Garmin - Venu 2 Plus

Venu 2 plus and I currently use a FR965

Metrics. The venu was cool for day to day stuff but I never got into most of the features so when I started running I upgraded to the FR

Since you’re a runner using Runna and want better battery life, the sweet spot is probably the Forerunner 265 if you want something light, run-focused and comes with AMOLED brightness which your Galaxy probably has. If you want more of a “smartwatch vibe” with a mic for calls then maybe the Venu 2 Plus is the only Garmin that adds voice assistant and call handling but its training metrics aren’t quite as deep as the Forerunner 955/965 series ones If I were you I’d also consider the Forerunner 955 or 965 for serious running and battery though, it’s pretty much the best watch you can get as a runner IMO or you could try [9 Best Smartwatches Worth Investing in 2025 for Running and Hiking](https://alaskanarrows.com/best-smartwatches-in-2025-for-hiking-and-running/) for others as well Cheers

Same. Got Venu 2 Plus. Still going strong. I don’t think I would update. Not groundbreaking features, but at crazy prices.

Venu 2 Plus, got it second hand for 50 Eurosat as a replacement for my broken vivoactive 4. Since I started running a lot more then before last year I'll go for the forerunner 970 this year, but I'll wait until the prices go down a bit

I left AW in 2023 because the battery life on my series 5 was failing and I wanted to try something different. I really liked the change in metrics and find the connect app pretty decent. My only complaint about the app would be its cloud based and wished data was actually stored on your phone. The battery life along on my Venu2+ is enough to keep me from going back. It’s all dependent on what features you love on you AW. Do you text on you watch or just read notifications? Do you want to run without your phone and are willing to pay for cellular on your watch? Are you looking to just stay healthy? If you’re more into the fitness metrics (which is what I got into) then Garmin will suit you and in a week you’ll forget about your AW. If you need all the snappy features of texting via your watch then you won’t like Garmin. However I have several friends who left AW for Venus and found that they enjoy them better. Besides battery life my biggest draw was to be able to set my goals how I wanted and focus on them. If Apple had let me set an actual step goal on my rings then maybe I would have stayed. Ultimately give your garmin a solid go for a few weeks. You may find you never needed the AW features after all

I not a hardcore runner but I recently got an forerunner 970 to replace my venu 2 plus

I recently switched from Garmin Venu 2 Plus to Amazfit Trex 3 Pro. I had been wanting a more rugged fitness tracker with a sapphire lens and a flashlight similar to Fenix 8. But honestly was really against dropping $1k for a watch. Hell that is iPhone Pro prices. I did lots of research and watched a lot of YouTube videos comparing the two. I went with the Amazfit simply because of the budget reasons. I was okay sacrificing a few things if I had to save $700. I'm not three weeks in and I'm pretty happy with my decision. The watch seems very well built and durable. The screen is phenomenal and the user interface is so fast and fluid. It's smoother than the Garmin for sure. The Zepp app is actually pretty good and after learning the bells and whistles I'm just as happy with it as I was Connect. The Trex 3 Pro has a lot of features and I haven't tried them all. But so far so good. I actually spent the first week wearing both of them to sleep and also wearing both while exercising to compare. I found them to be quite similar overall with most fitness metrics. The Amazfit Biocharge pretty closely mimicked Garmin body battery and the sleep scores were fairly similar too. Amazfit seemed to show more deep sleep and less REM when compared to Garmin. Not sure which one was more accurate though. Also the Amazfit counted less steps throughout the day and it made me wonder which one was more accurate. On one day my Amazfit read 10,069 steps while Garmin read 10,475. But a few small tests made me realize that maybe the Amazfit actually did a better job. On my 35 minute curvy road drive to work I watched the step counters in both watches. The Amazfit did not log a single step over the entire drive. Even with both watches on my left arm and driving with my left arm. The Garmin logged 45 steps during the same drive. So I think the Amazfit might be more accurate. Either way, I haven't seen anything with the Trex 3 Pro that makes me regret buying it. So far so good.

I switched to the Trex 3 Pro after using a Garmin Venu 2 Plus. Ive been using the Amazfit for about 4 months now. Overall I'm very happy but there are still a few things I prefer about the Garmin app. Mainly I. The workout graphs and tracks which I feel like Garmin does a better job with. The Trex 3 Pro is quite a bit bigger so that will take some getting used to. But the build quality is great and the sapphire screen is killer. The user interface is smoother on the Amazfit and the Zepp app includes a good AI food tracker which I really like. There are plenty of great watch faces for the Amazfit and May if Garmins most popular faces have been recreated for the Amazfit watches. I did several comparison tests while simultaneously wearing the two watches back in October or November. I will tell you with 100% certainty that my step count is about 10% lower with the Amazfit when compared to the Garmin. But my tests show that it actually the Garmin that counted a lot of false steps. But if you track a step goal it's a little frustrating at first.

Simplicity and better health functions - body battery, sleep, training. But mainly simplicity. In Apple to many apps - mainly paid ones. Also I was not using all features. Also gsm connection is very poor quality. So I came back to my old venu 2 plus and is great.

I just bought a used Venu 2 plus for $125 On eBay. Works perfect for me. It does have much of those features but also the basic health tracking

I was a Garmin watch wearer/user for about a decade. Various models, ended up with a Fenix 5, all was good. Work then introduced a healthcare policy and we all got free Apple Watch Series 7s for tracking. I tried it out for a month, loved the integration to Apple, sold the Fenix. Then about a year later, I hankered after something with better battery life. So I bought a Venu 2 Plus. I wore this for less than a day, missed the Apple integration hard, returned the Venu and bought an Apple Watch Ultra. I'm wearing that right now.