Smartwatches are everywhere. In every shape. In every size. At all price points. And with a wealth of functions targeted to any concern, goal or tracking need.
Apple’s Watch Series is easy to stay up-to-date with - they’re consequential and a new one launches every single year. Other brands, however, take a more personalised approach when compared with the former’s all-rounder to make them as specific as possible to the customer’s needs. But this can often lead to confusion. When there are different ranges and less obvious name and number combinations - which do you choose?
Best deals
Over the years, Garmin has forged a reputation for high-performance and hard-wearing watches. It has hundreds in its offering designed for runners, multidiscipline athletes, outdoor adventurers, golfers and trend-led pieces that keep it minimal to the step-counting, heart rate monitoring that form the foundation of smartwatches everywhere.
Finding the right one is a question of deciding which of the more advanced functionality that you truly require. The greater the functionality, typically and unsurprisingly, the greater the price. But there’s something else to consider in your smartwatch shopping. Black Friday is here and the deals are flowing in. Smartwatches are some of the best deals to note.
And Garmin - and John Lewis, Argos, Amazon and more - have not been shy in slashing the price tag of its latest and greatest models as well as previous iterations.
Shop the best Garmin deals this Black Friday below
Garmin epix
Best for: The all-demanding athletics addict
What defines a ‘smartwatch’ for you? I mean, don’t write in, it’s a rhetorical question, but what are the main functions and features that make a watch ‘smart’ for you? For me, while I admire and am fascinated by all the health-led apps attributes with which they come imbued, I’m probably most tech-turned-on by having a virtual assistant on my wrist that also allows me to make and receive calls, check and reply to messages and pay for stuff without ever having to worry my wallet. Equally important to me is design – I like a watch to look like a watch and not something from mid-70s Sci-Fi. And this is why I absolutely adore the epix from smart- sports-watch maker to the gods, Garmin.
Okay, it has quite a few buttons festooning the case, but these are nicely recessed into that light, strong and stylish titanium case. Then there is the 1.3-inch, always-on, bright and beautiful, touchscreen AMOLED display, behind which hides Garmin’s new interface for epix-lly improved interaction, which is effortless in operation. So, aesthetics boxes firmly ticked.
Then we come to what I view as ‘everyday’ smart functions. Does it do notifications for incoming calls, text messages, social media updates, calendar reminders etc.? Check. Is there space for music storage from the likes of Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer? Check. Does it allow you to download endless apps over Wi-Fi from the Connect IQ Store with no phone required? Check again. Can you stump up the virtual readies when out and about with Garmin Pay? Check. And can you set up safety tracking and incident detection in case stuff goes south? Check. Which pretty much covers all my day-to-day demands.
So, what of its sport and health tracking abilities? Where do you start? Designed with multisport firmly in mind, the epix offers 24/7 health monitoring across the entire spectrum to cover everything from your heart rate to your stress levels, respiration, blood oxygen, hydration and body energy. Then there comes sports stuff, represented by a ludicrous array of apps for gym workouts, tennis, climbing, bouldering, golfing, surfing and skiing, and even something called ‘pickleball’ which I have never heard of and won’t even dignify with a Google.
And while you’re out indulging in all that, you can do so safe in the knowledge that the Garmin epix’s multi-GNSS support will keep you constant, accurate contact with GPS satellites to keep your motion precision mapped and even offer you turn-by-turn directions.
Is it expensive? Hell, yeah. Is it also possibly the ultimate expression of smartwatch superiority seen so far this year? Just read all this again.
Buy now £389.00, Amazon
Garmin fēnix 7S Multisport GPS Watch, Stainless Steel with Graphite Band
Slightly smaller, the 7S has a 1.2-inch display, but the same hard-wearing design. The sportier feel is achieved through the slimline design and rubber strap.
