Garmin Vivoactive 4 vs. Venu vs. Forerunner 245: Which Should I Choose?

Garmin Vivoactive 4

Price for $329.99 at garmin.com.

General Specs

The Garmin Vivoactive 4 is the follow-up to Garmin’s super popular Vivoactive 3 and Vivoactive 3 Music fitness watches. The Garmin Vivoactive 4 is part of Garmin’s rapidly expanding range of touchscreen running watches, and sits in the middle of the lineup in terms of both price and features. It’s definitely more advanced than, say, the base model Vivomove 3 or Vivosmart 4, but also a notable step down from a more advanced watch like the Fenix 6 or the Forerunner 945.

The Vivoactive 4 is still significantly cheaper than the company's Fenix and Forerunner flagships, and smart changes to the controls mean you are much less likely to accidentally pause and stop exercise tracking with touchscreen swipes and prods. 

It’s a great fitness tracker, as long as you're happy to miss out on some of the month-to-month monitoring stats offered by Garmin's more advanced devices. 

Design and Specs

The Vivoactive 4 features a color touch screen with a durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3 lens, a comfortable textured silicone strap, a fiber-reinforced polymer case and polymer rear cover, and a stainless steel bezel. It's rated 5ATM for water resistance, meaning it can withstand pressure equivalent to a depth of 164 feet. It has an always-on display, and you can tap the screen to trigger the backlight. The interface has a sleek and simple look, with a dark background, mostly white text, and color icons.

As for aesthetics, it has a classic round watch design I like. It's compatible with standard quick-release bands, so you can swap out the silicone strap for something fancier if you prefer. It looks a lot like the Vivoactive 3 and Vivoactive 3 Music. But there are two major design differences between the Vivoactive 4 and its predecessor, the Vivoactive 3. The first is size: Garmin’s newest smartwatch comes in two sizes, a 40-mm option and a much larger 45-mm model. The Vivoactive 3 was offered in just one size, 43-mm. That makes the Vivoactive 4 more appealing to a wider variety of people. I tested the 40-mm version, which Garmin calls the Vivoactive 4S, and found it to be the perfect size for my small wrist.

The second design change is the addition of second side button. This button is a shortcut for your preferred exercises, and also acts as a start/stop button so you don’t have to jab at the touchscreen with sweaty fingers to pause or end your workout.

In terms of sensors, the Vivoactive 4 features an accelerometer, a barometric altimeter, a compass, GPS with GLONASS and Galileo satellite systems, a gyroscope, a heart rate monitor, and a pulse oximeter that gauges oxygen saturation in the blood. It tracks your calories burned, distance traveled, floors climbed, intensity minutes, sleep, steps, stress level, and more. In the Garmin Connect app (available for Android and iOS), you can even enable Abnormal Heart Rate Alerts, so it will notify you if your heart rate is unusually high or low. 

Price and Release Date

The Garmin Vivoactive 4 was announced in September 2019 at the IFA conference and it is a follow-up to 2017’s Vivoactive 3. 

It was priced at $349.99 (£259.99, AU$499.99) at launch, but can now be snapped up for around $300. 

The Vivoactive 4 is a good route to Garmin watch tracking without blowing a huge hole in your finances. If you want a more affordable alternative, you could opt for the Vivoactive 3, though this older model is now starting to get quite outdated.

The Garmin Vivoactive 4 are available on Garmin.com in Slate, and Silver color options.

Pros and Cons

Where to Buy Garmin?

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Garmin Venu

Price for $349.99 at garmin.com.

General Specs

The Garmin Venu is the first Garmin watch to feature an AMOLED display, and it's paired with a solid selection of fitness tracking and general smartwatch features that make this watch a great all-rounder.

With a brilliant display, strong battery life and a full suite of fitness features, it 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.

Garmin might be known for active wristwear, but its fitness trackers and running watches have been edging ever closer to smartwatch territory. Take the Garmin Vivoactive 4: with smart notifications, offline music, Garmin Pay and app support, the multi-sport ticker was just a few stops short of a fully blown smartwatch.

