Garmin Venu is a 'true' Apple Watch rival - but with far more fitness features

(Image credit: Garmin)

The Garmin Venu has just been announced at IFA 2019, packed with all the features you’d expect from a Garmin smartwatch, along with an AMOLED display.

That second point is worthy of note as it’s the first Garmin smartwatch with an AMOLED screen, and that 1.2-inch display promises more vibrant visuals than is typical of the brand.

Garmin also claims that the Venu has the broadest range of 24/7 health monitoring features available on the market. These include sleep and respiration tracking, abnormal heart rate alerts, stress tracking, menstrual cycle tracking, relaxation reminders, hydration tracking, and more.

(Image credit: Garmin)

The Garmin Venu also sports the brand’s Body Battery feature, allowing you to monitor your energy levels to help with planning when to work out and when to rest.

You also get 40+ on-device animated workouts, with the ability to download more and create your own. And the basics are covered here too, including GPS, a heart rate monitor, and support for tracking numerous sports, such as running, strength training, yoga, and more.

The Garmin Venu also has breathwork activities to help you relax, and it doesn’t skimp on the smartwatch side, as it can display notifications from your phone, lets you download songs and playlists to your wrist for phone-free listening, and supports contactless payments through Garmin Pay.

The Venu promises up to 6 days of life in smartwatch mode or up to 6 hours when using GPS and music - which is far lower than many other Garmin watches around at the moment, which use far less battery-hungry screens to save power.

It will be available starting at $399.99/£299.99 (around AU$540) from Q4 (so October-December) in black with gold hardware, light sand with rose gold hardware, granite blue with silver hardware, or black with slate hardware.

You might want to check out Apple Watch vs Garmin comparison.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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