making this crazy ever-rotating gimbal was ostensibly to deliver vertical video, except, you can’t point the gimbal downwards, defeating the entire point of vertical video (since most vertical video shot from the air is going to require downwards pitch of the gimbal). Sigh. Other than failing on the ‘you had one job’ aspect, it’s great.

DJI Mini 5 Pro:

On most years, this would have been DJI’s most popular drone. But between the US ban, the screwed-up weight issue, and NEO series, it doesn’t really feel as though it delivered on that popularity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great drone, but being overweight has real-world implications in many countries from a legal flying standpoint. And with the NEO 2 being so good quality-wise (more on that in a second), I struggle to reach for the Mini 5 Pro, instead defaulting to either my Mavic 4 Pro for super-scenic pretty things, or the NEO 2 for everything else.

DJI NEO 2:

I love this thing. This is unquestionably the drone of the year, and arguably one of the best drones that DJI has made in years (looking at it from a features-to-price standpoint). The quality is a massive jump up over the NEO 1 (not even in the same ballpark), and the gesture-based features are incredibly useful, especially if running/hiking/pedestrian. When paired with a remote, it basically does almost everything most people would do with the DJI Mini 4/Mini 5 series. If you’re into sports tracking, this is the drone to get. While the HoverAir X1 Pro/Pro-Max delivers slightly better video quality and some other handy features (beacon control), it’s also roughly 3-4x the price.

DJI OSMO Action 6:

DJI has a long history putting in place very incremental upgrades to their action cameras, and this continues that tradition. Honestly, it doesn’t seem to look better than the Action 5 in my testing, and the whole open-gate square recording thing is laughable how many influencers fell for the marketing (their competitors have been doing this for years). None of which means it’s not a great little camera, it’s just not all that much better than the Action 5, but costs a bunch more. I really thought we’d get higher resolutions this year, as DJI has notably fallen behind in that department. For me, I defer to either the GoPro Hero 13 Black (for daytime footage), or the Insta360 Ace Pro 2 instead (for nighttime footage).

DJI OSMO Nano:

This camera was meant to compete with the Insta360 Go series, and it does a good job of that. Though, I find it kind of a quirky camera to use in real-life (preferring the Insta360 Go series instead). For one, it suffers the same waterproofing issue as the Insta360 Go series, in that while the camera portion is waterproof, the main case is not (making it super easy to eventually kill). When it comes to quality, it’s definitely a step up over the base Insta360 Go 3 series, though it seems to fall a bit short of the Ultra series. Of course, DJI killed it on price here, at least compared to Ultra. I also really wish it had an SD card within the pod option (like the Ultra).

Garmin Bounce 2:

This might be one of the best Garmin watches they released this year. At least, if you have kids. Yes, it’s a huge leap in price compared to the past, though, I think is now priced appropriately to the retail prices of both Apple & Google, in terms of their kid offerings. Like those, it requires a subscription. But as one whose kids used the Bounce 1 watches extensively for years, and now are on Bounce 2, the battery is far better, the features (including actual voice calling) much better, and the watch is basically a cut-down Vivoactive 6. So things like sport modes, features (flashlight), and more are very similar to the adult watches, except just simplified in some cases. My advice is that if you’re trying to device between a Bounce 1 and a Bounce 2, definitely go Bounce 2.

Garmin Edge 550:

The Edge 550 is essentially the button-only version of the Edge 850 I reviewed back in September. There’s a handful of differences to the Edge 850 aside from lack of touchscreen, most notably it doesn’t have the Edge 850 bike bell and round-trip route creation. But here’s the thing: I’ve been riding virtually every ride since early September with just the Edge 550 (and usually a Wahoo ROAM V3), and haven’t actually missed anything on the Edge 850. And with lack of touch, unlike the Edge 540 being a hot mess when it launched with what was basically touchscreen software and no touchscreen, the Edge 550 has been no problem to use without touch. Sure, it’s faster/handier to have the touchscreen, but it wasn’t the dealbreaker I thought it would be. And from a stability standpoint, it’s been rock-solid from launch, a theme amongst the cycling products this year, but not shared by most of the wearables (excluding Bounce 2, which has been good).