The Garmin Venu aims to complete that evolution with the addition of an unmissable AMOLED touchscreen. Sharp and vibrant, the distinctive display tips the Venu firmly into smartwatch territory. And, as you’d expect, it’s backed up by decent battery life and a full compliment of fitness features.

Design and Specs

Physically, the Garmin Venu is more of an understated tracker than a distinctive timepiece. Besides a grooved stainless steel band around the bezel, the circular polymer body is otherwise pared-back, bordering on generic – and it’s not instantly distinguishable from the Vivoactive 4.

You could easily wear the low-key Venu from gym to office without raising eyebrows: the 12.4mm depth means it sits slim beneath a sleeve, while the quick-release catch makes it easy to switch up your look with 20mm straps.

The metal ring around the case also adds a welcome hint of premium build quality, while the polymer construction ensures the Venu hits the scales at a featherweight 46.3g. Wear it all day and there’s little risk of wrist ache.

Unlike the Vivoactive 4, the Venu ships in just a single size. Some will find that restrictive, but the 43mm face offers a good balance between screen size and case dimensions, and it won’t dwarf smaller wrists – thanks in large part to the well-proportioned bezel around the 1.2-inch display.

The Venu released alongside the Vivoactive 4/4S has a 1.2 inches AMOLED powered display that offers such a highly interactive and lively display that’s captivating to watch. The Venu comes equipped with more fitness tracking features than the Vivoactive 3 which makes it a more comprehensive activity tracker. It also has a quite long battery life that lets you go long on a single charge while also being able to keep you connected to all that matters to you.

The 12.7 mm thick Venu supports touchscreen with two buttons by the side to aid navigation. The Venu is fully equipped with all the standard sensors to track your active life comprehensively with hydration tracking, respiration tracking, body battery energy monitor, 20 preloaded sport modes, and animated workouts that coach you through your favorite moves all added. While also being equipped with ANT+, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi to keep you connected to all that matters to you.

Price and Release Date

The Garmin Venu was unveiled in September 2019 and is available to buy now. It ships in four different color schemes: 

• Rose Gold Stainless Steel Bezel with Light Sand Case and Silicone Band

• Slate Stainless Steel Bezel with Black Case and Silicone Band

• Silver Stainless Steel Bezel with Granite Blue Case and Silicone Band

• Gold Stainless Steel Bezel with Black Case and Silicone Band

At launch, it was  $349.99 / AU$649 in the US and Australia. In the UK, the granite blue option costs £299.99, while the other colour variants will set you back the slightly higher price of £329.99.

The Garmin Venu is essentially the Garmin Vivoactive 4, but with a much better display. Size-wise, the Venu (43mm case) sits between the Vivoactive 4S (40mm case) and the Vivoactive 4 (45mm case). 

Pros and Cons

Garmin Forerunner 245

Price for $299.99 at garmin.com.

General Specs

The Garmin Forerunner 245 is the successor to the 235, which since mid-2015 has been a popular pick for runners. Bursting with features, the Forerunner 245 squeezes a lot into such a compact and lightweight device. It doesn’t come cheap - especially for a watch made predominantly from plastic. But if you can get over this, it should deliver pretty much everything you’d need from a fitness tracker as long as you’re not super serious about your training, or too bothered about immensely detailed running stats.

Bursting with features, the Forerunner 245 squeezes a lot into such a compact and lightweight device. Then again, it doesn’t come cheap - especially for a watch made predominantly from plastic. But if you can get over this, it should deliver pretty much everything you’d need from a fitness tracker as long as you’re not super serious about your training, or too bothered about immensely detailed running stats.

For starters, the Garmin Forerunner 245 tracks more sports than before, including strength training and swimming. It also gives you better feedback on your training to help you tell if your load is too low or too high, as well as daily stress insights and an indication of whether you should be resting or not, thanks to Garmin’s Elevate heart rate sensor.

