Garmin - Forerunner 165
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Reddit Reviews:
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Based on 1 year's data from Feb 15, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
29
2
"budget friendly option. ... the 165 is amazing for the price!!"
"The 165 has a lot of features but is still classed as within their budget range. Not sure where you are but I paid £200 for mine."
"for less than half of the price."
45
7
"Oh, and the battery lasts days even when exercising a lot (weeks without excercise)."
"Battery good enough to withstand long run in winter (AW tended to have problems in 30+ km runs in cold, not Garmin) ... Forerunner asks me if to go to power saving mode, when there are "just two days left" :)"
"I get close to a month from my forerunner on standby - about 2 weeks with daily workouts. ... the battery life lasts a really nice length of time ... As a fitness wearable Garmin... destroys Apple on battery life. ... There’s really no sensible person running Tris or Marathons using an Apple Watch. The battery life is too poor to last reliably. If you go to the starting like of a marathon you’re really only going to see actual fitness brands on wrists due to battery life alone."
37
7
"If body tracker and sleep tracking are the main points I would say Garmin. For me body battery has always been spot on."
"It would be perfect for tracking sleep"
"way better at determining sleep duration ... I find start time is rock solid and seldom gets fooled"
24
6
"outside is perfect."
"Haven’t lost GPS on a run with the garmin yet."
"The forerunner will meet and exceed all your needs except one."
20
0
"Now that I have AMOLED I don't really want to go back, especially if part of my deal is wanting maps."
"the screen was excellent and a nice upgrade over my previous Garmins."
"I prefer the amoled over the Mip, and have no problem with visibility in the sun, at all."
Disliked most:
1
7
"even if the reps and weight aren't calculated perfectly ... found with dumbbells the reps were only a couple off ... Machines it sucks at ... I also don't know how it could count reps on a squat machine, leg extension, etc. ... leg stuff it makes sense it wouldn't be amazing at it ... With arm stuff it generally does good counting but may be one or two off"
"The only criticism I have is that it’s mainly just for running. I lift and do strength training (it has that feature to, but it isn’t that accurate)."
"it’s too fiddly, prone to errors, and doesn’t provide me the same information I get by writing down my lifts & how I felt."
1
9
"Well that's just ridiculous 😅 it tracks your VO2 max but hides the thing (training status) that indicates if you're doing the right levels of exercise to improve it?"
"I bought and returned a 165 ... and got the 570 for the coaching, recovery and additional training metrics"
"IIRC it had some analysis missing, either running metric such as vertical movement, left right balance a d ground contact time and or on watch running power estimation."
0
5
"This!!! I bought a 165 and refunded it because the lack of powermeter."
"the lack of powermeter support made me swith to 265 rather fast."
"cannot connect to bicycle power meters"
5
3
"Garmin is lacking in sleep tracking as well. ... All were terrible at sleep tracking for me. ... I found Garmin had me getting terrible sleep every night, never catching my actual sleep properly and having me sleep when I was wide awake. ... The nap feature was a total disaster for me, giving me 3-4 naps daily while I was a work at my desk, certainly not sleeping."
"wake time is rock solid as long as using morning report - cause as soon as you access morning report it switches off sleep - so if you wake up and want to go back to sleep don't access morning report"
"I have a fr165 and my friend has a fenix 7, we both have erratic sleep tracking at times"
2
3
"it hardly lasts 5 days 😭"
"My forerunner lasts like 3 days 🫠"
"battery is "great for a smartwatch, meh for a Garmin". ... Some models can last 3 weeks easily if you don't do a lot of gps activities, so 165 is not great here."
A1naruth 1.0FR 165 may be missing some more advanced options, but it should match your needs and budget (barely). Personally I would go for second hand FR255. If you care a lot about HR, especially during intervals, buy arm monitor like Polar OH1+ in addition to a watch. It is quite cheap, easily pairs with all Garmins and tests prove it is more reliable than almost any watch on the market.
