DC Rainmaker Review
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It’s the usual ‘not a garmin so I don’t like it’
One of the things he finds negative is the number of nits the screen produces. It’s increased compared to the race s but not enough according dc.
That’s a bit funny because for years now the claims oled screens are bright enough in direct sunlight. So he should actually say that the increased nits on recent watches may sound great but isn’t needed.Other things I didn’t watch. I stopped the moment he asks to view the youtube movie until the end (because youtube pays content creators a but more if the movie is watched until the end)
Suunto t3c | Suunto Ambit 3 sport | Tomtom runner 2 | Garmin forerunner 935 | Garmin forerunner 965 | Suunto race s
Stryd | Bryton Gardia R300L | Polar H9 | Polar oh1+ | Wahoo bolt v2 | 4iiii precision 3 -
@elbee yeah his non Garmin reviews have become pretty useless overall. He didn’t even bother to review the Run 2 (unless I missed it)
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I never understood DC hype. I like Desfit and Active Ideas.
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I never understood DC hype. I like Desfit and Active Ideas.
You like desfit? I think desfit is worse. He really only reads out the spec list and calls it a review.
Suunto t3c | Suunto Ambit 3 sport | Tomtom runner 2 | Garmin forerunner 935 | Garmin forerunner 965 | Suunto race s
Stryd | Bryton Gardia R300L | Polar H9 | Polar oh1+ | Wahoo bolt v2 | 4iiii precision 3 -
I never understood DC hype. I like Desfit and Active Ideas.
You like desfit? I think desfit is worse. He really only reads out the spec list and calls it a review.
What do You mean by read spec? Its part of every review. Anyay i often skip that part
Tests OHR, GPS all the things that matter. Anyway I dont watch only one or two channels. Before I want buy something I watch different reviews, from big and small channels to have full view. -
Personally I maybe am a bit old school.
But I like written reviews. Did DC Rainmaker not produce anything written?t6, S6, Elementum Terra, Ambit 3 Sapphire, Spartan Ultra, Traverse Alpha, S7 Graphite LE, S9B Ambassador, S9P Titanium, S9PP Titanium, Vertical All Black, Race Titanium, Race S Titanium Courtney, Run Lime, Race 2, Vertical 2 Titanium, Race 3s
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Personally I maybe am a bit old school.
But I like written reviews. Did DC Rainmaker not produce anything written?I also prefer written reviews. Easier to skip the bloggers obsession with heartrate and gps accuracy (probably because those are easy to check). But I think gadgetbloggers can make more money on youtube with lengthy movies.
Haven’t seen a written dc blog, but I guest that will follow soon.
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Other things I didn’t watch. I stopped the moment he asks to view the youtube movie until the end (because youtube pays content creators a but more if the movie is watched until the end)
Yeah, that was a cringe point. But I’m also using Brave, so I don’t get any YouTube ads. I’m assuming that’s the requirement to pay content creators. If ads aren’t getting views, it’s missed revenue. I might be wrong though.
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It’s up now.
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I never understood DC hype. I like Desfit and Active Ideas.
You like desfit? I think desfit is worse. He really only reads out the spec list and calls it a review.
What do You mean by read spec? Its part of every review. Anyay i often skip that part
Tests OHR, GPS all the things that matter.Ohr and gps he does. Those are easy. But others. Does he really test them? Or just tell what’s on the watch?
I think he just goes to the manufacturer website, opens the device page, clicks on specs and start saying what’s on that page.
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@OutdoorMan just now.
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Saying all good things about garmin with their prices through the roof is a joke, he started discarding the Race 3S because of the price increase, the joke tells itself.
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If someone is willing to pay me for my time, I’m sure I can find (1) reviews from DCRainmaker that criticize Garmin and (2) reviews from DCRainmaker that are overall positive on non-Garmin watches, for those that seem to have missed them and have what seem like weird observations.
I do recall Ray having done both in the past; actually, part of why I bought the Suunto Race S was generally good thoughts from Ray and DesFit on the model. The only minorly negative point was some concerns on the HRM, but as someone who uses a chest strap and wanted to use ZoneSense which required that, I only needed the watch’s HRM to be accurate outside of sessions.
It seems some are simply unwilling to accept any criticism of Suunto; the Race S had a more basic non-titanium version, the Race 3S does not, so the price doesn’t go as low as it previously did. That’s a valid thing to note for those who don’t care about titanium and would prefer a cheaper option.
