Apple vs Garmin | Smartwatch OR Sportswatch ft Apple Watch Ultra, Garmin Forerunner 965

What running watch should you get? And what ACTUALLY is the difference between a smartwatch and a sportswatch?

Join our resident tech nerd James as he demonstrates what the difference is and how it isn’t quite as easy as it once was to define. He puts two watches; the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin’s latest Forerunner 965 head to head.

↓↓ Do you use a smartwatch or a sports watch? What do you think watches will look like in 2025? Let us know in the comments! ↓↓

What's in this video?
00:00 Intro
00:39 The history of smartwatches and sportswatches
02:00 Price difference
02:28 Data
03:38 Apple vs Garmin ecosystem
04:30 Apple pay vs Garmin pay
04:50 Battery
06:48 Final thoughts
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[runningchannel]

Do you use a smartwatch or a sports watch? What do you think watches will look like in 2025?

[Zerc]

One thing these a lot these reviews tend to miss is that with an Apple Watch will only work with an Apple Phone while a Garmin Watch will work with both Apple and Android.

Garmin a clear winner in my books as it does not tie you to the Apple ecosystem. And, as mentioned in the video, the option to either use touch screen OR the buttons (which are sometimes more convenient) is a big plus.

[edwinchen]

The 965 is such a great watch for the price, looks beautiful (maybe subjective), light weight, rich feature, and great battery life. Love mine much!

[owenspottiswoode]

When I first started running a couple of years ago, what I wanted from my watch was the ability to see/track my running data, and to be able to leave my phone at home and still listen to music/pay for a coffee and croissant on the way home. As an Android user, I got the Samsung Galaxy watch and to be honest, it has mostly been really good. I'm sure you'd a get a few ticks of additional accuracy in your GPS and HR data from a Garmin (and you do sometimes have to wait a few seconds to get a GPS lock) but it's very close and for my purposes that additional accuracy wouldn't add a great deal. However as I now graduate from 5ks and 10ks to HMs and marathons the battery life is the real limiting factor: I'd worry about the battery draining away while getting round a marathon with music playing from my watch, which obviously is where the Garmin excels. So I may well make the step up to the Garmin in the next few months before I do the Richmond marathon in September, but for most runners doing shorter distances, I think the Galaxy Watch performs a lot better than most reviewers give it credit for.

[Stevenc]

Forerunner 235, even though it's fairly old now it's probably got more features than what I need already. I only ever use it for running.

[thiagocorreia]

I'm using Garmin Forerunner 965, it's just amazing! So beautiful, accurate, soft and practical. I am loving it.

[gregdarden]

Switched from the apple watch to a 955 Solar and don’t regret it. I hated having to charge every night and I like the garmin coach built in rather than the apple watch needing you to use another app to do workouts unless you just want to push the run button and figure it out. And i can see messages and notifications on my garmin and ignore them just like I did on my apple watch.

[siralator]

We have to wait until 5th of June, because Apple will surely introduce some changes with watchOS 10. I really hope that they will have a new feedback function instead of just raw data. If they do this and native maps I am sold. The user experience is waaay smoother than anything Garmin can ever offer.

[Caustictherapy]

I got a 245 for christmas and I love it .. I grew up on Polar and fitbits but I am liking the 965 so much I'm in half a mind to get one next year .. I am not a fan of the Apple system (and yeah I have used apple and android so dont wanna get into that argument) not that bothered about phone connectivity or apple/garmin pay (maybe cos I dont live in London and use the tube) and am not too bothered about gimmicky apps. So if I want a sports watch I will get a sports watch if I want fisher price toy on my wrist then I will get an Apple, no brainer sportswatch all the way

[vansteel]

I sold my Apple Watch and bought a FR965. Yes it has a lot of great features, but they become redundant when you’ve got your phone with you. I don’t need double notifications all the time. I ended up just turning off notifications for almost all apps because it got annoying. After that I pretty much only used the Apple Watch as a sport watch, so the switch to Garmin wasn’t very hard at all.