Was: £599.99
Buy now £346.00, Amazon
Garmin Fenix 7 Multisport GPS Watch - Silver with Graphite Band
The Fenix 7 touchscreen face makes controls a breeze with a 1.3-inch always-on display and a high-performance, durable fibre-reinforced polymer case.
Was: £559
Buy now £449.00, Very
Garmin Forerunner 55 GPS Running Smartwatch
Training for a marathon? You need Garmin's smartwatch, designed to enhance running workouts. The GPS timepiece can track regular activity as well as training sessions, logging time, distance, speed and a whole lot more. The more you use it, the more it can suggest workouts based on your metrics.
Was: £159.99
Buy now £126.89, Amazon
Garmin Forerunner 965
Best for: runners
The smartwatch industry attracts contributors from all manner of industries, thanks to the plurality of technologies the form has the potential to hold. With GPS-tracking being a crucial asset for fitness-minded smartwatch wearers, of course, satnav heavyweights Garmin have gotten involved.
This, the Garmin Forerunner 965, is their premium smartwatch offering, and much more than an Apple watch alternative. This is crammed full of smart tech, from a beautiful AMOLED display to a powerful multi-band GPS system. With an impressive 23-day battery life (that shortens to a still-impressive 8.5 hours when in ‘everything-on’ mode), offline storage for your tunes and endlessly-helpful training data, this truly is a runner’s delight.
Was: £545
Buy now £499.99, Amazon
Garmin Vivoactive 5
Best for: daily driving
The Garmin Vivoactive 5 is a hugely accessible fitness-friendly Apple Watch alternative, that trades a slightly less-extensive battery life for a friendly price point. This smartwatch is a bubbly joy to behold, and ergonomically pleasing to operate both because of and despite its smaller 30.4mm OLED face.
As a fitness-coaching companion, the Vivoactive 5 has all the basics – from essentials like heart rate monitoring and pedometry to Garmin’s trademark GPS precision, and includes several useful tracker apps for various fitness undertakings. For day-to-day life, there’s phone connectivity for reading emails and sending texts, as well as NFC for contactless shenanigans. Ultimately, it’s a well-built daily driver that doesn’t cost the earth.
Buy now £199.00, Argos
Garmin vivomove Trend
A sleek vision of chrome and grey, Garmin’s smartwatch lives up to its name in more ways than one. The elegant design is just for starters: inside sits a wealth of helpful features that feel very much geared towards active types - swimmers in particular.
This is because the watch can cope with depths of up to 50m while tracking metrics like stress, heart and blood oxygen saturation rates, blood pressure and so on, giving you an accurate, sports coach-like assessment of your workout. Add to that the usual smartwatch trappings of contactless payments, message notifications, diary reminders and more, and you can see how it quickly goes from being nice-to-have to a can’t-live-without sort of accessory.
Oh, and did we mention the battery life? Five hours. We’re sold.
Buy now £250.99, Amazon
Garmin fenix 7X Solar Multisport GPS Watch
This ultra-tough smartwatch will see you through extreme activities, boasting an always-on display, solar energy to fortify the battery life and as many as 30 sports apps.
Was: £779.99
Buy now £426.00, Amazon
Garmin fenix 8 - 47 mm, AMOLED, Slate Grey with Black Silicone Band
The latest and eighth iteration in the Garmin fenix is all about boosting your multidiscipline approach to sport. For athletes and thrill seekers, you can see all your stats clearly displayed on the vibrant 1.4-inch AMOLED display with feedback provided like suggestions on when to take rest days based on your strain.
Was: £869
Buy now £799.13, Amazon
Garmin Venu 2 GPS smartwatch
This iteration from Garmin offers extensive all day health monitoring features and more than 25 indoor and GPS sports apps. It also has preloaded workouts for cardio, yoga, Pilates and HIIT. You can pair it with your Apple or Android smartphone to get notifications delivered straight to your wrist.
