Great wellness features ; Premium build ; Superb battery life

Lightweight sports metrics ; Some patchy sleep data ; Not as slick as Apple Watch/Samsung

The Garmin Venu 3 is a superb premium smartwatch. It’s aimed less at the fanatical athletic performance crowd, and instead offers the best interpretation of wellness data I’ve seen on a Garmin so far, and a great alternative to Oura and Whoop. However,...

It’s not too big or bulky ; Provides access to Garmin’s in-depth fitness and health tools ; Smartphone notifications ; Beautiful AMOLED screen

Lacks navigational tools ; Watch faces feel cheap compared to rivals ; Basic looks

Billed as a capable all-rounder, the latest Venu 3 is about as close to a proper smartwatch as Garmin gets. It offers features like Garmin Pay, music from the wrist and smartphone notifications without turning its back on the brand’s fantastic fitness,...

Great fitness, health and recovery analysis ; Long battery life ; Contactless payments and offline music support ; Support for Android and iPhone ; 5ATM waterproof

Plain design ; Could be smoother and more responsive ; No wireless charging

With its comprehensive health tracking, excellent sleep analysis and recovery data, the Venu 3 is a stella fitness-focused smartwatch. The fact it can go two weeks between charges, and offers music and payments too rounds out a truly excellent wearable.

Long battery life ; Comprehensive health and sleep metrics ; Helpful reports and insights like Body Battery and Morning Report ; Large screen ; No subscription required to access health metrics and reports

Design doesn't feel as premium as other similarly priced watches ; Small app ecosystem ; Slow app downloads ; Separate apps for managing health insights and watch faces ; No home button

Comfortable, comes in two sizes ; Looong battery life! ; Excellent GPS accuracy ; Heart rate measurements are also very accurate ; Gorgeous OLED screen

Interface feels VERY outdated ; Plastic body might feel a bit cheap to some ; A digital crown would have been nice ; Poor selection of watch faces ; Not possible to tap on complications

Ridiculously long battery life ; Onboard speaker for calls ; Store entire playlists or audiobooks ; GPS connectivity to track outdoor runs, walks

Proprietary charger ; No crown controls

As one of today’s more expensive general-use smartwatches, Garmin was under a lot of pressure to perform and perform exceptionally well compared to competing watches, especially competing watches from native smartphone brands.

I will say the price similarity between the Garmin Venu 3 and Garmin Forerunner 265 may complicate the choice for those runners in the market for a smartwatch. I’d say that for training or goal-oriented needs, the Forerunner is the best option. But for...