Whether you are a professional triathlete, avid hiker or occasional exerciser, investing in one of the best Garmin watches can be invaluable to achieving your health and fitness goals. From on-watch maps to advanced fitness tracking tools, these wearables pack features that can take your workout experience to a whole new level, whether you train in a gym or conquer the great outdoors. There is only one problem. Picking the right model is a tough task when there are so many options available. We know, we have tried and tested plenty of Garmin watches over the years.
Our expert team is continuously impressed by their design, advanced tracking features and top-class performance. We test all of our fitness trackers using the same testing protocols so we can attest to the advantage that a well-picked Garmin watch can have over many other excellent fitness trackers.
Unsure whether these wearables are right for you? Scroll down to the Garmin watches FAQs section below for more useful information and buying advice. Looking for something more affordable? You can find some cheaper options (Garmin included) in our guide to the best budget fitness trackers.
The quick list
Best overall
Sturdy, thoughtfully designed and jam-packed with tracking features, this excellent all-rounder has everything you may ever want from a Garmin watch.
Best mid-range
Designed with fitness enthusiasts in mind, this watch offers plenty of excellent workout tracking features, but it does not cost the earth.
Best for daily use
This Garmin smartwatch is stylish, comfortable to wear and brimming with smart features, making it a perfect choice for 24/7 wear.
Best on a budget
This band strikes a great balance between quality and affordability, offering top-notch accuracy and plenty of features for less than $150.
Best for triathletes
This solar-powered watch has everything a triathlete may want: a water-resistant design, excellent tracking accuracy and long battery life.
Best for high-end features
Want the traditional Garmin functionality, but not the rugged looks? This premium watch combines high-end features with a no-nonsense design.
The best Garmin watches we recommend in 2025: Fully tested by our experts with real-world experience
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The best Garmin watch overall
✅ You like water sports: It has 10ATM water resistance and can withstand dives up to 40 meters.
✅ You want a serious outdoor watch: It comes with on-watch maps, reliable GPS, good battery life and a sturdy design.
✅ You want in-depth health and fitness stats: The Fenix 8 is an excellent tool for athletes and veteran exercisers.
❌ You are on a budget: It costs between $1,000 and $1,200.
❌ You want something discreet: It is one of the biggest watches in this guide.
🔎 Garmin Fenix 8: Big, bold and beautiful, the Garmin Fenix 8 won our seal of approval with its excellent tracking performance, long battery life and stacks of features. We just wished it was cheaper. ★★★★½
If you want the encapsulation of what a Garmin watch is, the Garmin Fenix 8 will not disappoint you. It is sturdy, reliable and jam-packed with tracking features, and its tracking accuracy and battery life are truly top-class. Put simply, this watch was designed to perform no matter the circumstances, and it shows. True, it is hard to deny that the Garmin Fenix 8 is a steep investment (it costs between $1,000 and $1,2000, depending on the size of the model) and we could argue that it does not really stray that far from its older sibling (the excellent Garmin Fenix 7 Sapphire Solar that costs around $600), but its high-tech credentials are truly a class of their own.
There is plenty to like about this sleek wearable. Garmin Fenix 8 has excellent on-watch maps, plenty of internal storage, the latest generation of heart rate tech, and every tracking feature you can possibly think of. It also provides deeper connections to an outboard kit than, say, an Instinct 2. It can control a smart turbo trainer, for example.
For a beastly outdoor watch, it is also surprisingly light and comfortable to wear. Plus, the Garmin Fenix 8 is more waterproof than its older sibling, making it more functional for water sports fans — you can take it scuba diving, for example. Not to mention, it does an excellent job as a fitness tracker and adventure watch.
During our full Garmin Fenix 8 review, we were impressed with its crisp display, long battery life and the general accuracy of its tracking features, especially when it came to heart rate and GPS. We also liked how user-friendly it was. Our Garmin Fenix 8 was easy to use and control during workouts, its advanced features were useful and well presented, and we found it genuinely helpful for boosting our exercise performance. Our only gripe was that the GPS was quite slow at times.
The Garmin Fenix 8 is an excellent watch, but it may be an overkill if you just want to track your gym sessions or short runs a couple of times a week. If you do not need anything flashy, other models in this guide may be just as good.
- Read our full review of the Garmin Fenix 8
Best mid-range Garmin watch
✅ You want in-depth workout tracking features: This watch tracks more than 100 activities and provides a detailed overview of exercise performance.
✅ You are looking for a running watch: It is light and comfortable to wear.
❌ You want exceptional durability: Its casing and bezel are made of plastic.
❌ You want downloadable maps: This watch will show you your 'breadcrumb' trail, but it will not store the data on the watch itself.
