Garmin QuickFit 22 Black Leather Watch Strap

This purchase was a bit of a luxury. I wear the watch for work with a suit I wanted it to look a bit smarter than it does with the rubber strap and less like a sports watch. The strap in well engineered, and the slate grey colouring is a perfect match for the bezel on the Fenix 5 (non sapphire version).The strap comes up very large, and I had to remove five links with a watch link pin remover tool. Without this I'd have been making a trip to a local jewellers. The watch strap comes without instructions so I had to employ a best guess method to removing the pins and barrels. Should you have to remove links look on the back of the strap for the directional arrows and push the links out of the strap IN THE DIRECTION OF THE ARROWS. When you've done this you will need to reassemble, make sure the barrel pin is retained within the centre link, otherwise you'll get no tension when you reinsert the pin! If in doubt take it to a local watch shop and pay the small fee to do the job as it took me about 30 mins to complete, likely as they are experts that they will do it in 5 mins!Overall I'm very happy with the fit, colour match and construction of the strap. I do think it's overpriced even at Amazons offer price but it certainly makes the watch look more akin to its value. I'll be switching back to the rubber strap for events as it will be lighter and jog about less on the wrist. The quick release clasps means you can change over the strap in less than 10 seconds.

One of the biggest incentives for buying the fenix 5 was the easily changeable straps. The stainless steel slate grey band goes very well with slate grey fenix 5. Note that the stand-alone sapphire fenix 5 has a black bezel and will not match this slate grey strap. I am using mine with my non-sapphire fenix 5.The strap comes with two torque screwdrivers if you are using the watch on the Forerunner 935. It is compatible with it, but I don't think it looks very good. I have attached picture to show the contrast if you are still interested. The strap is long and I had to remove a few links myself. This is a fairly simple process if you have the correct tool, or you can take it to a watch shop and they can do this for you.The strap itself is very well made. The clasp is very comfortable, but does add a little weight to the watch. This is not a big deal as I am noticing the watch for sporting activities when it has the stainless steel band, and in my opinion, adds some classic to the watch. Putting the strap on and taking it off is very quick; much quicker than my Apple Watch, in fact. Build-quality is top notch. I am very glad that I got this and would highly recommend it to other fenix 5 users who wear their watch outside of sports.

The usual high quality of Garmin, as you would expect, along with the usual high price of Garmin. I avoid the copycat makes for my Fenix 5 because you can be sure that with the real deal it will be a rugged and reliable product.The colour doesn't fade or tarnish, the rubber is tough and reliable, the clasp is solid. The quick release system makes changing straps to be nice and simple. I would just like them to be a little more affordable.

I bought this strap to go with my Fenix 5 which came with the standard black silicone strap. As this is an everyday watch as well as an activity monitor I wanted something with a bit more of a classic look for times I’m not doing anything particularly active!The strap comes well packaged and in a nice box as you’d expect at this price point. It is clearly made of strong material and is quite chunky and heavy, the weight it adds to the watch is very noticeable but this was a positive for me as it gives it a much more expensive feel. It’s easy to clip on and off the watch using Garmin’s QuickFit system, it literally takes a second so for me I tend to swap back to the silicone strap for more comfort before exercising.If there was one slight disappointment it was that the strap didn’t come with any tools to adjust the length which is a bit cheeky of Garmin with how much they charge for this strap. There are two small screwdriver type tools in the box but these seem to be for removing the pin where the watch itself meets the strap – as the strap is attached with the QuickFit latch that seems to be a redundant tool to me. As it comes it was far too large for my wrist so I had to buy another tool to allow me to take links out of the strap, this was very cheap and easy to do so no real harm done.Overall I have given this five stars on the basis that the strap itself is exactly what I expected and having worn it every day for several weeks now it still looks good as new and doesn’t seem to scratch or scuff very easily at all. I know that this is an expensive strap and I know that there are cheaper unbranded ones now coming onto the market but I believe that you get what you pay for and for me this was worth the money so I would recommend it.

I think these bands are overpriced, I have a few “good” dress watches and pay this sort of money for handmade Italian leather bands that are much more substantial. I wanted to leather as I can only go a day or so with the silicone bands without irritation, the leather certainly helped in this.My band is just a few weeks over 1 year old, probably used 90% of the time, I switch to silicone bands if things are going to get wet or overly sweaty and it’s failed, as can be seen in the photos. The band has simply failed and snapped on the ideal pin hole for my wrist size.Hugely disappointed in such poor performance especially when it’s overpriced to start with. I love my Garmin Fenix 5, it’s a great, reliable device that replaced an Apple Watch and IMHO, is so much better but I am frustrated by my skins reaction to the silicone bands and the over-priced poor quality of the leather option.