This Affordable Garmin Sports Watch Performs Way Better Than It Should - Especially For 20% Off

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is now priced astatine $199.
The watch is mini and lightweight, has a vibrant AMOLED display, 19 hours of GPS artillery life, and features extended support for running.
I conscionable wish location were much sports modes.

Garmin continues to modernize its various watch bid pinch beautiful and vibrant show options, this clip putting an AMOLED sheet connected 1 of its entry-level moving watches, nan Garmin Forerunner 165 (currently discounted to $199 for Black Friday, down from $249) and Garmin Forerunner 165 Music (now down to $249 from $299).

With it, 1 of nan company's astir compact watches, perfect for those pinch smaller wrists aliases who for illustration thing lighter weight, now has an moreover amended show to thief visualize your fittingness tracking, metrics, and more

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The Forerunner 165 launched astatine $249, and nan 165 Music is $50 much astatine $299. I spent a week utilizing both, and present are my biggest takeaways, including which of nan 2 you should buy.

To navigate nan Forerunner 165, some a touchscreen interface and accepted five-button controls are provided. All of nan customizations I've seen connected erstwhile Garmin watches, including nan much costly ones, are besides available, truthful it's alternatively straightforward to group up workouts and optimize your training plans.

Of each nan sports and fittingness plans, nan Forerunner 165 is astir focused connected supporting runners, pinch features for illustration adaptive training plans, wrist-based moving powerfulness and dynamics tracking, training effect, people support, and more. 25 activity profiles are besides provided for activities for illustration swimming, pickleball, yoga, and pilates, but I couldn't find thing for much circumstantial tasks for illustration indoor rowing, which is presently my superior exercise. In that case, I wasn't capable to way my workouts pinch nan watch.

A characteristic I really enjoyed utilizing was "Morning report," which provided a summary of my erstwhile time and evening's tracking, on pinch nan training scheme for nan time of. Sleep monitoring pinch slumber scores and nap discovery were besides invited features to have. Metrics specified arsenic training effect and betterment clip will thief you understand nan complete image of your wellness and wellness, and they're things I for illustration to support successful mind arsenic I scheme my activities during nan day.

Garmin advertises up to 19 hours of GPS tracking, and successful nan mates of times I ran, I was capable to get a akin estimate. In watch mode, you whitethorn spot up to 11 days of artillery life, but enabling nan always-on show will apt trim that number successful half.

The Forerunner 165 Music exemplary I tested supports offline euphony retention from Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music, truthful you tin watercourse to a Bluetooth headset pinch nary telephone relationship required. Audio prompts from guided workouts aliases capacity alerts are besides exclusive to nan 165 Music model, truthful it's worthy keeping successful mind. I often play Amazon Music done my Suunto bony conduction headset during workouts and person recovered nan audio support invaluable.

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On some models, women's wellness search features, including menstrual rhythm and gestation tracking, are available. While nan Forerunner 165 is excessively mini for my ample wrists, it's awesome to spot much assortment and options for those who want a smaller watch pinch akin functionalities arsenic Garmin's much costly wearables.

Lastly, I've been testing nan Forerunner 165 pinch nan redesigned Garmin Connect app and nan package looks great, pinch civilization glimpse widgets, training scheme position up beforehand and visible, and cardinal information coming connected nan location screen.

ZDNET's buying advice

Garmin has a wide scope of wearables fresh for each customer. The Forerunner 165 is still connected that list, moreover aft a twelvemonth since release, pinch a attraction connected runners and users pinch smaller wrist sizes. Garmin's immense ecosystem and each of its cardinal wellness and wellness features are supported connected some variants, but that's not moreover nan champion part. The $249 starting value is competitive, particularly considering each that Garmin has to connection successful its smartphone app and ecosystem.