All true except advanced metrics. They are also present in Fenix (it has even more features for hiking) and Instinct. Forerunner is not more advanced. The rugedness is mostly about the bezel. In fenix and instinct it has a rim which gives extra protection to the screen. But that means rugged watches are more bulky what can be a problem in the gym. The real question is lightness of forerunner vs battery life of fenix /instinct
AaeJay83 1.0Forerunner 165 is great for running.
Accomplished-Air-773 1.0Forerunner 55 for the absolute basics. Forerunner 165 is the cheapest with a AMOLED screen. Forerunner 255, 265, 955 and 965 are just discontinued. In my opinion 955 is the most value for money as it includes mapping. 965 is the same watch as the 955, but with an AMOLED screen. If you don’t need mapping, then go for the 265. It is the same as the 965, but without maps. So if you can find a 955 that would be your best bet in my opinion. Forerunner 570 and 970 introduce unnecessary features, such as microphone & speaker, sapphire glass, shiny metal bezels all of which add nothing to running but do increase the price.
Advanced_Doubt_1111 1.0Overkill? Apple is an overkill on price, meaning it is underkill on value. I got an SE and later stopped using it once i started using forerunner 165 garmin (which is ugly but super functional)
Aedon2hg 1.0So if you are mostly doing gym and park workouts a Forerunner 165/265, a Suunto Run or a Coros Pace 3 would likely fit your needs. Suunto automatically calculates your speed vs other times on the same route to see if you are faster or slower much like Strava premium except that it’s free. The Pace 3 and Suunto Run will let you put MP3s on them if you like to listen to music. For Garmins you would have to make sure you have a music model to do that and Garmin has Spotify. The Pace 3 and Suunto Run are really light at about 30g and 36g and the Forerunner 165 is 39g. The watches are about Forerunner is 43mm while the pace 3 is 41.9 while the Suunto Run is technically 46mm but looks the same as the Race S which is 45mm (but weighs a lot more at 60g and 53g depending on model).
Affectionate_Newt_23 1.0Talong talo naman sa battery na daily kailangan mo icharge haha. We can't have nice things talaga. Yun lang naging factor ko kaya I went with FR165
Alakazam 1.0How cheap is cheap? A Garmin 165 can be had for under 200usd on sale, which is the cheapest I'd go for a decent fitness watch. A coros pace 3 is slightly above that. Second hand, you can probably find em for around 100-150, but that's always a crapshoot. Have you thought about just running with a flipbelt? You can find em for 20-30 bucks, and they hold the phone snug against you.
I've gotten a lot more consistent with my running with my Garmin forerunner. Week long battery life, and basic notifications. I don't think there exists any watch that tracks lifting correctly though.
Do you want a smartwatch with some fitness tracking, or a fitness trakcer with smartwatch features? There is no good watch for tracking lifting. Garmin is probably the best fitness tracker of the bunch, with a couple of smartwatch features. Depending on the model, the battery life typically lasts anywhere from 5-14 days. Apple watch is the best smartwatch out of the bunch. It's also a decent fitness tracker. But the battery life is only going to be about 2-3 days.
Again, there is no watch that will track your lifting well. You will spend more time fiddling with the watch between sets compared to just using a spreadsheet on a phone or something. The metrics that smartwatches best track are cardio-related, unfortunately. Regarding recommendations, I will always recommend the most basic and cheapest Forerunner that you can get. Small, light, has basically everything that a more expensive one will have other than multi-band GPS. But unless you're running or cycling a lot, it's really not a big deal.
Alert_Information407 1.0I got the garmin 165 on sale and love it. I switched from an Apple Watch because of the battery life. Because I have to charge the Apple Watch daily I never wore it. With the garmin I charge it once a week or so and wear it all the time.
altair_88 1.0If you want accuracy coros pace3/garmin 165, a pod and a heart rate sensor, the price will be equivalent to 265s but this will be the most accurate setup.
Alternative_Panda_61 1.0I got a forerunner 165 on one of the spring prime day sales on Amazon.
I’ve been really happy with it. It tracks my activity better than my Apple Watch, and the battery lasts several days. I got one for the same reasons, and it’s helped me with my groove for running. I’ve actually done a 5k, which as a 41f who’s always been sedentary until age 37 when I decided fck this.
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