Best Garmin Watches in 2020

Best Garmin Watch in 2020

From the success of Fenix 5 Plus, Garmin thought of upgrading its features and came up with the new flagship Garmin Fenix 6 Pro. With a bigger screen, greater battery life, and a better menu system, there’s no doubt that this is a sports watch for the high-intensity runners and multi-sport users. If you are considering investing into something that’s really worth every penny then you got to have the Garmin Fenix 6X Pro.

Fenix 6X Pro is the newest member of Garmin’s outdoor watches. This big guy is packed with amazing features that make outdoor activities a great adventure. It may be a luxury compared to standard watches, but that is for a reason. It is targeted to the high-end sportsmen and sportswomen, high-intensity multisport fanatics and plain and simple anyone who takes very seriously their workouts and needs a wealth of metrics and super accurate readings. Garmin Fenix 6X Pro specifications will blow your mind.

There are lots of things to admire about this watch like its big screen, which makes viewing topographical maps, metrics, and notification a lot easier. It’s perfect for outdoor adventures because of its battery life, which can last up to 60 hours on GPS. And don’t worry if it is running low because it has a solar-charged display to help in increasing its battery level. That is a really useful feature. More than just a sports watch, Fenix 6 Pro is a competitive smartwatch. It’s very rare to find a watch that delivers a great fitness tracking system with advanced add-on features.

The Garmin Fenix 5X is the pinnacle of outdoor adventure racing watches. The Fenix 5X solidly retains its membership in what we call the BAW (bad-ass watch) club with a size and shape similar to its predecessor, the Fenix 3 HR. It has the same round face and five-button layout (three on the left side, two on the right), a similar stainless steel bezel, and the identical sapphire crystal lens. The case of the 5X, which is water-resistant to 10 ATMS, measures 51 mm in diameter and is 17.5 mm thick, just like the Fenix 3 HR, and includes the same optical heart rate monitor on the back. With the 5X, Garmin has bumped up the resolution of the colour LCD screen from 218 x 218 pixels to 240 x 240 pixels, giving the new watch a noticeable increase in screen detail. The 5X also features Garmin’s new Quickfit watch band system that allows different bands to be swapped out quickly, easily, and without any tools.

Inside, the Garmin Fenix 5X  has all the tech. Like the other members of the Fenix 5 family, it includes preconfigured apps for tracking road cycling, mountain biking, walking, hiking, running (outdoors, treadmill, and indoor track), swimming (pool and open water), snowboarding, skiing (cross-country and downhill), stand-up paddling, rowing (outdoor and indoor), and yes, even golf. It also pairs via ANT+ to all manner of sensors including cycling power meters, cadence sensors, running dynamics pods, temperature sensors, and more. When paired with a compatible smartphone, it delivers smart notifications and text messages, as well of the first few lines of emails. And if what’s on the watch isn’t enough, the 5X is compatible with Garmin’s Connect IQ store, which is loaded with downloadable apps that can add even more functions to the watch.

Garmin is constantly upgrading the software on its GPS watches, so there is no reason to worry that the Fenix 5X will be outdated when the company announces its next version of the Fenix. Garmin’s solid history of giving older watches the same software upgrades that the newer watches get means the 5X will most likely remain full-featured for years to come.

Claiming to be Garmin’s most full-packed wearable, the Garmin Forerunner 945 is the best watch for professional athletes. Despite its lightweight and slim design, it is filled with incredible features you could ever wish for a sports watch. From sports tracking, color maps, and contactless payment, there is no doubt that this watch is one of a kind.

With so many great and interesting sports watches in the market today, Garmin wanted to upgrade its very own Forerunner 935 and released the all-mighty Forerunner 945. But it is more than just an upgrade, this watch has advanced features that are simply exceptional. All the basic features were amped-up to the next level.

Looking at the outside design of the Forerunner 945, there is no much difference with the workhorse the Forerunner 935 is. But when you pay attention to what goes on inside, you will realize how much it has improved in terms of features and functionality. The newly added mapping and Garmin Pay is a great addition which makes outdoor activities feel like a fun adventure. It is the perfect outdoor watch that brings something new to the table.

It is no surprise that Forerunner 945 is the best sports watch in Garmin’s line-up. It has all the great features of Fenix 5X, plus better battery life and in-depth fitness training, making it, in our opinion, a better sports watch overall. It is super comfortable to wear and it terms of looks, it doesn’t disappoint either.

With the Swim 2, Garmin continues to deliver high-end watches for outdoor and fitness activities, in this case specifically for water sports. The most anticipated swimming watch, the Garmin Swim 2, has the latest tracking system metrics, GPS on open water and swim-specific features which are exclusive for this model.

A lot of fitness trackers and sports watches have taken over the spot of the top Swim watch. It took many years for Garmin to release a follow up to the original but with Swim 2, it will easily regain its position at the top of swimming watches. The main goal of all training swimmers, whether professional or amateur, is to track their workouts in a smart and accurate way. The Garmin Swim 2 can monitor all sorts of health metrics throughout the workout. Garmin claims the Swim 2 will capture and process real-time heart rate monitoring but it suggests or recommends using one of its heart rate monitor Swim or Tri-chest strap monitors in order to achieve the best and most reliable accuracy.

When it comes to price, I can say that it is not overly expensive. If you compare it to other high-end sports watches, like Garmin Forerunner 945 or Fenix 6X Pro, this watch is way cheaper. The problem we find is that it lacks smartwatch features. For some people, this is a deal-breaker, for others who are purely interested in improving their swimming performance and couldn’t care less about smartwatch functionality (to be honest with you, how much of those you really ever use??) it might not be an issue at all. If you buy it, you’ll get a cracking watch, without a shadow of a doubt.

Though Garmin positions it as a running/triathlon watch, we discovered in our Forerunner 935 review a device equally adept at being a cycling computer, a hike navigator, or just a plain old smartwatch. During three weeks of testing, it did almost everything we asked it to do and did it darn well. The Garmin Forerunner 935 is an attractive, round-faced GPS multisport smartwatch that treats its copious internal technology with aesthetic humility. Featuring a glass lens, a fibre reinforced polymer case that’s water-resistant to 5 ATMs, and a silicone band, the Forerunner 935 has a customizable watch face sporting a 1.2-inch colour display with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels and includes watch basics like a timer, stopwatch, and up to 10 customizable alarms with audible and vibration alerts.

Size-wise, at 49 grams, the 935 is 8 grams heavier than the 735XT, but 36 grams lighter than the rugged Fenix 5. The 935 is 47 mm round and 13.9 mm thick, two mm wider and thicker than the 735XT, yet it’s 1.6 mm thinner than the Fenix 5. Garmin marketing may want to keep their running and outdoor watch segments separate, but the truth is the Forerunner 935 is nothing less than a Fenix 5 built for runners. It’s not as big and bold, nor as heavy, but on the inside, it’s every bit as capable.

There is so very little that Garmin gets wrong with the Forerunner 935 that it’s difficult to review this watch without sounding like a cheerleader. We’ve been Fenix fans since they launched, but we understand they are often too big for some people. The Forerunner 935 solves this by putting all the Fenix’s features into a lighter, thinner, smaller watch. This watch rides nicely on the wrist, doesn’t get caught up in jackets or sweaters, and never once did we worry about knocking someone’s teeth out when we rolled over in bed. We found ourselves depending on the Forerunner 935 for daily tasks ranging from the magical to the mundane, so much so that we can’t imagine how we got by without it.