A completely unresearched wild-assed guess: and order of magnitude fewer. But they're nuts, and they are loyal repeat customers and evangelists for the platform.
After getting 2 hand me downs from a friend who upgraded, my partner sprung for a new one. Killer features for her: battery life of a week instead of a day and good backcountry navigation.
Garmin connect does exercise challenges too, so there's a social aspect as well.
Probably somewhere in between? So maybe an order of magnitude and a half fewer? But yeah, the charger thing is real. Her new Garmin uses this weird housed pogo pin connector for charging. The last one used a cradle that hugged the back of the watch; no idea what the electrical connection is.
I can only assume there's a good reason for the non-standard connector, and that it probably involves waterproofing?
The Garmin Fenix is waterproof. I swim with it, I find it really great. I can even operate the watch in the water since it's not a touchscreen. And it would be worth the price just for having an ultra-compact GPS navigation unit for hiking. (It can run turn-by-turn navigation for 2-3 days, in the default low-power mode it can last 3 weeks with heart rate + step tracking + other basic metrics.)
After getting 2 hand me downs from a friend who upgraded, my partner sprung for a new one. Killer features for her: battery life of a week instead of a day and good backcountry navigation.
Garmin connect does exercise challenges too, so there's a social aspect as well.