When Garmin launched the Forerunner 955 last year, I was impressed with the watch. It had all of the expensive techy features of the Fenix 7, but at a cheaper price point.
A year later, Garmin has made some upgrades again with the launch of the Garmin Forerunner 965, which is set to be available in late March.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new and improved Garmin Forerunner 965. We’re yet to get our hands on the watch to test just yet, but we will be updating this page as soon as we do, so be sure to keep an eye on Tom’s Guide. We’ve also gone hands-on with the newly released Garmin Forerunner 265, which also has an AMOLED touchscreen for the first time.
Garmin Forerunner 965: Price and availability
The Garmin Forerunner 965 is set to cost $599/£599 and will be available at the end of March. While the Forerunner 955 came in a solar and non-solar version, it looks like there’s only one version of the 965 available.
When released last year, the Forerunner 955 cost $499/£479 and the Forerunner 955 Solar costs $599/£549. If you’re on a budget, now is a good time to buy the Forerunner 955, which is likely to be discounted now that a newer watch has been announced.
Garmin Forerunner 965: What’s new?
Design
It looks like the design of the Forerunner 965 is pretty similar to the Forerunner 955 — it’s got the same five buttons, three on the left, two on the right, and a touchscreen. That said, the Forerunner 965 is ever so slightly bigger — 47.2mm, compared to 46.5mm on the Forerunner 955. Like the Forerunner 265, it looks like Garmin has made the start/stop button slightly bigger on the top right — handy if you struggle to remember which button to press to pause your run at a stop light.
That said, there are some huge differences, the main one being the AMOLED display. The Forerunner 965 now has the same, bright, beautiful display as that on the Garmin Epix 2 and the Garmin Venu series. It has a display resolution of 454 x 454, which is brighter than the Garmin Epix 2’s 416 x 416 resolution.
The watch also now includes a titanium bezel and looks to be available in black and white titanium. The different watches seem to be available in different watch colors, although like most Garmin watches, it’s likely the bands will be interchangeable.
Battery life
Garmin says that despite the bigger, brighter screen on the Forerunner 965, the watch’s impressive battery life has not been compromised. The watch has up to 23 days of battery life in smartwatch mode, up to 31 hours in GPS mode without music, and up to 10.5 hours in GPS mode with music.
The Forerunner 955 had 15 days in smartwatch mode (20 days with solar), 42 hours in GPS mode without music (49 hours with solar), and 20 hours in GPS mode with music (22 hours with solar). While the battery life is definitely better on the older watch, the AMOLED display of the Forerunner 965 is likely to be responsible for a lot of these changes.
Training features
Like the Forerunner 955, the newer watch has built-in mapping features, the ability to store music on the watch, and smartwatch features like Garmin Pay. While we’re yet to get our hands on the watch, Garmin says it has added a new load ratio feature, that allows you to track short to mid-term load.
We’ll be updating this page once we’ve had a chance to dive deeper into the new watch and its features.