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DCR, aka Garmin “promoter”, seems to have missed the original pricing of the Titanium Race S at USD 450. Actually DCR seems to missed the existence of the Titanium version altogether, while DesFit at least mentioned it, but also made the wrong price comparison of 350 vs. 600 USD as well.
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Offering my perspective as someone who has written a good number of reviews for watches and other sports gear:
- Desfit does come across a bit as a spec “recapper.” He doesn’t often have a lot of negatives to say about a watch, though his approachable tone and lack of sensationalism also make what he does say (good or bad) easier to digest. Still, it’s not all specs, but that’s a good chunk of what he does.
- Chase the Summit is pretty solidly the one I would dub the biggest Garmin fanboy. That’s not to say he doesn’t offer some positive things about other brands, but he really tiptoes around the warts of anything Garmin. (Garmin as a company is finicky, and I know he doesn’t want them to pull his access to future devices.) He’s also put up content on launch day even when he doesn’t have the device in hand, so I think that generally taints a lot of his video work as likely being more shallow or “PR speak” or just incomplete.
- DCRainmaker is the best of these “big three” YouTubers, though he does favor Garmin over other brands, and sometimes that manifests itself in being inconsistent in his approach. For example, he has dogged on Suunto’s naming conventions in the past, whether with skipping the Race 2S generation naming or even going back to 9 vs 9 Peak vs 9 Peak Pro, but then he gives Garmin a pass on the weirdly haphazard Forerunner 1XX, 2XX, 5XX, 6XX, 9XX lineups, that don’t seem to deliver reliable step changes between them. I do think he is blind (or just numb) to some of Garmin’s flaws, while being certain to drill home things with Suunto or Coros that he doesn’t like as much across multiple reviews. Still, at least he’s “showing his work,” especially in his written reviews, where he posts lots of comparison charts and goes into a lot of detail and actually offers an opinion. Plus, I like that he adds a swim component to his reviews, too.
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@TrailEyes My perhaps bad recall is Ray specifically called out the Forerunner 570 naming and was more negative on that model for not providing enough to justify the switch from 2xx to 5xx, so depending on how you look at it, he’s not been silent on it in the past.
I do agree there’s areas where he could be more critical more often, especially with the overall large number of models Garmin makes. Take this recent review of the Garmin Marq3: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2026/10/garmin-marq-gen3-in-depth-review.html
Ray notes in the article: “ – Increase in sales: They say they’ve had “8x the amount of sales turnover” since MARQ Gen2. Meaning, there’s clearly demand for this product. Given we’re on the 4th generation of it now (assuming you include Chronos as the first generation), Garmin wouldn’t be sticking around if it wasn’t making them money. Garmin has very clear internal rules around financial ROI/margins.”
And then, later:
“ Writing a review for a watch like this is tricky. There’s a simple reality that for a large portion of the population, this watch will seem like a waste of money. But the same could and would be spent on photography gear, I and many other photographers buy. A $2,000 lens on a $2,000 camera body, and that’s just one lens (a lens that I managed to flood the other day, costing me another $1,000 in repairs…sigh). Sure, that gear will last many years, but as Garmin pointed out with their Fenix 1 metrics above, people can and do still use these watches long term (more than a decade in that case)”
In my opinion, these could have been put as a subtitle “Should this watch an exist? Should any watch cost this much?” And then, sure, put in the above points to show it apparently does well and why not make it if people buy it, but at the same time this could be used to poke at Garmin, effectively saying “however, the existence of this just increases the overall number of models Garmin has, which can be confusing to new people” and perhaps point to the midrange area where Garmin could reduce model options for more clarity in the lineup. Now, one might argue that’s a side topic not really belonging in a Mara article, and if so, ok, then have it as a sister article released around the same time.
So I do see areas where Ray could point more things out; it’s the claim he never does so that some in this thread seem to think is the case I quarrel with. I also think people shouldn’t just accept any one reviewers thoughts as “what they should think” and come to one’s own conclusions based on your own analysis and needs, using reviewers to help that process rather than replace it.
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I couldn’t care less about what DCR and other Garmin employees of the year say about R3S. It’s a fantastic device and anyone who buys it will enjoy the heck out of it.
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