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro:

I’ve now put far more miles and big testing adventures on this than I expected over the last 3+ months. And somehow still haven’t finished my full in-depth review. Sigh. On the whole, this felt like the launch that the Fenix 8 should have been, except, Garmin went all girls-gone-wild with the pricing here (and arguably, why they missed earnings). Like many 2025 Garmin products, it suffered from early bugs, though seems mostly pretty solid now. I appreciate the satellite messaging features as a backup when I’m out of cellular range running or riding (which, is often), though, does feel like a V1 implementation in many ways. If you’re looking at Fenix 8 vs Fenix 8 Pro, my general advice would be that if you can get the Fenix 8 (non-Pro) on a good sale, I’d probably go that way, but if there’s no sales, I’d go Fenix 8 Pro. Either way, skip MicroLED.

Garmin Forerunner 570:

While I reviewed the Forerunner 970, I never quite got around to finishing my Forerunner 570 review. The two units are very similar, except for the fact that the Forerunner 970 has maps and the Forerunner 570 somehow doesn’t (even though watches half its price do). I feel like the Forerunner 570 will be someday be put as an example of an otherwise excellent watch, that totally missed its target audience and pricing. It was supposed to be a Forerunner 270, but Garmin felt the extra external case materials were ‘too nice’ for the Forerunner 270, so they increased the price and name. Had it been kept a Forerunner 270 at roughly the existing pricing, I’d have been fine with it, but at this price I struggle to see its place in life.

Garmin HRM-600 Heart Rate Strap:

This has been great. I’ve been using it constantly since May, and has been near-perfect. I say ‘near-perfect’, because about the only slight frustration is sometimes pairing with new watches/devices and having to go into pairing mode and such. That’s mostly due to EU regulations requiring user awareness of transmitting data, so I can’t entirely blame Garmin there. But otherwise, the strap works great, and battery life is perfectly fine (and I appreciate it uses the normal Garmin charging port). My only complaint here is the price. At 2x that of the Polar H10, unless you have other Garmin gear (notably, watches), and actually care about some of the extra metrics, then just get the Garmin HRM-200 or Polar H9/H10 instead.

Garmin inReach Mini 3 Series:

This is a substantial upgrade over the inReach Mini 2 series, though specifically the inReach Mini 3 Plus. I don’t at all understand the Mini 3 base unit, being just $50 cheaper, but lacking all the new features you care about. Especially when the inReach Mini 2 is $249 right now, making it $200 cheaper than the Mini 3, and having almost identical real-world features (sure, there’s new UI and things, but the core product is basically the same on the base 3). As for the Mini 3 Plus, the ability to send voices/photos outside of cellar coverage have been great, and the new siren is handy too. Now that said, I’ll have my review out tomorrow on this, and I will note I’ve had some concerning issues on the Mini 3 Plus, so…stay tuned there.

Garmin Rally x10 Series:

I’ve been riding these since August sometimes, plus some earlier tidbits, on road, gravel, and MTB. They’ve been rock-solid for all of these, and a bunch of trainer time as well. Most of the enhancements over the existing Rally units are pretty minor in the grand scheme of life, but are appreciated. For example, my wife loves the improved square interface on the pedals for better removal when traveling. And battery life hasn’t been an issue for me either, lasting longer than the competitors. Accuracy has been spot-on too, and no early teething bugs. Finally, while it has the same new pairing security gates as the HRM-600, for most people you aren’t randomly pairing new devices every week, so it’s not an issue. Ultimately, the singular issue here is the price. At this price point, you can basically get two sets of Favero Pro series pedals (dual-sided). That’s a no-brainer, and is why I’ve bought more Favero Pro RS and Pro MX pedal sets this year for my wife and my extra bikes. It’s not that they are better, it’s just a more logical purchasing choice.

Garmin Venu 4:

The Venu 4 is Garmin’s main competitor to the Apple/Samsung/Google watches, though this year it saw a pretty massive price hike over previous years. On the flip side, Garmin added in a substantial amount of new features, effectively making it a Forerunner 570 as well. There’s just so much newness here, including Training Readiness and all the training load type features. This mostly came as a result of the newly consolidated Garmin codebase for these watches, and Garmin likely looking at Apple adding in these features and saying ‘sure’. It’ll be interesting to see how this shifts sales downwards to the cheaper Vivoactive 6 though, and if that product will effectively take the place of the Venu 4 as the more popular option. It was always a strong seller, but the pricing shifts (and the Vivoactive 6 being incredibly well priced), will make things interesting.

