As someone who wears my running watch all day everyday (mostly so I don’t forget to put it back on, plus I like getting the HR and sleep data) I love a watch that doesn’t immediately look like a fitness watch. And the look of the Garmin watches wins every time against the other top running watches on the market – in my opinion anyway.  I wore Garmin pretty much exclusively for 10 years and although I made the switch to Coros last year, it’s been really fun to try out the Garmin Forerunner 165 (thanks to Very.co.uk) to see if it can compete for my Best Beginner Running Watch slot! 

What is the Garmin Forerunner 165? 

The Forerunner range is Garmin’s entry level range of GPS watches however entry level does not mean you don’t get top level kit including pace, elevation, cadence, stride length, heart rate, sleep data, stress tracking, recovery and women’s health. 

The Forerunner 165 is a touch screen smart watch designed for road runners but boasting a range of other sports and features including Garmin Coach training plans, race pace tools and VO2 Max estimates. It is however missing some of the fitness watch features found in more premium ranges including training load, training readiness and training status.  

The Pros of the Garmin Forerunner 165

Price – honestly I think that’s a major factor when thinking about recommending a running watch for beginners. At £249 personally I think it’s really good value considering what you get for your bucks. (for context the Pace 3 is £219)

AMOLED screen – bright, colourful and very jazzy. This is a major upgrade compared to other Forerunners and sets it apart from the Coros Pace 3. 

Size/Weight – I really like the small watch face, it feels comfortable and compact, and, i love that the size and style means it can be worn everyday without drawing attention to itself. 

Accuracy – I found both the sleep data and the HR to be in line with the data on my Coros and Oura Ring. We are going through a sleep regression with my toddler at the moment so I do feel a bit trolled by the sleep data and it;s confirming what I already know…that I am exhausted right now and not getting anywhere near enough sleep to be recovering from marathon training. I also found the treadmill setting pretty accurate (it does this based of stride length) but always made sure to calibrate at the end of the run. 

Safety Features – this is something I really appreciate in a fitness watch – having the ability to add emergency contacts and simply hold the light button for 3 seconds to send them a GPS location alert. You can also select live tracking and auto incident detection (although I luckily haven’t had to test this one out!)

The Cons of the Garmin Forerunner 165 

No dual band GPS – many of the premium range have dual band GPS to improve GPS accuracy. I personally didn’t have an issue on my usual running routes but it did take a while to find GPS when I travelled to NYC and it clocked a slightly faster pace than the friend I was running with (compared to her Coros). 

No Triathlon Sports Mode – although you can use the watch for swimming, biking and running, you have to manually set these rather than the watch auto-detecting the movements. Not a big issue unless triathlon is your main sport. 

Battery life – During marathon training between long runs, easy runs and gym workouts it doesn’t quite last me a full week although it does suggest that depending on your usage you should be able to get 11 days of wear out of it or 19 hours of GPS power.  

The Verdict 

I’ve used it for the last 3 weeks of training on long runs, trail runs, a track session and treadmill workouts. Overall I’ve been really happy with the features, look and usage of the Garmin Forerunner 165 – and whilst it won’t replace my current Coros Pace Pro, its a watch I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.