[SethKnox]

I currently switch between my Forerunner 955 and Instinct (keeping my old Instinct around is useful when I'm doing work where there's an increase risk of knocking and scraping the watch). For my use case, my sportswatches are ideal, since I wear them specifically for fitness data. I always have my mobile at hand, so I don't need the equivalent of a mobile phone on my wrist (not knocking those that do or want that, it's simply not something I need).

[adambowery]

Also, coming back to this as I watch it, the "accidental press" on the apple is a real problem.

[daroodedoo]

I’ve never had a dedicated sports watch, but I’m now on my third Apple Watch (currently an Ultra). I absolutely love it as, for me, it does everything I need it to do. The in-built running app is much improved compared to where it started, so customising the metrics on screen and then diving into them on my phone after a run is easy enough to do. On top of that, having Apple Music/Podcasts, being able to see all notifications easily and replying via Siri, as well as Apple Pay just means I can do more with it, as opposed to just using it for running and not much else. The battery life may never get to 23 days, but I get plenty out of it.

[paulhanson]

When I started running (5 or 10ks and park runs and half marathons) I loved it with my Android watch. First TicWatch and later Samsung Galaxy 4 watch. Great looking watches and cheap. Gps not perfectly accurate but everything was fine.
I did my first marathon last month and bought a Garmin (last year's forerunner and was cheaper) as i needed to be sure about more accurate GPS pacing and battery life above all. Actually love the proper buttons as i accidentally stopped runs with the touchscreen.

I wore both watches in the marathon, garmin was more for my run and the Samsung more for reading messages where family and friends would be around the course and for phone calls after to meetup.

[ChrisSh]

I wanted to love the two Garmins I tried (Venu 3 & the Forerunner 265) but it would count about 200-250 steps for a 20 minute drive. On a 2 hour drive, where I was the passenger and tried to stay as still as possible, I managed to get over 1000 additional steps. Also, I feel like the argument of how with a Garmin you don't need loads of separate apps is just false. Do you have a Peloton? Well, you'll need a subscription to synmyworkout. If you have an Apple Music sub then you're out of luck and will need to switch to Spotify. How about strength training? You can do it on the watch but it's not very good and the watch doesn't play nice with most other apps. It is the very definition of the phrase 'jack of all trades, master of none'. I really really wanted to like my Forerunner but it just felt like I was making all these compromises for the software and enduring awful UX with the watch. With the Apple Watch, I pick it up and it just works. On the car journeys where the Garmin was racking up huge numbers, the Apple Watch didn't count 1 additional step.

[travelingfit]

I've been an Apple Watch user for about 5 years. Considering my options for my next watch whenever my Apple Watch 5 gives up the ghost. I really like the Apple ecosystem though. Hoping the Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes out with double the battery life, which would make this an easy choice for me.

[Dwoollam]

Just bought a 965. I prefer the look and features. I’m also jumping ship from Apple soon to go pixel so it makes much more sense.

[fabianmolyneux]

Being a cyclist I use a Garmin Edge bike computer so having a Garmin watch is a bit of overkill for this activity. In this particular situation I opt for the apple watch Ultra, as it gives phone connection and pay functions, without needing to carry my phone. The apple watch also provides heart-rate data to the Garmin Edge. To this end, albeit it slight, I save some weight in not having to wear a chest strap and carry a phone.
I suspect an Apple watch Ultra would meet the needs of most sports activities of most sports persons. The 36 hour battery life provides more than enough power, aside from when doing the occasional ultra-sports event greater than 12 hours in duration

[regularcyclist]

Short runs its a Garmin / Coros/ Polar / Suunto only. Longer, training, runs its a Garmin / Coros/ Polar / Suunto on one wrist for tracking, pacing etc and an Apple Watch Ultra on the other for telephony and Apple Pay.