Garmin Venu X1:

I actually spent almost my entire summer on this watch, including some solid hikes. But of course, I got distracted with other new watches and never finished this review, though, you can find my full beginners guide, which frankly covers my thoughts pretty well. This was Garmin’s blend of a Fenix/Forerunner/Venu all in one. And I think they achieved, successfully, what arguably nobody was asking for. The problem, as recent pricing changes indicates, is the market doesn’t understand it. Ironically, this is actually the one watch I think *was* priced correctly this year, relative to Garmin’s other pricing. Being Garmin’s slimmest GPS watch means less battery life, but for me the real limiter was just wanting more buttons. Otherwise, I loved it (and the current sale pricing makes it a steal).

GoPro Hero 4K Lit:

The big advantage of the GoPro Hero 4K (and now 4K Lit) series over the Insta360 & DJI competitors is the fact that the entire thing (screen included) is fully waterproof. The main disadvantage? Everything else. Yes, it’s smaller than those as a whole package, but the quality is severely lacking compared to either of those competitors. And while I think the Lit (LED) concept is actually an incredibly useful idea on an action cam (think night trail runs and such), GoPro putting it on a camera with the worst low-light quality in the industry did them no favors. I do hope they continue this idea though, ideally on a GoPro Hero 14 with amazing low-light quality. I mean, just asking for a friend.

Insta360/Antigravity A1:

I flew this earlier this year a bit, and have a full production unit arriving this week to dig into it more closely. When I flew it back in the spring, it was still solidly half-baked. However, it’s clear things have dramatically improved based on the reviews I’ve seen. Obviously, when you’re launching your first drone product, it’s not going to rival DJI’s. Like, factually, it’s not (I can count a huge pile of features that are missing). But given the fact DJI products won’t be available in the US in two weeks, Insta360 has an opportunity. And, everything I’ve seen on the final product thus far is looking promising. Most critically, I’ll be looking to see how quickly Insta360 iterates on new features. That fact alone will drive whether or not they can have a successful future. In my mind, we need to see monthly feature drops. The good news is that no company in the action cam space has as good of a track record of never-ending new feature updates as Insta360. So, here’s hoping!

Polar Loop:

You know the ‘most improved’ award that they gives kids on sports teams? It’s the underhanded way of giving out an award while concurrently saying ‘you were the worst’. The Loop basically gets that award. As virtually every review has outlined (and my early first-look post), the degree of dumpster fire here rivals that of Strava’s legal team. This was designed as the Whoop competitor, but failed to understand the most important part about Whoop: It just does it all in the background, automatically. Whereas the Polar Loop requires constant care and feeding to get accurate results. That said, I will give them credit that in the November timeframe, firmware updates have significantly improved things compared to September. But it’s still far away from being a Whoop competitor.

Wahoo KICKR Bike Pro

The KICKR Bike Pro is basically just a KICKR Bike V2 with a new handlebar. And, there’s nothing wrong with that – it works just as well as before. I did a short preview post, and at some point I’ll wrap-up a final review, though there won’t be too much more than I’ve already said previously. As I’ve noted in the past, unless you really want the up/down functionality of the KICKR Bike series, then either the KICKR Bike SHIFT or Zwift Ride are going to be far better values. But, to each their own.

Whoop 5.0 & 5.0 MG

I’ve been wearing the Whoop 5.0 MG since May (and Whoop bands for 5 years prior), and my wife has been wearing the Whoop 5.0 (base) on and off too. Overall, they work well, and most critically, the 14-day battery actually holds up in my testing. Really happy with that. From a hardware standpoint, these don’t really feel all that different than previous ones, with the exception of the MG features on the MG edition that most frankly won’t use. Sure, some will get value out of the medically certified ECG feature, but the Blood Pressure feature isn’t actually medically certified (the center of a big fight with the FDA). And it requires you to calibrate it occasionally with a blood pressure monitor anyways (which only cost about $30-$50 for a medically certified one). As always with Whoop, you’re buying a subscription product, not so much the hardware. Whoop has seen a number of potentially serious competitors enter this year (Polar, AmazFit), though none have really eaten into how good Whoop is. Whether or not Garmin can make a swing at it next year, remains to be seen.

Wrap-Up

Ok, phew, there ya go! Again, being in this post/list doesn’t mean a review isn’t coming. It just means it hasn’t been finished yet. One of these days I’ll figure out how to deal with the massive onslaughts of products.

With that – thanks for reading, and feel free to drop any questions down below!

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