🔎 Garmin Forerunner 265: This beautifully designed fitness tracker offers the best of Garmin's features at a reasonable price — but it is not as durable as the pricier models. ★★★★½
The Forerunner 265 is an enthusiast fitness watch that has an OLED screen instead of the transflective style seen in almost all Garmins until recent years. An athlete-grade fitness watch with brilliant fitness tracking features, we rated it highly in our Garmin Forerunner 265 review, enjoying its versatility as a sports watch.
Wondering how it fits in the range? The Forerunner 265 is a Forerunner 255 with OLED. It is a Garmin Epix alternative that puts much less of a dent in your savings. Or it is a Garmin Venu 2 that trades in a little design gloss for some more advanced fitness features.
We reviewed the pink Forerunner 265S 42mm, the smaller alternative to the standard 46mm version. It is still larger than the Pixel Watch.
The watch is very similar to the Forerunner 255. Its casing and bezel are plastic — fiber-reinforced polymer as Garmin calls it — and the screen is toughened glass. It is an older type, though, Gorilla Glass 3. You lose the stainless steel bezel of the Venu 2 series, but this does help keep the weight low.
Weighing 40g, the Forerunner 265S is 6g lighter than the standard Forerunner 265. As a result it is a comfortable watch, although you can likely improve it further by switching out the strap. The supplied silicone strap does a great job during sports activities, but if you tighten it up for a more precise heart rate reading, it may leave a trail of indentations on your wrist. We found it somewhat hard not to over-tighten this watch, for some reason.
The screen is the star of the show here, though. It is a 1.1-inch 360 x 360 pixel OLED, or a 1.3-inch 416 x 416 pixel one in the Forerunner 265. While it does not fill out the front of the watch like the Apple Watch Series 8’s display, this little screen has everything we are looking for.
It is very sharp, super-colorful, and easily bright enough to work for outdoors exercise sessions on sunny days. This screen’s job is to make an argument for itself over the Forerunner 255’s transflective screen, and it is pretty persuasive, particularly when it is a touch display too. The Forerunner 255’s is not.
- Read our full Garmin Forerunner 265 review
Best Garmin watch for smartwatch features
✅ You are looking for a swimming watch: It features 10ATM water resistance.
✅ You want a reliable outdoor watch: The Epix 2 offers excellent on-watch maps.
✅ You want a stylish smartwatch: It works just as well with casual wear as it does with gym gear.
❌ You are on a budget: It costs from $600 to $1100.
❌ You want exceptional battery life: This watch lasts around a week on a single charge.
🔎 Garmin Epix 2: This sleek running watch offers a crisp AMOLED display, plenty of features and the unbeatable Garmin's tracking accuracy — but it comes with a steep price tag. ★★★★
For more than five years, the original Garmin Epix was the watch to buy for hikers who needed on-watch maps. You can now get great maps in other watches, so the second iteration of this flagship model is best described as a Fenix 7 with a lovely OLED screen. During our Garmin Epix 2 review, we were impressed by its combination of in-depth tracking features and smartwatch functionality.
It is sharper, bolder and more colourful, and this helps how those maps look on-screen, too. However, after a few weeks of living with the Epix 2, we appreciated its OLED screen most when at home. It makes the Garmin Epix 2 a flashier-looking, more smartwatch-like watch than the Fenix 7. All the main features are the same, though. You get great depth and heart-rate accuracy and GPS that is fast to connect.
Where’s the catch? The Garmin Epix 2 is pricey, starting much higher than the base Fenix 7. Were they priced the same the Epix would be sitting at the top of this list.
One final thing: an OLED screen means the Epix 2 does not last as long as the Fenix 7 in its always-on mode, where the screen stays lit. It lasts around six days between charges, not the two weeks and change you will see from the Fenix. Some will find this off-putting, but we review full smartwatches that last a day or so regularly. In that context just under a week of use does not seem remotely off-putting.
- Read our full review of the Garmin Epix 2
Best Garmin watch for daily use
✅ You want good value for money: It offers excellent tracking features and thoughtful design at a reasonable price.
✅ You want a running watch: It is light and comfortable to wear.
❌ You want in-depth health stats: It offers a lighter approach to data than premium models like the Fenix 7.
❌ You want an outdoor watch: This watch does not support downloadable maps.
🔎 Garmin Venu 2 Plus: This sleek all-rounder is durable, compact and comfortable to wear all day. It is also cheaper than some of the top-shelf Garmin models. ★★★★½
The Venu series sees Garmin branch out from its running watch roots to explore smartwatch-like designs. This watch is slimmer, lighter and — as a result — many folks will find it more comfortable than the flagship models. It is also more stylish and reserved than the Garmin norm, making the Venu 2 Plus a great choice for 24/7 wear.
This watch has a sharp and punchy OLED screen, which looks far more vibrant than the transflective displays of the Forerunner, Fenix and Instinct series, particularly indoors.
