I'm happy this annoyingly popular watch display tech is dying a slow death

Turn-by-turn directions on the Garmin Forerunner 955
Mapping on the Garmin Forerunner 955 with MIP display (Image credit: Michael Hicks / Android Central)

For years, brands like Garmin, Polar, COROS, and Suunto have used memory-in-pixel (MIP) displays to deliver fitness watches that track your health for weeks instead of hours. Only now, most of those same brands are launching new smartwatches with AMOLED displays... and they still last for weeks per charge. 

Sunday Runday

Lloyd, the Android Central mascot, break-dancing

(Image credit: Android Central)

In his weekly column, our Senior Editor of Wearables and Fitness Michael Hicks talks about the world of wearables, apps, and fitness tech related to running and health, in his quest to get faster and more fit.

Some runners won't like this shift from MIP to AMOLED, but it's long overdue.

MIP LCD panels gained popularity because of how they differ from AMOLED displays. They rely on ambient lighting to make their pixels visible, meaning they're fully visible in sunny outdoor conditions where athletes need easily readable data. AMOLED displays need thousands of nits to remain visible in similar conditions, which burns through more battery by default.

Plus, unlike your typical LCD, they only activate whichever pixels are needed instead of refreshing the entire screen with every change. It's another reason why they last so long.

So what's the problem? MIP displays aren't readable indoors unless the room is brightly lit, washed-out colors and lack of proper contrast make them look cheap, and watch faces and photos look blurry and dull.

Runners tolerated MIP displays because there was no alternative. Now there is one.

When I started wearing running watches, I tolerated memory-in-pixel tech because I thought there was no alternative. I mostly wore them outdoors on sunny California days where the tech thrives, and then I took them off rather than strain my eyes and pretend they would be useful indoors. 

Even an expensive watch like the Forerunner 955, advanced as it is for training advice, doesn't have the smarts or readable display to make me want to look at it for notifications or much else. For a watch with detailed topographical maps, its visuals hold it back.

My suspicion is that Garmin and other brands have used their MIP dependence as a crutch. It let them avoid modernizing their UI, animations, maps, and software features for years because they couldn't do much better with MIP tech. It made Fitbit and its AMOLED watches look much better by comparison, even if their battery life fell short.

A 31-day walk streak graph on the Garmin Forerunner 965

The Garmin Forerunner 965, released less than a year after the 955 (Image credit: Michael Hicks / Android Central)

In the last year, however, something has changed. Fitness brands have found a way to make AMOLED displays work without a significant battery trade-off. You may lose a couple of days, but plenty of runners (myself included) prefer that if it means the watch is more readable.

In 2023, Garmin introduced AMOLED displays to the Forerunner 265 and 965 — along with the Vivoactive 5 — after over a decade of MIP domination for both lineups. They last 13, 23, and 11 days on a full battery, respectively, and the 965's maps give you so much more detail than the 955 could ever offer.

Polar also gave AMOLED touchscreens to its 2022 Ignite 3 and 2023 Vantage 3 watches for the first time. They "only" last five and eight days apiece, but their last-gen MIP predecessors lasted five and seven days. Given that I really disliked the Polar Pacer Pro's dim, thick-bordered MIP display, the switch makes me more inclined to return to Polar.

The Suunto 7 used an AMOLED back in 2020, but only because it was a Wear OS watch that didn't need a long battery. Only this year, with the newly announced Suunto Race, did the fitness brand make AMOLED accessible on a 12-day watch with an impressive 40 hours of multi-frequency GPS tracking.

The daily suggested workout on the Garmin Instinct 2X Solar

The Instinct 2X Solar display is extremely limited in exchange for epic battery life. (Image credit: Michael Hicks / Android Central)

Memory-in-pixel fans still have their proponents. Garmin couldn't sell a watch like the $900 Fenix 7 Pro with an MIP display if people weren't willing to accept a less vibrant screen you can barely read indoors in exchange for its whopping 173 days of battery with solar recharging. The same goes for the more affordable Instinct 2X Solar and its 40-day battery, one of my favorite rugged watches.

But there's a reason Garmin began selling the Epix Pro lineup alongside the Fenix 7 Pro, with the exact same feature set paired with an AMOLED that still lasts 16 days — and it has everything to do with how well each type of display is selling. 

Look at how, after the AMOLED-equipped Garmin Venu and MIP-equipped Vivoactive 4 both launched in September 2019, Garmin released a Venu Sq, Venu 2, Venu 2 Plus, Venu Sq 2, and Venu 3 in succession while the Vivoactive lineup remained dormant. Garmin would only have made that choice if the Venu struck a profitable chord with "mainstream" fitness buyers in a way that an MIP watch never could.