Best of all though, it has been given a battery upgrade, lasting more than twice as long as its predecessor when GPS is active. 

Design and Specs

The Forerunner 245 is a lightweight fitness-focused smartwatch with a decent-looking design, loaded with lots of activity tracking features including a pulse ox sensor that tracks blood oxygen, body energy monitor, and incidental fall detection while having a quite impressive long battery life that lets you go longer on a single charge. The Forerunner 245 is the lower-end version of the higher-end Forerunner 245 Music with onboard music storage capacity.

With pulse ox and a broad range of other sensors onboard, the Forerunner 245 is able to track quite a huge number of activities that include blood oxygen while sleeping which results in more accurate and detailed sleep tracking data, calories, stress, and fitness age. It also features incidental fall detection that can help you get the needed help when a fall has occurred, as well as the body energy monitor that monitors your body energy to help you find the perfect time to train and LiveTrack that allows you to invite other members of the Garmin Connect community.

The Forerunner 245 is lightweight and sturdy with the case made of reinforced fiber-polymer, and 20mm interchangeable silicone straps, while Corning Gorilla glass mounts the screen to offer protection for the display.

The Forerunner 245 is compatible with both android and iOS devices, and its keeps you connected to all that matters to you so that you never get to miss important updates.

Price and Release Date

The Garmin Forerunner 245 costs $299.99 in the US, which was released in 2015. 

The Garmin Forerunner 245 are available on Garmin.com in Berry, and Slate Gray color options.

Pros and Cons

Garmin Vivoactive 4 vs. Venu vs. Forerunner 245

Price

• Garmin Vivoactive 4 for $329.99

• Venu for $349.99

• Forerunner 245 for $299.99

Design & Build

The overall look is one of the defining features of the models. The FR245 does look considerably nicer than its previous generation, but it can’t compete with the sleek appearance of the Vivoactive or Venu.

Then with the Venu, you also have that bright AMOLED display. Again, this shows how the watches are positioned for different people. If you want a smartwatch that looks great but also has some great fitness features, the Venu is a good solution.

HRM & GPS

All the models launched this year include the new Garmin Elevate V3 optical HR sensor which allows the PulseOx for 24×7 blood oxygen tracking.

They have also all been upgraded to the Sony GPS chipset which is supposed to offer lower battery drain.

Battery

Garmin Vivoactive 4:

• Smartwatch mode: Up to 8 days

• GPS mode with music: Up to 6 hours

• GPS mode without music: Up to 18 hours

Venu:

• Smartwatch mode: Up to 5 days

• GPS mode with music: Up to 6 hours

• GPS mode without music: Up to 20 hours

Forerunner 245:

• Smartwatch Mode: Up to 7 days

• GPS mode: Up to 24 hours 

Compatible Accessories

The official Garmin list states the Vivoactive and Venu are compatible with HRM Dual, then speed and cadence sensor for the bike.

The FR245 is compatible with HRM-Run, and the various footpods.

None of the models are compatible with cycling power meters.

Which Should I Choose?

The Forerunner 245 is a great choice for more competitive runners who want specific training metrics and longer battery life. If you’re a trail runner, you’ll also appreciate the trail-specific features, but be aware that the elevation data won’t be 100% accurate due to the lack of altimeter.

The Venu is a beautiful lifestyle watch that is a better choice for those who want that crisp display. It can also support serious runners, but you just can’t expect the same amount of training metrics. Other benefits include the altimeter for more accurate elevation data, and the additional training profiles like skiing.

Overall, there is no stand out watch, each one caters for a different user.

If you are looking for a smartwatch that looks great and offers superior battery life plus fitness tracking features than WearOS or other brands, then the Venu or Vivoactive are a good choice. The Venu appealing to people that want that bright AMOLED display found on most smartwatches.

For people more into fitness, and wanting better insight on their performance, then the FR245 will be better suited to you.

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