Is it a slam dunk for smartwatch tech, then? Not quite. If you want the screen to stay lit all day, you will see the battery life halve from 7-9 days to around four days. Not bad for a smartwatch, but plenty of Garmin alternatives last longer.
During our Garmin Venu 2 Plus review, we also found that it lacked the full on-watch maps. The Forerunner 955 features them, and it does not differ much in price. While you get maps of your runs and hikes in the Garmin Connect app on your phone after the fact, you can’t fully navigate on the watch itself.
It is less of an adventuring watch as a result, but excels as a wearable to enjoy all through the day, and for exercise around your local area. The heart rate hardware is effectively the same as that of the more expensive Garmin watches, for example.
The Garmin Venu 2 Plus has a few special tricks too, like an on-board speaker and voice support for Google Assistant, Apple Siri and Samsung Bixby. It feels a bit clunkier than interacting with Siri on an Apple Watch, but is a first for Garmin. If those digital assistant smarts do not appeal you may also want to consider the “non Plus” Venu 2. It is a bit cheaper, perhaps looks a little less slick, but otherwise has a very similar set of features.
- Read our review of the Garmin Venu 2 Plus model
Best Garmin for triathletes
✅ You want long battery life: It lasts up to a month on a single charge.
✅ You are looking for a swimming watch: This watch features 10ATM water resistance.
✅ You want good value for money: It costs from $200 to $400.
❌ You want music on the go: It does not support music apps.
❌ You want something small and inconspicuous: This watch has a relatively chunky build.
🔎 Garmin Instinct 2: This rugged watch was made with professional athletes in mind. It features an ultra-durable build, advanced tracking features and long battery life, but its design may not be up to everyone's taste. ★★★★
You can probably tell the Garmin Instinct 2 angle from a glance. This is a super-rugged, chunky outdoor wearable for those who do not care if their watch looks a bit bulky. In return, the Instinct 2 can last up to a month between charges and has 10ATM water resistance, double that of most other good wearables at the price — everything triathletes may want from a watch.
The Instinct 2 is hard to beat for long hiking weekends away from a charging point. However, there are reasons the Instinct 2 only costs half as much as some flagship Garmin. The screen is relatively small and monochrome, although the little inverted porthole is a great way to highlight one particular stat, like your heart rate. We grew to love this little circle during our Garmin Instinct 2S Solar review.
The Garmin Instinct 2 also lacks full map support, which is a major drawback in an adventuring watch like this. You can see a “breadcrumb” trail of where you have been, but not the surrounding terrain and roads because the watch does not store its own mapping data. It can help you avoid getting hopelessly lost, but will not let you map routes on the fly.
There is no local music playback either, the Instinct 2 can only control music played on your phone.
We found several reasons to pick another model. But the Instinct 2’s tracking accuracy is great and the sheer low-maintenance breeziness of a watch that seems to last forever between charges and is happy to truck on wherever you go should not be underestimated.
- Read our full Garmin Instinct 2S Solar review
Best budget Garmin watch
✅ You do not need the frills: It tracks all the basic health and workout stats — and it does it well.
✅ You want something light and comfortable: No chunky design.
✅ You are on a budget: It costs $150.
❌ You are looking for an outdoor watch: No GPS or on-watch maps.
❌ You want exceptional durability: This watch is made largely out of plastic.
🔎 Garmin Vivosmart 5: One of the most affordable options in the Garmin line-up, the light and compact Vivosmart 5 is a reliable no-frills fitness tracker — but only for exercising indoors. ★★★
If you are set on Garmin as a brand but do not want a big-faced watch, the Vivosmart 5 is a reliable and affordable band, making it suitable for people looking for something small, light and unobtrusive.
For a small watch, it has got a lot of good features. It can record your heart rate and steps, and it estimates your stress and breathing rate. It also monitors your sleep overnight and it can look at your blood oxygenation.
However, it does not have its own GPS so it can’t be used for phone-free runs. The screen’s top layer is plastic too, which is much softer than a good toughened glass and more likely to pick up scuffs and scrapes.
During our Garmin Vivosmart 5 review, our tester undertook a handful of long workouts with the Vivosmart 5 on one arm and the Garmin Enduro 2 on the other. Each time, both watches recorded the exact same maximum heart rate, and each time there was only a slight disparity in the average heart rate across the session, by a margin of 1-2 bpm. The Vivosmart 5’s step counts seemed fine and the stress tracking feature is good — although we found stress graphs are much better viewed in the Connect app on your phone than the band’s own tiny screen.
Overall? The Garmin Vivosmart 5 performs well for a casual fitness tracker and offers better tracking accuracy and more thoughtful software than the vast majority of trackers of this style.
- Read our full Garmin Vivosmart 5 review