Was: £329.99
Buy now £269.95, Amazon
Garmin Lily
Best for: ladies who want style and smarts
Before anyone starts, it was Garmin, not me, who decided there should be a sport watch designed specifically for the more, slender, feminine forearm where, perhaps, a chunky great gauntlet of tech gear would appear inappropriate.
So, we have the Lily. Offering the look of an ordinary, everyday analogue or digital watch through changeable faces, and available in a six-strong series of subtle and stylish finishes, the Lily is made from anodized aluminium and fibre-reinforced polymer to give a feather-light 24g finish. Yet, this small but smart sports watch manages to pack a lot into very little space.
Like what? Well, all the expected functions such as time/date, timer, stopwatch and alarm clock, then there comes the heart rate monitor (with alerts for abnormal highs and lows), blood oxygen saturation spot-checks, stress tracking, relation reminders, a relaxation breathing timer, hydration reminders, sleep tracking and more.
Then there’s Bluetooth, enabling you to connect your Lily with your smartphone to indulge in GPS-based activities, such as outdoor fitness tracking covering distance, speed and time, all logged on and accessible on the downloadable Garmin Connect app. There’s also activity profiles for yoga, pilates, cardio, mindful breathing and strength training.
The connection also means you can receive emails, texts and alerts right on your wrist and, addressing safety, if you suffer a mishap while somewhere remote or fear for your safety in any way, you can send an assistance alert with your live location to your selected contacts with just a tap.
Small, light, smart and full of sporting and health monitoring features, the Garmin Lily is a good-looking option and, as not everyone has arms like The Hulk or wants to look like they’re wearing a police-issued electronic tag on their wrist, very cleverly conceived.
Buy now £219.00, John Lewis
Garmin Vivofit Jr 3
Best for: Kids
Why splash out on a smartwatch that a kid will likely only break? These durable fitness trackers are built for the knocks and tumbles of an active childhood, with a replaceable battery that should last you up to one year. Better yet, a tie-in app will let parents set tasks and reminders, if they need a little gamified encouragement to wash the dishes.
Buy now £59.99, Garmin
Garmin Fēnix 6
This iteration from Garmin is a smaller sized smartwatch than the Fēnix 6X, but has much of the same functions including mapping, GPS, heart rate and pulse ox monitoring.
was: £529.99
Buy now £279.99, Amazon
Garmin Venu 3
Best for: casual fitness
The Venu 3 is a distinctly less hardcore Apple watch alternative than others on the brand’s roster. Geared a little more towards daily life and casual fitness than the Forerunner series, the Venu 3 is a great smartwatch for keeping on top of yourself as well as your inbox.
The Venu 3 is a smart-looking thing, with a swanky case body and an easy-to-read AMOLED screen. It’s got everything you could want for day-to-day dealings, with WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC connections for receiving notifications, controlling your devices and paying contactless-ly for bits and bobs; it’s also got all the fitness stuff you’d hope for in something that can track your steps, heart rate, pulse ox and more. Plus, it’s got that industry-topping Garmin GPS capability, so you can track your routes with precision and ease.
Was: £449
Buy now £358.00, Currys
Garmin Approach S12
Garmin is one of the strongest players in the golf smartwatch game, and the S12 is an impressive option for people looking to take their game a step further.
While the company’s other products like the Approach S62 will set you back nearly £500, the S12 is a more wallet-friendly price of £179.99. And you get a lot of bang for your buck.
The device is loaded with a whopping 42,000 courses and offers easily readable distances to the front, middle and back of the green, with a hi-res screen which handles sunlight glare well.
People looking to bank their scores and shave shots off their handicap can keep track of their rounds on the watch and upload them to the easy-to-use Garmin Golf app. The watch also comes with excellent battery life lasting up to 30 hours, so you don’t have to charge it before every round.
Buy now £138.99, Boots
Garmin Venu 2S Smaller-sized GPS smartwatch
Designed for those with smaller wrists while still boasting the functionality that we’ve come to expect from Garmin, the Venu 2s will encourage you to stay active. It has a 10-day battery life.
