Over the last year, I’ve found my best running watch while racking up over 1000 kilometres in my trainers. Out on the pavements, on the fells, in the woodlands, and on the treadmill at the gym, training for several half-marathons and a marathon earlier in the spring.

As woman&home’s digital health editor, I’ve had my hands on a few of the best fitness trackers during my time, meticulously logging each workout to see my progress. I’ve reviewed watches from the likes of Garmin, Fitbit, Huawei, Google, and Samsung, but only found three I’d recommend to anyone looking to upgrade their watch or start running in the new year.

“While your phone can definitely get the job done for tracking runs, getting a basic smartwatch can make a huge difference in how you monitor your progress – and it can be a lot easier than constantly checking your phone,” says British Olympian and Runna Coach, Steph Davis. “Progress feels even better and more motivating when you can see it, and a good watch gives you handy insights like pace, heart rate, and recovery data.”

Coros Pace 3 Sport Watch Gps, Lightweight and Comfort, 17 Days Battery Life, Dual-Frequency Gps, Heart Rate and Spo2, Navigation, Sleep Track, Training Plan, Run, Bike, and Ski -Black Silicone
Best overall

Coros

Pace 3 with Silicone Band

The Coros Pace 3 balances budget with features perfectly. Here is my favourite running watch – the one I’ve been wearing constantly for all of 2025. It’s packed with advanced running insights (like Training Load and a Running Fitness gauge), has a long battery life, and is simple to navigate on the move. While the Coros Pace 4 has now been released, this one is under £200 in the sale. What more can you ask for?

Save £20 on the Coros Pace 3 at Healf this week.

Read more below

Fitbit Charge 6
Best for beginners

If you’re looking to do your first 5km run or even just try a few treadmill workouts at the gym, then the Fitbit Charge 6 is ideal. While it’s not on sale now, it’s still a budget-friendly buy at under £150. This watch also connects seamlessly to your favourite gym machines and records running and other workouts with ease.

Read more

Coros Pace 3 review

which Garmin should I buy?’. For under £300, you’ll get a perfect blend of advanced data insights and features, sleek design with a super bright screen, and easy usability.

Training Readiness is the standout running metric on this watch. This is a score that combines your sleep score, HRV, recovery time, and workout data to help you plan your training for the next week. From here, you can use Garmin Coach to find running plans and specific workouts to help you reach your goals.

Along with this, you’ll get some of the most advanced insights into your running form and performance, such as stride length, cadence, vertical oscillation, and ground-contact time, helping you become a better runner in just a few weeks.

The Garmin Forerunner 265 also offers phone-free music playing. Just plug in your favourite exercise headphones and you’ll be able to listen to music through the likes of Spotify and Amazon Music, a feature not offered by the Coros Pace 3 or Fitbit Charge 6.

Lauren Scott, a member of the woman&home health team who also tested the Forerunner 265 described it best as “the ‘Goldilocks’ of Garmin’s current running watch lineup – not as expensive as its rugged Fenix series, but with more data chops than the lifestyle-friendly Venu (more on Garmin Venu vs Forerunner here) series.”

Right now, the best deal on the Garmin Forerunner 265s is at Amazon, where you can shop the pink and white/green colourways for almost £100 off. But be quick – there are only a few left at this price!

For more, read my full Garmin Forerunner 265 review

Google Pixel 4, for example.

While it’s not as advanced as the Pixel 4, it’s packed out with features that’ll have you well on the way to running your first 5km or more. For starters, you’ll be able to see your distance, pace, and timing of your workout both on your wrist and in the app. If you spring for Fitbit Premium (as I recommend), you’ll benefit from similar Readiness features as the Coros Pace 3 and Garmin Forerunner 265, with an overview of how your workouts, sleep, and recovery scores are impacting your fitness.

While the other two watches thrive outdoors, with the super bright screens, in-built maps, and long battery life in GPS mode, the Fitbit Charge 6 should be a go-to if you enjoy treadmill workouts. This watch links to many popular treadmills (including Nordic Track and Peloton machines) via Bluetooth, so you’ll get a live and very accurate distance readout on your watch. Even the most advanced fitness trackers struggle with this.

Read more in our Fitbit Charge 6 review

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro and Google Pixel Watch 3, these were the three that stood out to me for the following reasons:

Set-up: Each of the running watches I chose was very easy to set-up and get moving with, including charging and linking to external workout apps like Runna and Strava.Ease of use: These three watches scored top points for being easy to navigate on the wrist with touchscreens and haptic crowns and/or buttons, but they also had excellent associated apps. These were also easy to navigate and understand.Price: With the cost of living crisis putting luxury items at the bottom of many of our shopping lists, I wanted to present a range of price points for those on all budgets. None have ongoing subscription costs – outside of Fitbit Premium, which is entirely optional.Design: Running watches are going to look like fitness trackers, rather than smartwatches. They are going to be sportier in design than the Apple Watch 10 or 11, for example. But, I still took design and appearance into consideration, looking for seamless and sleek styles with options for straps.Outdoor vs indoor workouts: As we see above, some of the best running watches are suited more to indoor runs, while others thrive outdoors. I did over 10 workouts in both environments with each of these watches.