Only last month did the Vivoactive 5 come back from the dead, now sporting an AMOLED display and some downgrades compared to the Vivoactive 4, like losing its altimeter, steel bezel, and two size options. It's now a budget sibling to the Venu 3 instead of the crown jewel in Garmin's arsenal.

Post-workout heart rate zones on the COROS PACE 3

The COROS PACE 3 with MIP display (Image credit: Michael Hicks / Android Central)

Now that runners can find an alternative to MIP displays — and manufacturers can create AMOLED running watches that are still light and thin enough to keep runners happy — I suspect we'll see fewer MIP watches over time. But that doesn't mean they should go away entirely.

The new COROS PACE 3 is a fantastic running watch that I loved putting through its paces. It only weighs 30g (just over 1oz), lasts 24 days per charge, and costs a mere $230. There's no way COROS could have pulled any of those numbers off with an AMOLED display; add that, and you need a thicker design to fit the larger battery, while the watch cost would probably jump to $350. 

The same will apply to the long-awaited Garmin Forerunner 65, our most-wished-for watch. If Garmin wants to hit the same $200 price tag as the Forerunner 55 while adding more modern software tricks, it'll have to stick to MIP.

I'm perfectly fine with fitness brands relying on more efficient display tech when the budget or situation calls for it. But generally speaking, this transition to AMOLED is the right call. 

We've seen how Apple has gone all-in on fitness to target casual runners, while the Pixel Watch 2 incorporates Fitbit into Wear OS. Most runners will choose battery life over smarts, but they'll also see how much smarter these fitness watches are and naturally feel some resentment.

With the Venu 3, Garmin added quality-of-life improvements like multiple text sizes, visible photos in text notifications, quick switching between widgets, and other features that typical smartwatches have had for years. Now that running brands won't have the excuse of MIP displays any longer, we should see slow but steady improvements and software modernization over time. 

Michael L Hicks
Senior Editor, Wearables & AR/VR

Michael is Android Central's resident expert on wearables and fitness. Before joining Android Central, he freelanced for years at Techradar, Wareable, Windows Central, and Digital Trends. Channeling his love of running, he established himself as an expert on fitness watches, testing and reviewing models from Garmin, Fitbit, Samsung, Apple, COROS, Polar, Amazfit, Suunto, and more.

  • Lynx245
    AC News said:
    Fitness brands have used MIP displays for about a decade to deliver weeks of battery life. Now we're finally seeing AMOLED watches hitting the same benchmarks, which means these same brands can't use MIP as a crutch anymore.

    I'm happy this annoyingly popular watch display tech is dying a slow death : Read more
    Think your missing the point of the MIP display. You don't gets weeks of battery life and always on display with AMOLED. You just want pretty. I think people such as yourself would do better with the tons of crappy Android Wear watches available. Sorry, function over pretty any day.
    Reply
  • biogon
    AMOLED battery life is for “raise to wake” mode. It drops considerably for always-on mode.
    Reply
  • Mooncatt
    Lynx245 said:
    Think your missing the point of the MIP display. You don't gets weeks of battery life and always on display with AMOLED. You just want pretty. I think people such as yourself would do better with the tons of crappy Android Wear watches available. Sorry, function over pretty any day.

    Apparently the writer never looked at the manual for his Forerunner 955, or he would know that MIP watches have a backlight to make them readable indoors/low light. It can even be set to a gesture to automatically turn on when lifted. This seems odd in the context of the article he wrote only this past January and linked to in this one, which he rates 5 stars and praises the watch throughout the article. In it, he never once mentioned the display type, screen visibility, readability, etc. Less than 10 months later and suddenly MIP displays are trash?

    Let's give him another 10 months on an AMOLED watch and see how he feels after massive burn in due to the largely static always on displays.
    Reply
  • fechhelm
    AMOLED displays are ridiculously hard to read in bright sunlight and virtually impossible with polarized sunglasses. My MIP display Garmin is easily read in all conditions. And no, AMOLED displays will never have as good of a battery life.
    Reply
  • Cornelius Puiulet1
    Hate to say it, but I also prefer a MIP display over AMOLED on a watch. Love amoled on a phone, but not on a watch. Too much like having a phone on your wrist when they slap that AMOLEd on it. Yeah, I’m about style, but MIP does the job pretty well and it doesn’t blind you indoors. If it wasn’t for maps, I’d even go LCD 😮
    Reply
  • Michael L Hicks
    Mooncatt said:
    Apparently the writer never looked at the manual for his Forerunner 955, or he would know that MIP watches have a backlight to make them readable indoors/low light. It can even be set to a gesture to automatically turn on when lifted. This seems odd in the context of the article he wrote only this past January and linked to in this one, which he rates 5 stars and praises the watch throughout the article. In it, he never once mentioned the display type, screen visibility, readability, etc. Less than 10 months later and suddenly MIP displays are trash?

