Garmin Instinct 2X Solar vs Instinct 2 Solar | What's the Difference?

Both the Instinct 2 Solar and Instinct 2X Solar rugged outdoor GPS watches:

• Are built to U.S. military standard 810 for thermal, shock, and water resistance.
• Feature solar-displays with Power Glass and both can get unlimited solar battery life in smartwatch mode.
• Offer Garmins full suite of 24/7 health and wellness tracking with wrist-based heart rate, advanced sleep monitoring, respiration tracking, Pulse Ox, and more.
• Come with preloaded activity profiles for running, cycling, swimming as well as VO2 Max for Run and Trail Run, Training Status, Training Load, Running Power, HRV Status, Daily Suggested Workouts, and more training tools.
• Come with Dual Grid Coordinates, Barometric Altimeter, Compass, Accelerometer, and Themometer.
• Offer smart features like notifications, Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity, Garmin Pay™, Weather, Calendar, and more.

Bonus: the solar watches from both Garmin instinct watches are the same price: $449.99.

Both the Instinct 2 Solar and Instinct 2X Solar Tactical GPS watches offer everything that the Solar models above offer, plus:

• Stealth Mode to stop storing and sharing your GPS position and disable wireless connectivity and communication.
• Night Vision Compatibility allows you to switch betweeen daytime and nighttime view with a screen designed to be read by night vision goggles.
• Kill Switch wipes the device of all user activity if security should become an issue.
• Jumpmaster Mode allows you to calculate high-altitude release points according to military guidelines while navigating to your objective once you've jumped.
• Tactical Activity lets you see time, pace, time of day, elevation, and your location in both coordinate types.

Bonus: these Garmin tactical watches are the same price: $499.99.

So now what you really want to know, what sets the Instinct 2 Solar and 2X Solar apart.

The Garmin Instinct 2X Solar and 2X Solar Tactical add several new features, including:

• NEW Built-In Flashlight: A built-in multi-LED flashlight provides variable intensities and strobe that matches your run cadence. Plus a red safety light mode (green safety light mode in Tactical Edition) to help keep an eye on your nighttime surroundings.
• NEW Multi-Band Frequency Support: Access multiple frequencies sent by navigation satellites for the best positioning accuracy.
• Improved Solar Power: 50% more energy than the Instinct 2 Solar.
• NEW Obstacle Course Racing: Track and improve your performance by tracking your obstacle split times separately from the runs between obstacles.
• NEW Morning Report: Receive an customized overview of your sleep, recovery and training outlook as soon as you wake up—alongside HRV status and weather.
• NEW HRV Status: Gain a deeper understanding of your overall health, training, and recovery through heart rate variability while you sleep, based on technology developed by our Firstbeat Analytics team.

The Instinct 2X Solar watch offers a 50 mm case size, weighing 67 g, while the Instinct 2 Solar case is 45 mm and weighs 53 g. 

The Garmin Instinct 2X Solar–Tactical Edition adds all the new features that the Instinct 2X Solar in the section above does.

It differs from the Instinct 2 Solar Tactical GPS watch in one distinct way.

The NEW Ballistics Solver allows you to unlock the Applied Ballistics solver via the AB Synapse–Garmin app (unlock fee required) to access aiming solution for long-range shooting in the field.