Garmin’s first-ever GPS AMOLED smartwatch, the Garmin Venu, is now reduced to £200 – as cheap as it was over Black Friday

Great functions and battery life. Able to navigate easily . Good ergonomic functions.

BERLIN—You might still think of GPS devices when you think of Garmin, but at IFA this year, the company is all about smartwatches. That includes updates to existing lines like the Vivoactive and Vivomove series, and more excitingly, the entirely new, high-end Garmin Venu. We got our hands on some of these watches at the show and have some initial thoughts to share. Garmin Venu The Venu (pictured above) is the real showstopper here. It boasts a beautiful 1.2-inch AMOLED touch display. While you can navigate its interface by swiping around on the screen, a button on the side is used to go back and to quickly trigger lap counting when swimming. Under the hood is a heart rate monitor, an NFC chip for Garmin Pay, GPS, and a battery that provides up to five days of power. There are over 20 different exercise modes to track activities like running, swimming, golfing, biking, and more. With an on-device workouts feature, you can follow along to exercises that are animated on the displa...

With a brilliant display, strong battery life and a full suite of fitness features, the Garmin Venu is one of the best all-round activity trackers. While its app library and touch interface won’t trouble the Apple Watch, the Venu is also a stellar smartwatch for those of a sporting disposition. It's also superior to the similarly named Garmin Venu Sq when it comes to both looks and functionality, with storage for up to 500 songs and a wide range of navigational sensors for outdoor adventures.

Vibrant AMOLED display; Full suite of fitness features; Offline music support;

Design is slightly generic; Limited range of apps; Touchscreen can be fiddly

The screen and sports-tracking features are impressive, but the Venu lacks the smarts to really compete with the Apple Watch

Vibrant, always-on AMOLED screen; Music playback with Spotify support; Guided workouts with animations;

Shorter battery life than other Garmin watches; Same features as Vivoactive 4; Limited app store;

With GPS, cool health features—and an awesome display—the Garmin Venu is a good fitness-focused smartwatch for most people. This Garmin Venu has shown that it's the best-looking smartwatch for people who are obsessive about their health.

Accurate GPS, Onboard music storage, Good battery life, Sleep monitoring

Manual water tracking, Not as many smartwatch features as Apple Watch

It could hardly be better: the Garmin Venu boasts of almost all the features that a hobbyist sportsperson can only dream of in a chic looking device. The larger models from the Fenix series, for example, offer a longer battery life and a few additional functions, such as running analysis or trail...

All-round beautiful and functional design; Comprehensive tracking features; Great training plans; Exellent software

Ecosystem not particularly open; Battery has issues

Great watch that has everything you need. Very light weight and looks good.

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- Connectivity is weak, text response doesn't apply to an Apple iPhone; Garmin Pay is unavailable in the Malaysian market.