    Let's give him another 10 months on an AMOLED watch and see how he feels after massive burn in due to the largely static always on displays.
    Raise to wake makes MIPs visible, but not readable unless you're by a light source. Yes, you can boost the backlight, but it defeats the purpose of MIPs by using extra battery and gives your "black" background an unsightly colored tint, at least when I tried boosting it on my Instinct 2X Solar.

    And yes, I loved the 955 for its software, and didn't mention the display type in the review because AMOLED running watches weren't a thing at that point and I'd learned to tolerate MIP rather than use inferior AMOLED watches. Now that the 965 is out, I realized these companies can offer the same software with a better display, so I reevaluated my stance on the 955 rather than remain static. You're implying I'm not allowed to change my viewpoint because it's "sudden", which I'm not sure I understand.

    I don't use always-on displays, so it shouldn't be a problem for me!
    Reply
  • Michael L Hicks
    fechhelm said:
    AMOLED displays are ridiculously hard to read in bright sunlight and virtually impossible with polarized sunglasses. My MIP display Garmin is easily read in all conditions. And no, AMOLED displays will never have as good of a battery life.
    AMOLED definitely won't ever match MIP for battery, and I certainly didn't mean to make it sound like I thought that!

    I guess this comes down to how much battery runners think they need. Mainline Garmin MIP watches just a few years ago tended to hit 2 weeks or less and 20 GPS hours or less. Now they hit twice that, while AMOLED models hit the old threshold for quality. My Forerunner 965 will last nearly two weeks with daily GPS-tracked runs or walks before I need to charge it, and that's enough for me; but if you want Instinct levels of battery, then yeah, an AMOLED will never give you what you need.
    Reply
  • Mooncatt
    Michael L Hicks said:
    You're implying I'm not allowed to change my viewpoint because it's "sudden", which I'm not sure I understand.

    Usually when products are reviewed, it's customary to point out deficiencies even if there aren't many good alternatives to remedy it. In the smartphone world, visibility in direct sunlight was a huge complaint with LCD screens even before AMOLED was developed. When AMOLED became popular, it made sense when people praised it over LCD in that respect. So to see an article praising a watch without any mention of the drawbacks of the display followed by this one less than a year later slamming MIP as if it's now trash and making erroneous statements about visibility (omitting the backlight function as an option) does make the change of opinion suspect.

    I get it. I have a Garmin watch with a MIP display, and my wife has a different brand with an AMOLED screen. I can see the obvious differences in displays, but I can still view mine just fine in any lighting condition. And not everyone needs/wants a phone display quality image on their watch. I rather like the muted look of mine, especially when in public. I wouldn't want a bright and vibrant screen lighting up like a beacon on my wrist when getting a notification or using it. Then again, I'd prefer to go back to an LCD phone screen too so I'm not dealing with burn in.
    Reply
  • fuzzylumpkin
    Mooncatt said:
    Usually when products are reviewed, it's customary to point out deficiencies even if there aren't many good alternatives to remedy it. In the smartphone world, visibility in direct sunlight was a huge complaint with LCD screens even before AMOLED was developed. When AMOLED became popular, it made sense when people praised it over LCD in that respect. So to see an article praising a watch without any mention of the drawbacks of the display followed by this one less than a year later slamming MIP as if it's now trash and making erroneous statements about visibility (omitting the backlight function as an option) does make the change of opinion suspect.

    I get it. I have a Garmin watch with a MIP display, and my wife has a different brand with an AMOLED screen. I can see the obvious differences in displays, but I can still view mine just fine in any lighting condition. And not everyone needs/wants a phone display quality image on their watch. I rather like the muted look of mine, especially when in public. I wouldn't want a bright and vibrant screen lighting up like a beacon on my wrist when getting a notification or using it. Then again, I'd prefer to go back to an LCD phone screen too so I'm not dealing with burn in.
    Have you actually had problems with burn in, or is it just something you worry about?
    Reply