Garmin Forerunner 265 Review

I’ve worn the Garmin Forerunner 265 and it’s making me seriously consider if I still need my Apple Watch 9 despite years of loving owning an Apple Watch. 

Over the years, I’ve tried Wear OS watches, Fitbits, and Apple Watches. This is the first time I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with a Garmin watch, and I’m sold.

It’s not as pretty to look at as my Apple Watch, and I seriously miss the Snoopy watch face I get with it, but the Garmin Forerunner 265 feels like it’s looking out for me more.

Thanks to its Body Battery feature, it effectively tells me whether I’m up for a run or whether I should take it easy each day.

When I make it out for a run, it provides a huge amount of data to help me figure out what I need to work on.

Pricing and What’s New

The Garmin Forerunner 265 costs $449.99 for a Wi-Fi model. Unlike other smartwatches, there’s no cellular model. Instead, you pair it with your Android or iOS smartphone.

If you have smaller wrists, the Garmin Forerunner 265S shares all the same features with a sleeker build.

Fitness Tracking

The Garmin Forerunner 265 excites me the most because of its level of fitness tracking. While it's not focused on lifting weights, it’s great for monitoring your walks, runs, and even swims.

I go for a walk most mornings and run 2-3 times a week. I’m not fast and use a method called Jeffing (aka Run Walk Run), where you perform a combination of running and walking.

It’s simple to set up with the Garmin, and I gain a satisfying graph that looks like a comb when I know I’ve divided up my time well. 

A wealth of other stats, like timings, speed, and elevation, are useful, too.

The coolest feature here is even being told how much sweat you’re likely to have lost, which gives you some insight into how much you need to rehydrate.

Calories burned seem a little high, so I’m not relying on those, but otherwise, it feels like good insight.

Stress Monitoring

I’ve been going through a stressful stage in my life lately, and the Garmin Forerunner 265 has noticed.

Unfortunately, it can’t advise me on how to solve my problems, but it will offer me graphs showing the most stressful parts of my day.

Tied into that, it helps me put things in perspective by figuring out if I should be pushing myself exercise-wise today.

Of late, this isn’t the time. In times of stress, it’s helpful to check out the graph, see those spikes of orange, and realize I’m okay with cutting myself a little slack.

Daily Usage

My absolute favorite thing about the Garmin Forerunner 265 is its Body Battery feature.

It’s available on some other Garmin watches, and I’ve spent a long time trying to find something similar on smartwatches like my Apple Watch Series 9.

Effectively, it tells you how capable you are for the day. You start each day with a new Body Battery score, and the rest of your day will affect how rapidly it drops.

Five is the lowest it’ll go, and as a chronically ill person with a lot of stress going on, it invariably hits that number by late afternoon.

It was sometimes disheartening, but it always felt accurate (fortunately or unfortunately) and certainly helped me assess what to expect of myself throughout the day. 

Combined with a running plan, it does an excellent job of helping you temper expectations rather than feeling like you’re letting yourself down when you feel drained.