Garmin Forerunner 165 review

The Garmin Forerunner 165 emerges as a new multisports watch in Garmin’s range and is now the cheapest way to pick up a Forerunner with an AMOLED touchscreen display, as Garmin continues to spread colour across its range.

Sitting in between its AMOLED-free, entry level Forerunner 55 and the Forerunner 255, the 165 is significantly cheaper than the pricey Garmin Forerunner 265, after Garmin added an AMOLED to its previous midrange watch option.

So the Forerunner 165 is pitting itself against the excellent Coros Pace 3 and the similarly solid Polar Pacer. Has Garmin sewn up another price spot for runners who want an AMOLED running watch for far less money than the Forerunner 265 and 965?

Design & Build

• Weighs 39g
• 43mm case only
• Comes in music and non-music options

The Forerunner 165’s design is very much in keeping with other Forerunners that have recently been given the colour screen treatment. It’s an undeniably sporty-looking watch with the polymer case available in four different colours if you opt for the music version, or two colours for the non-music edition.

Both versions come in just a 43mm case size, meaning it’s smaller than a Forerunner 265 and only slightly larger than the Forerunner 265s and the similarly priced Vivoactive 5 (42mm). There’s a polymer bezel and a typical five physical button array you’ll find on most Garmin Forerunners, with a larger flatter workout button tucked up in the corner.

Mike Sawh

That case is partnered up with a 20mm, silicone strap that has a nice stretch to it and uses Garmin’s quick-release mechanism, which means you can remove it and swap something else in its place, whether that’s from Garmin’s official collection or something that isn’t.

There’s a range of six colours depending on whether you want the music player model with the regular coming in Black/Slate grey or Mist grey/Whitestone.

Then we get to the headline-grabbing colour screen. It’s a 1.2-inch, 390 x 390 resolution touchscreen, matching the Vivoactive 5’s screen for stature and quality. It’s a sharp, colourful screen, responsive and it’s a bright screen too, with scope to adjust that brightness in the watch settings.

This is a display that can be set to always-on and you have control over whether that screen stays on in all scenarios. So if you just want it enabled for workouts and turned off for the time in between tracking, you can do that.

What you get from the Forerunner 165 is a pretty dainty and light watch that makes it ideal for all-day wear and also has a great quality AMOLED display to match. If you prefer your watches more on the hulking side, then it might not be for you.

It’s a shame you need to pay extra for the added music player when you can get it included for just slightly more on the Vivoactive 5.

Health & Fitness Tracking

• Good tracking performance for runs and swims
• Solid heart rate tracking performance
• Lacks new Garmin Sleep Coach and triathlon profile

Like other Forerunners, tracking your runs is the priority here, though you also have dedicated tracking running, cycling and swimming, including an open water swimming mode.

There are additional profiles for indoor activities like stair stepping, yoga and indoor cycling and it’s built for outdoor activities like hiking. For triathlon fans looking for an affordable route to tracking multiple events, that’s one mode not covered here.

Mike Sawh

Running is going to be the prime reason you’re going to want to pick it up and on that front, the Forerunner 165 puts in a good performance.

It gives you access to useful training features like Garmin’s PacePro pacing strategies and access to Garmin Coach to sync and follow running training plans on the watch. There is built-in GPS here of course, though unlike other new Forerunners lacks a multi-band mode to boost tracking accuracy outside when using the watch near tall buildings and in deeply forested areas.

I used it against Garmin’s own multiband mode on the Forerunner 965 and also pitted it against the dual-frequency mode on the similarly priced Coros Pace 3. Distance tracking did typically come up a tiny bit short in comparison to the 965 and Pace 3 but not by a worrying amount.

If you care about the very best GPS accuracy available, you’re going to miss out on it here but the performance without it will be solid for most. While the 165 packs in Garmin’s older Elevate Gen 4 optical sensor to track heart rate and blood oxygen levels, we found that the sensor performed well during exercise, even at high intensity during track workouts and it does feel like the smaller form factor helps here.

If you do care about the best accuracy at all times you can pair it up with an external heart rate monitor to get that and I paired it up to a Polar H10 chest strap monitor with no issues.

Outside of running, the 165 is a very competent and familiar performer. I used it to track swims in the pool, indoor bike rides though was disappointed to see it misses out on some indoor modes like indoor rowing.

It’s good to see that while Garmin unsurprisingly doesn’t include full mapping support, it does manage to squeeze in breadcrumb navigation, which makes it a useful watch to have around if you get a little lost.

Mike Sawh

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In terms of training insights, you’re not going to get the full gamut of what Garmin’s Forerunner watches have to offer. It sticks to more simplified insights like recommended recovery time, Garmin’s Body Battery energy monitor, though interestingly chooses to include HRV Status, which is a heart rate variability measurement to help guide your recovery needs. It’s disappointing to see the more simplified Training Readiness metric isn’t here instead.

