The operating display actually shines on the Forerunner 265, however I used to be additionally an enormous fan of the power display. You possibly can customise that, too, however the default works nice for me: It exhibits your coronary heart price, a graph of the place that falls in your coronary heart price zones, time elapsed throughout your set, and reps. As soon as your first set is finished, you press a button to finish it, and also you’re given the choice to edit your variety of reps (your watch counts this for you primarily based in your motion, although it’s not at all times correct) and fill within the quantity of weight you used. In between units, the time elapsed per set modifications to time in your relaxation interval, which I discovered to be actually useful to ensure I’m taking sufficient of a breather. After your exercise, you’ll be able to see within the app what number of units and reps you probably did at which weight for every train, making monitoring development very easy.
Accuracy
Accuracy is significant in a operating watch, and I discovered the distance-based GPS to be proper on course: I used this watch a number of occasions at a well-liked path that’s labeled each half mile, and every time I handed these markers, my watch’s distance matched up completely. I usually run a set loop round my neighborhood, and my ultimate distance by no means diverse greater than a hundredth or two of a mile.
I additionally discovered its coronary heart price information to be very correct. In a whole lot of watches I’ve tried, I’d typically discover bizarre coronary heart price drops throughout intervals or quick occasions of more durable effort, however my Forerunner 265 by no means glitched like that.
Battery life
I’m spoiled by how hardy my Garmin Venu 2 is in regard to retaining a cost, so I anticipated no much less from the Forerunner 265, and it held up: I just about solely totally cost it twice per week or so, typically extra if I simply plop it onto the charger for a fast enhance of juice whereas I’m preparing. A ten-minute top-off earlier than a run, for example, introduced me from 42% all the best way to 60%. Exercise doesn’t sap an entire lot of battery, both. I began a 35-minute indoor bike session at 11%, then after my exercise was over, it was simply all the way down to 10%. Plenty of health tracker smartwatches actually hemorrhage battery life—a lot so that you simply nearly have to cost them each day—so Garmin’s resilience is a welcome break.
Consolation and elegance
The Garmin Forerunner 265 is a workhorse, and, effectively, it type of appears like one. Regardless that I attempted this within the smaller 42-mm-case dimension, it nonetheless has a rugged, purposeful silhouette—for those who’re wanting primarily for a dainty, fairly health tracker to put on to work or whereas out operating errands, this in all probability isn’t going to be the very best one for you.
As for consolation, although, I actually loved this watch. The silicone sports activities band shouldn’t be as stiff or onerous as a number of the others I attempted; it’s truly fairly stretchy and has a whole lot of give.
Water resistance
The Forerunner 265 is made to face up to water stress as much as 50 meters—greater than sufficient to trace exercise for a lot of totally different sorts of off-land sports activities. I’m not a swimmer, I can’t touch upon the way it holds up throughout these exercises, however I did bathe in it each day and put on it whereas hanging out in each a pool and an ocean the place the gadget was submerged, and it dealt with it simply effective.
Particular options
Together with monitoring exercise, the Forerunner additionally supplies a bunch of well being metrics—and a few actually enjoyable extras:
Operating information
The Forerunner 265 permits you to create operating exercises on the app—establishing your warm-up, interval length and goal tempo, variety of repeats, and cooldown—and sync it seamlessly to your watch. To me, this can be a recreation changer. I not too long ago did a exercise with quick one-minute sprints, and earlier than this I’d need to maintain wanting down at my watch to maintain time, which might break my stride and stress me out. With this function, my watch began to vibrate 5 seconds earlier than the interval was up, and alerted me through voice (it connects through Bluetooth to earbuds) when my interval was truly carried out. It additionally helpfully advised me when my tempo was lagging exterior my goal. (Then again, if the considered a literal voice in your ear telling you to rush up is extra anxiety-inducing than motivating, you’ll be able to skip together with tempo targets, which I’ll in all probability do some occasions.)