{"id":52131,"date":"2025-09-30T05:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/52131\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T05:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T05:59:10","slug":"i-swapped-my-apple-watch-11-for-the-garmin-venu-4-heres-3-things-i-liked-and-2-things-i-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/52131\/","title":{"rendered":"I swapped my Apple Watch 11 for the Garmin Venu 4 \u2014 here\u2019s 3 things I liked and 2 things I missed"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no doubt about it \u2014 I\u2019ve been blown away by the Garmin<\/a> Venu 4. It\u2019s a stunning-looking smart watch, with all of the premium health and fitness features of some of the best Garmin watches<\/a> on the market. I\u2019ve swapped my brand new Apple Watch 11<\/a> for the Garmin Venu 4 <\/a>this past week, and read on to find out why I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll be going back.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to the Garmin Venu line, it\u2019s Garmin\u2019s most popular smartwatch. The Venu 4 has had a design upgrade compared with the Garmin Venu 3 \u2014 it has lost a button on the side, moving to a touchscreen design, has a brighter screen, and features an all-metal bezel. If you\u2019re trying to decide between the Garmin Venu 4 and the latest Apple Watch<\/a> 11, here are all the specs compared.<\/p>\n

Swipe to scroll horizontallyApple Watch 11 vs Garmin Venu 4Row 0 – Cell 0 <\/p>\n

Apple Watch 11<\/p>\n

Garmin Venu 4<\/p>\n

Price<\/p>\n

starting at $399<\/p>\n

starting at $549 <\/p>\n

Size<\/p>\n

46mm:\u00a046 x\u00a039 x 9.7mm \/ 42mm: 42 x 36 x 9.7mm<\/p>\n

45mm: 45\u00a0x 45\u00a0x 12.5 mm \/ 41mm: 41\u00a0x 41\u00a0x 12 mm <\/p>\n

Case colours<\/p>\n

Aluminum: Rose Gold, Silver, Space Gray, Jet Black \/ Titanium: Gold, Natural, Slate<\/p>\n

Lunar gold, Slate, Silver<\/p>\n

Display<\/p>\n

46mm: 416 x 496 pixels \/ 44mm: 374 x 446\u00a0pixels <\/p>\n

45mm: 454 x 454 pixels \/ 41mm: 390 x 390 pixels<\/p>\n

Battery life<\/p>\n

24 hours <\/p>\n

Up to 10 days<\/p>\n

Weight<\/p>\n

46mm: 37.8 g \/ 44mm: 30.3 g<\/p>\n

45mm: 38\u00a0g \/ 41mm: 33g<\/p>\n

Water resistance<\/p>\n

50 meters<\/p>\n

50 meters<\/p>\n

Health sensors<\/p>\n

HRM, ECG, SpO2, Skin Temperature<\/p>\n

HRM, ECG, SpO2, Skin Temperature<\/p>\n

Liked: The Venu 4\u2019s advanced health tracking <\/p>\n

The Venu 4 is pretty much the same as the Garmin Forerunner 570<\/a> behind the screen. It features all of Garmin\u2019s newest health tracking capabilities, plus one brand-new feature: lifestyle logging. Lifestyle logging will be rolled out to all of Garmin\u2019s newest watches, and it\u2019s effectively the same as Whoop\u2019s logging system, allowing you to log behaviors like caffeine intake or alcohol intake to see how they impact your sleep and recovery.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

In fact, the Garmin Venu 4 has one key upgrade compared to the Garmin Forerunner 570, and that\u2019s the ability to take ECG readings<\/a> from your wrist. The Forerunner 570 does have additional buttons, which makes using it on the run that little bit easier, but it\u2019s a tough decision to make when choosing between the two.<\/p>\n

Compared to Apple, I really appreciate Garmin\u2019s recovery recommendations and tools like Body Battery, which allow me to see how the stress of the day is draining me. Garmin\u2019s morning and evening reports are also far more useful than Apple\u2019s, which says “good morning” and not much else.<\/p>\n

\n

\"the\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)Liked: The battery life <\/p>\n

The Garmin Venu 4 has up to 10 days of battery life in smartwatch mode, and after a week of testing, I found this pretty accurate. I\u2019ve worn the watch 24\/7, without the always-on display enabled, and completed at least one workout per day, and haven\u2019t had to charge my watch.<\/p>\n

Sure, the Apple Watch 11 has a slightly longer battery life than the Apple Watch 10, but with Garmin, we\u2019re talking about days between charges, not hours. As a busy working mom of a toddler, I appreciate not having to remember to charge my watch every day.<\/p>\n

Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.<\/p>\n

Liked: How neat and comfortable the watch looked on my wrist <\/p>\n

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I love the look of the Garmin Venu 4. I\u2019ve been testing the 41mm version in lunar gold, and it looks beautiful on my wrist. I much prefer the round screen to the square Apple Watch 11, and although I do miss the extra physical buttons when I\u2019m running, I\u2019m adapting to the touchscreen design of the Venu 4, and appreciate that it\u2019s still easier to pause a run than it is on the Apple Watch 11.<\/p>\n

Both of these smartwatches are designed to be worn 24\/7, but as someone with petite wrists, I found the Venu 4 far more comfortable to wear when sleeping.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Apple\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)Missed: Being able to reply to messages from my wrist <\/p>\n

The Garmin Venu 4 has a speaker and microphone, but if it\u2019s paired with an iPhone, you can still only read messages from your wrist. In fact, I soon turned the smart notifications off, as I found it annoying seeing my messages flash up without the ability to reply to them.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Garmin lags slightly behind Apple in terms of apps and smartwatch features, and while I adapted after a few days, it is a consideration worth making if you\u2019re switching from Apple to Garmin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Missed: Closing my rings <\/p>\n

I really wish I didn\u2019t care about closing my Apple Watch rings<\/a>, but I still do. Again, it\u2019s something I adapted to, but I did miss those pesky rings, reminding me to stand up and keep moving throughout the day.<\/p>\n

Garmin\u2019s move alerts are still useful, and again, I\u2019m sure if I\u2019d never started closing my rings, I probably would reach for the Venu 4 over the Apple Watch 11 for the reasons mentioned above.<\/p>\n

Follow Tom’s Guide on Google News<\/a>, or add us as a preferred source<\/a>, to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!<\/p>\n

More from Tom’s Guide<\/p>\n

Today’s best Apple Watch 11 deals<\/p>\n

\"Apple<\/a>\"Apple\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no doubt about it \u2014 I\u2019ve been blown away by the Garmin Venu 4. It\u2019s a stunning-looking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[203,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-52131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-gadgets","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}