Garmin
Forerunner 255 Series
Long battery; but wrist HR tracking is inconsistent.

Running these analyses costs money. Buy through my links to help keep lights on! I may get a small commission.
No summary available.
It's fantastic, using it regularly for mountain biking, hiking, climbing. Kinda like the styling and doesn't shout "coros" on the dial like the apex series. It's very light.
Maps are great 👍👍👍👍👍 very very useful!
I've just moved from a Pace 3 to a Nomad and, honestly, they're cracking pieces of kit. I've not had any issues with them since moving to Coros watches in February. For trails I would lean towards at least the Pace Pro or the Nomad/Apex 4 (they're basically the same) simply due to offline maps. Either way, Coros or Garmin, there's a device that meets your needs at a price you are willing to pay.
I've just moved from a Pace 3 to a Nomad and, honestly, they're cracking pieces of kit. I've not had any issues with them since moving to Coros watches in February. For trails I would lean towards at least the Pace Pro or the Nomad/Apex 4 (they're basically the same) simply due to offline maps. Either way, Coros or Garmin, there's a device that meets your needs at a price you are willing to pay.
"No Feature locking" is not true. Fishing modes are not shipped to all watches, just Nomad and vertix. Also other activity modes are not available on all watch models although it is not a hardware issue
He might be saying that because of how expensive a new Garmin is. If money is no object for you and you're giving it to him as a gift then a Forerunner 970 is a far superior watch. If he really wants to try Coros, he should do it with his own money and buying it from somewhere that you can return it without paying a restocking fee or shipping such as REI (in-store returns) or Amazon. I'm coming from Garmin and I've been pretty happy with my Coros Nomad, though there are a lot of mostly UI quirks. Functionality wise it's FAR better than Suunto and close but not quite there to Garmin. There is at least 1 completely dealbreaking flaw for me which is that the fonts are way too small in certain places and can't be increased. I can't read my notifications at all which kind of kills all the smartwatch functionality for me.
Interesting choice with the Apex 4, I think the Nomad is a better and cheaper watch 🙂 although I'm a sucker for a ruggedized plastic watch.
I returned my Coros Nomad because the font was just too small. They make pretty decent products but they fall short of Garmin with not being customizable in quality of life ways such as font size, screen brightness (way too bright), beep sounds (too loud and can't turn off or make quieter), and their watch faces aren't customizable.
I took a leap of faith and purchased a Coros nomad instead of a garmin instinct as my first “running” watch. I love it so far. It has all the same capabilities as a Garmin so far. I run a lot of trails and I can download a route from my phone and it uploads to my watch fast. That being said I did have to download the region maps that I live in order for the GPS to have the most accurate streets. It’s got several preset watch faces to choose from. There is a few customization options. But I’m a newbie so all I need on my everyday watch face is date time and step count. It also displays battery life. Battery life is great. I’ve logged 25 miles in a week with the GPS option on showing me the routes and street names when I did do road running. I’m at 55% after logging those runs and also playing with the watch learning it lol. As far as selecting workouts it’s super easy. You can modify your watch to have only the activities you do. It’s a simple 3 clicks on the dial and you’re started. During the runs there super clear display screens and you can easily select which ones to use by rotating the dial. It will even display live map while you run. Each mile you hit it gives you a notification screen with how many miles, that mile pace and overall pace. Ending the run or activity is just as easy, simply hold the dial. The application on the phone is super easy to navigate. It allows you to permission Coros to send your run Data to Strava easily and there’s only about a 30 second delay once you complete the activity. There’s several other app options I just prefer Strava. Updating the watch is super easy from the app. It manages the watches storage which comes with a 32GB storage out the box. I downloaded four region maps and only used 125MB so overall I feel they have optimized this really good. Also it is easy to access to the app to shut off functions of the watch you do not use to optimize battery life.
Garmin
Forerunner 255 Series
Long battery; but wrist HR tracking is inconsistent.

Garmin
Forerunner 955 Series
Best value, clear MIP screen; limited smartwatch features.

Garmin
Fenix 7 Series
Durable, multi-week battery, flashlight; high price, buggy software.
Garmin
Instinct 2 Series
Rugged, solar multi-week battery; bulky, small screen readability issues.

Garmin
Enduro 3
Multi-week solar battery, lightweight; but bulky form factor.

Ranked #1
Oura - Oura Ring Series

Ranked #1
Apple - Ultra Series

Ranked #1
Garmin - Enduro 3

Ranked #1
Garmin - Fenix 7 Series

Ranked #1
Garmin - Forerunner 255 Series

Ranked #1
Oura - Oura Ring Series