Was: £349.99
Buy now £231.00, Amazon
Garmin Instinct S2
Best for: Exercise indoors and out
A brand synonymous with sports-focused smartwatches, Garmin has been at the forefront of this tech for quite some time, pumping out an endless array of premium pulse trackers that go above and beyond when it comes to sports spec.
The current range is six-strong, with a unique option for all comers, but what we’re interested in here is the Instinct S2 Solar, a lean, mean model that, available in 40, 45 and 50mm sizes to suit most wrists, is undeniably rugged. This is thanks to its fibre-reinforced polymer build, tough as a transparent nut Corning Gorilla Glass, and heat, shock and water resistance (100m). So, even if you take a remarkably unlucky tumble down a savagely steep hill and into an active geyser, the S2 will survive.
Solar-powered, as the name gives away, the Garmin packs GPS tracking, a heart rate monitor, records your daily resting heart rate, alerts you to abnormal heart rate alerts (high and low), measures respiration rate (24x7), pulse ox, blood oxygen saturation, stress, body battery and even a relation breathing timer for when you’ve gone just too far.
With a barometric, altimeter, compass, accelerometer and thermometer all included, every aspect of your exercise is measured and recorded, ready to be reviewed later. Downloadable widgets and apps, smart notifications, text response/reject phone calls with text (Android only), calendar, weather forecasts, smartphone music control, VIRB camera remote, and smart trainer control take ample care of all the other ‘smart’ stuff.
Packed to the running rafters with dedicated multisport activity profiles and compatible with both Apple and Android, all can be accessed and controlled either via the watch itself or on the accompanying Garmin Connect app, so you’ll be in the ‘your body’ know constantly.
A lot of smartwatch for a very low price, the Garmin Instinct S2 Solar is perfectly (some might say instinctively) positioned for alfresco athletes and gym bunnies alike.
Buy now £224.99, Amazon
Garmin Instinct Solar 2
As the name suggests, the Garmin Instinct Solar can recharge straight from the sun, extending your battery life whenever you wear it.
The tough rubber of the watch surround is also ideal for keeping your watch safe when you’re basking in the great outdoors, or for the clumsy among us.
The black-and-white screen tracks activity faithfully, and is lifestyle-friendly too, showing notifications, allowing you to pay on the go and syncing with your calendar. A 2S version is also available for smaller wrists.
Buy now £278.98, John Lewis
Garmin Approach S70
Best for: hitting and healthing
Fitness trackers are what Garmin do best, that’s where the company focuses and that’s why it is renowned for non-nonsense, solid, reliable sporting wristicles that utilise an absolute array of sensors to accurately pinpoint your position and measure your body metrics.
Take the Approach S70 for an excellent example, new from Garmin and aimed squarely at the golfer, yes it can give you phone and text alerts, yes it can play your music, yes it can help you pay for things (Garmin Pay), yes it can show you the weather forecast and stock prices, but where it really shines is out on the course, of course.
Pre-loaded with some 43,000 global courses, all visible in heavily detailed colour map format on the excellently bright 1.4-inch AMOLED display. From here you can view every detail of the green, check wind speed and direction, pinpoint the position of the pin, get vital details on hazards, and view contours and distances to make every swing a winner; well, that last bit is very much dependent on how you handle the info and a club, but the Garmin does all the heavy lifting.
Naturally, your heart rate, stress levels, sleep patterns, energy levels, blood oxygen saturation, and hydration level are all monitored and measured, while a wealth of fitness apps such as ‘Garmin Coach’ and ‘HIIT Workouts’ are always on hand when you’re off the course and in the gym.
Incredibly accurate in all areas, the Approach S70 is another absolute winner from Garmin. It may err on the pricier side and have chunkier, less refined looks than the Samsung and the Tag Heuer, but for those serious about both their game and their gain, it’s tracker transcendence.
Buy now £559.99, Garmin
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