Garmin says MIP is not going away, at least not yet

Garmin says MIP displays are not going anywhere just yet, and the reason is pretty simple. AMOLED battery life keeps improving, but Garmin still thinks MIP has an advantage where it matters most.

If you have been wondering how long Garmin plans to keep MIP around, we finally have a decent answer. The company is not promising to keep it forever, but it is also not ready to dump it.

Speaking to TechRadar, Garmin COO Brad Trenkle said the biggest reason to keep MIP is still battery life. AMOLED has closed a lot of the gap over the past few generations, but not enough for Garmin to treat the two display technologies as interchangeable.

Other media have interpreted that as MIP going away. But Trenkle said the battery gap between OLED and MIP is closing, but “has not completely converged,” and that “until it does” Garmin does not think MIP will completely go away.

MIP still earns its place

You can see the logic in Garmin’s current lineup. AMOLED is everywhere now, including models that once would almost certainly have used MIP. But Garmin still keeps the older display technology around where endurance matters more.

The Enduro 4 is probably the clearest example. It sticks with a MIP solar display and can run for up to 36 days in smartwatch mode, or as much as 90 days with enough solar exposure.

AMOLED Garmin watches are hardly struggling, though. Battery life has improved massively, particularly on the larger Fenix models, and for plenty of people the difference is already small enough that they would happily take the brighter display.

But Garmin is looking at the extremes. Someone heading out for a long expedition or spending days tracking GPS activities has a very different definition of “good enough” battery life from someone who charges every couple of weeks.

MIP also behaves differently outdoors. It reflects ambient light rather than fighting against it, so bright sunshine actually helps visibility instead of forcing the display to pump out more light. That combination still gives Garmin a reason to keep it around.

Garmin users were worried about this

Garmin users have been asking where MIP fits into the company’s future for a while now, especially as AMOLED keeps spreading across the lineup. Earlier this year, we covered a poll of more than 1,100 Garmin users asking what they would do if Garmin stopped making MIP watches. Roughly a third said they would move to another brand, while another group said they would rather keep buying older MIP models.

That is a pretty strong reaction to a display technology. But for those users, MIP is tied to the whole reason they bought a Garmin in the first place: long battery life, an always-visible screen and excellent outdoor readability.

Trenkle’s comments should calm some of those worries. Garmin is clearly not keeping MIP around simply because a few long-time users like it. It still sees a practical advantage.

The more interesting part is what happens when that advantage disappears. Garmin is effectively saying that MIP stays while it continues to offer something AMOLED cannot quite match.

Solar could be the next piece

There is another part of Trenkle’s interview that caught our attention. He was asked whether solar charging could eventually work with AMOLED, which could remove another reason Garmin currently keeps MIP around.

Trenkle pointed to the different solar technologies Garmin already uses. In particular, crystalline silicon can sit around the edge of the display rather than over the active screen area, avoiding the hit to image quality that comes from putting a solar layer directly on top.

That is interesting because Garmin has already been working on this problem. Last year we covered a Garmin patent designed to combine solar charging with AMOLED, using a different approach that could create tiny photovoltaic areas without blocking the display underneath.

None of this means Garmin has a solar AMOLED Fenix ready to go. Trenkle was talking about what is technically possible, not teasing a new watch.

But put the pieces together and the direction is fairly easy to see. AMOLED keeps getting more efficient, Garmin is experimenting with ways to add solar, and MIP’s biggest advantages are slowly being chipped away.