Like other Garmin watches, the Forerunner 165 acts as a fitness tracker as well, counting daily steps, automatically adjusting goals based on progress and will continuously monitor heart rate and will do that in a pretty reliable fashion.

It will track your sleep and napping too, generating sleep scores, tracking sleep duration with a nice breakdown of sleep stats available on the watch. It does lack Garmin’s new Sleep Coach however. Accuracy-wise, Garmin’s sleep tracking shows signs of improvement and I found it posted similar sleep duration and sleep stage breakdowns as well as sleeping heart rate as the Oura Ring Gen 3.

Smartwatch Features

• View notifications from Android and iPhone
• 4GB for storing music including Spotify support
• Compatible with Connect IQ

The Forerunner 165 performs pretty admirably as a smartwatch and a big part of that is down to the inclusion of that AMOLED touchscreen.

It simply makes using features like scrolling through menu screens, reading longer notifications and using music features a much nicer thing to do.

Mike Sawh

On the subject of music, the music edition tested here has 4GB of storage to play with and adds Wi-Fi into the connectivity mix to allow you to store audio from streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music. Syncing music is a breeze once you’ve downloaded your preferred app and I’ve had no problems pairing with a range of Bluetooth headphones with connectivity between the watch and headphones generally solid.

It’s good to see that Garmin’s new Morning Reports are here to wake up to and provide a quick summary of aspects like your night’s sleep data, letting you see your recommended recovery time and get a glance at the day’s weather.

You also have access to Garmin’s Connect IQ Store, which doesn’t offer Apple App Store or Google Play Store levels of apps, but does mean you have scope to add extra watch faces, data fields and widgets and some useful apps here too.

Battery Life & Charging

• 11 days in daily use
• Up to 19 hours of GPS battery life
• Up to 7 hours battery when streaming music

Garmin’s move to scatter AMOLED displays across its range thankfully hasn’t come at a huge expense of the big battery numbers you’d normally associate with its watches.

In the case of the 165, this is a new watch series and a new watch that puts in a good battery performance.

Mike Sawh

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Garmin claims you can enjoy up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, though that’s clearly based on when you don’t have the screen set to always-on. When you do that, the number significantly drops. Tracking blood oxygen levels and streaming music are also other features that quickly sap the battery.

I found that the daily drop-off with regular GPS tracking and notifications enabled and using a mixture of music streaming and other smartwatch features was around 20%, so that works out to about 4-5 days. Going longer than that will require being more wary of features that are in daily use.

If you opt for the always-on screen mode, battery drops to around 2-3 days if you’re tracking workouts during that time too.

In terms of GPS battery performance, an hour’s worth of running outside saw battery drop by 8%. For three hours of running, it dropped by 20%. When I switched to always-on mode during tracking, a 30-minute track session saw battery drop by 7%.

Garmin sticks to the same proprietary cable it uses for almost every watch in its range and like Garmin’s other AMOLED watches, it does seem to charge up quicker than its non-AMOLED watches, which is good to see. 

Price & Availability

The Garmin Forerunner 165 was announced on 20 February 2024 with a launch price of £249/$249 for the non-music version. Adding in a music player and Wi-Fi pushes that price up to £289.99/$289.99.

As well as buying it direct (links above) you can find it at Amazon, Argos, Very and Currys in the UK and Adorama in the US.

That standard 165 price puts Garmin’s watch above the likes of the Coros Pace 3 (£219/$229) and the Polar Pacer (£169.50//$199.95).

In Garmin’s own collection, it’s only slightly cheaper than the Garmin Vivoactive 5 (£259.99/$299.99), while the Forerunner 165 music edition isn’t far off the cost of the Garmin Forerunner 255 (£299.99/$299.99).

See our round-ups of the best smartwatches for more options.

Should you buy the Garmin Forerunner 165?

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is yet another strong addition to Garmin’s already extensive collection of multisports watches.

It essentially fills the position of Garmin’s Forerunner 200 series watch, which has leapt into another price category and means you can pick up an AMOLED-packing Forerunner for less.

It gives you a better smartwatch and sports watch hybrid than similarly priced rivals like the Coros Pace 3 and the Polar Pacer. The Pace 3’s run tracking features are in many ways superior and does include dual-band GPS as well.

It’s also worth factoring in that the Garmin Vivoactive 5 costs just £10/$10 more than the standard 165 and offers a music player as standard and similar features across the board along with an added aluminium bezel, extra health and wellness monitoring features and more advanced interval training support. It also gives you a dedicated golf mode as well if that’s of interest.

Bottom line, the Forerunner 165 offers a good experience overall, but it’s starting to feel a little congested in Garmin’s collection at that midrange price point.

Specs

• 1.2in 390 x 390p AMOLED display
• Polymer casing
• 4GB RAM
• 5 ATM water rating
• 20mm quick release straps
• 43 x 43 x 11.6mm
• 39g