Garmin Instinct 3 Crossover AMOLED Hands-On: Everyhing You Need To Know!

If you had ‘Garmin makes another Crossover watch’ on a list for the year, it certainly wasn’t on my bingo card. I say that not because it isn’t cool (I think it is), but because it was the watch that Garmin most heavily discounted over the past 18 months or so. Like, Amazon and Grandmas in Olathe yard sales alike seemed to be trying to offload them at crazy prices. Yet, here we are with a swanky new Crossover.

Perhaps what the Crossover needed was a better display, combined with all the features of the Instinct 3 (software and hardware). And if so, that’s what you get here. It’s kinda honestly as simple as that, except, there are also a few new Garmin Connect features the company is launching today, though those aren’t yet integrated natively into the watch. And fear not, these are not Connect+ features, but instead, free to everyone. More details on that shortly.

For those not familiar with the Crossover family, it’s designed to blend the analog watch face hands with a normal screen behind it. The hands cleverly move around, out of the way, of data elements on the screen. And in other cases, the hands are used as pointers (such as a step gauge, compass, and so on).

With that, let’s get into it!

What’s New:

(Above: Older Instinct Crossover, at right, newer Instinct Crossover AMOLED)

In this section, we essentially have to divide up the Instinct 3 Crossover AMOLED into two portions. The first is pieces that are new between the new and previous gen Crossover model. And then the second, is all the boatloads of newness that came with the Instinct 3 series this past January. Combine those two together, and you get the Instinct 3 Crossover AMOLED.

Oh, except one thing. That’s actually not its name. It’s true and proper name is “Instinct Crossover AMOLED”, lacking the Instinct 3 differentiator. Garmin says they went back and forth on both variants, but ultimately decided on this one. To me, that’s underselling it, since there’s just so many features here. And hey, skipping a number never stopped them before (e.g. Fenix 4).

In any event, here’s how it differs specifically from the Instinct Crossover before it:

– Added LED flashlight (both white & red)
– Switched from MIP to larger 1.2” AMOLED screen (was 0.9”)
– Improved Revodrive Analog hands gearbox (slight durability/accuracy changes)
– Added multi-band GNSS/GPS with SatIQ
– Weighs 2g less
– Price increased by $250, from $399 to $649 (full list below)

Next, there are all the new Instinct 3 features. All of them are here. Every one of them:

– Added a metal ring into the bezel as “reinforcement” and GPS antenna
– Added Training Load Focus
– Added Training Load Ratio
– Added Multisport/Triathlon Auto Transition
– Added Nap Detection
– Added Sleep Coach
– Added Muscle Map for Strength Workouts
– Added Strength Workout Animations
– Added Garmin Share
– Added Garmin Messenger compatibility
– Added Garmin Pay as standard on all units
– Added large font mode

I asked Garmin whether or not the Instinct Crossover AMOLED would be part of the Instinct 3 family when it came to software updates and such, and they confirmed it would. That means when the Instinct 3 receives those updates, it’ll be grouped in with that. That’s a good boat to be in, since the Instinct 3 gets quarterly software updates on the regular (well…quarterly), including feature updates. And at Garmin, it’s always better to be in a ‘big product’ update boat, than a small product boat. Cause the little boat seems to sink.

Now, when it comes to models, it’s worthwhile noting there are basically two core SKU’s here, with equally painful prices for both:

– Instinct 3 Crossover AMOLED: $649
– Instinct 3 Crossover AMOLED Tactical: $749

For reference, here are the regular Instinct 3 prices:

– Instinct 3 SOLAR: $399 for the 45mm and $449 for the 50mm
– Instinct 3 AMOLED: $449 for the 45mm and $499 for the 50mm
– Instinct 3 Tactical SOLAR: $499 for the 45mm, and $549 for the 50mm
– Instinct 3 Tactical AMOLED: $599 for the 50mm

Garmin has clearly gone all-in on the whole price-increase thing, despite the fact that Apple, Google, Suunto, and others are seemingly shying away from it. In the case of the Instinct Crossover series (setting aside previous yard sales), Garmin is kinda in their own ballpark there, as nobody else has anything even remotely like it. Whereas for units like the core Instinct and Venu lineups, there are many competitors there.

In any case, we’ll have to see how this all shakes out over time.

Crossover AMOLED Tactical Features:

For the Instinct 3 Crossover Tactical edition, there’s the following features beyond the base edition:

– Uses a dual white/green LED flashlight (versus white/red LED flashlight on base Instinct)
– Very slight component differences that feed into the display, to handle the night shift dimming aspect, but the display itself is identical.
– Has Night Vision Mode: This mode changes the display so that it is in a dimmed green-only state that is NOD/NVG friendly
– Has Stealth Mode: This feature turns off all connectivity features, including Bluetooth & GPS (there’s no WiFi on the Instinct 3 lineup).
– Kill Switch: This feature is advertised as a quick way to delete the content off the device.
– Jumpmaster mode: Jump out of a perfectly good airplane and plan, and track how well your body falls rightly back to earth.
– Applied Ballistics Solver: This piece is loaded on the watch, but not unlocked. This allows for aiming solutions for long-range shooting.
– AB (Applied Ballistics) Quantum App Integration: This is a phone and tablet-based app from Applied Ballistics that can integrate with the Garmin Instinct 3 Tactical (and other compatible Garmin devices).
– Instinct 3 Tactical Watchface: This does have a unique Instinct 3 Tactical watch face that isn’t found on the regular units.

Now, that said, the base Garmin Instinct 3 units do have some tactical features already, specifically the base Instinct 3 (and previous) editions include:

– Dual Grid Coordinates: Shows coordinates in both MGRS and Lat/Long concurrently
– Xero Laser Location sensor integration: Pairs & integrates with Garmin’s Xero sights
– Project Waypoints app/feature: Sets a heading, along with a given distance, and tells you lat/long to said point.
– ’Tactical’ sport profile: Simply a hike-like profile with dual-grid as a default data display, along with elevation.

Again, all of this is the same as the base Instinct 3 Tactical edition, now just on the Crossover model instead.

Wrap-Up:

From a features standpoint, the newer Crossover is definitely a big feature bump, getting all those Instinct 3 features, including a huge slate of very minor tweaks (but often important to various people). And then for those who wanted an AMOLED display, it arrives with that as well. Of course, not everyone who wants analog watch hands wants an AMOLED display. There’s certainly some appeal to keeping it a bit more low-key. Though I think the Crossover AMOLED actually manages to do that, with it’s slightly tweaked display parameters, in order to keep things more toned down.

The big elephant in the room is simply pricing. This is an astonishing price increase, especially for something that didn’t seem to handle higher prices well earlier. Within just a few months of Garmin launching the previous Crossover at $449/$549, they had to permanently reduce the price to $399. And then following that, it was constantly on sale, even down into the $200’s. Those constant reductions in price remained true till recently. I’m not sure why Garmin thinks adding an extra $250 to the base/retail price is going to solve things. Let alone another $100 on top of that for the Tactical version.

Ultimately, as I said in my video, we’re on the Great Garmin Pricing Experiment of 2025. While tariffs can be blamed for some of this, it can no longer be blamed for all of it. Whether or not consumers buy into it remains to be seen. I don’t think Garmin knows that answer either.

Still, with the Instinct Crossover series, there’s simply no competitor in the market that offers what Garmin has here in terms of the analog watch hands and rest of the watch features. Nobody exists like that. And Garmin’s execution is super well done here, I can’t complain about that. Thus, Garmin can kinda charge whatever they want. It’s up to consumers to decide if that works or not.

With that – thanks for reading!

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