Garmin Forerunner 965 review - did I just waste my money? [OPINION] This Garmin Forerunner 965 review is designed to help you understand the negatives and make an informed decision. There are 20-plus negatives listed below. Price: USA $599, UK £599, EU649 updated 3 Nov 2024 I paid for my 965 myself; it wasn't a freebie, and I have zero links to Garmin. I'm an athlete like you. [Edit]I've now used it for a 18 months of runs, rides, and swims, and I'm impressed with the improvements made to the user interface. It's more attractive and user-friendly than the Forerunners I've used over the last decade. TL;DR - I'm happy with my purchase and confident it will be my main triathlon training watch for the next few years. It is a waste of money because I've paid a lot for many features I'll never use. But it has every feature I NEED and WANT to use - it WILL be the same for you. Garmin 965 Background & Predecessors Despite Garmin's earlier triathlon watches, the Forerunner 935 was the first Garmin watch to offer comprehensive triathlon training features. If you already have one and it's still working well, there's no need to upgrade unless your battery is failing or the device is slowing down. The Forerunner 945 took things a step further with in-depth physiological features that are now well-developed in the Forerunner 955/965. The 945LTE added a small degree of internet connectivity. The Forerunner 965 edges ahead of the 955 with a beautiful, vibrant-coloured screen and even larger display. However, it's important to note that all the widgets, dials, backgrounds, and pretty much everything visual has been significantly tweaked compared to the 955 and all that came before it (and it's been tweaked again in the Fenix 8). As I see it, the Forerunner 965 is the best triathlon watch ever, or at least it is if you're a sucker for a pretty screen like me! [gallery size="medium" ids="80179,80181,80180"] Problems, Bugs & Things That Hack Me Off Generally, it's all good. But you came here for criticisms to make an informed purchase. Here goes I couldn't set up my Garmin watch from a backup again. I had to do it all from scratch. In March 2024, I had to reset it and guess what...backup/restore doesn't work. Again! Not all of my favourite CIQ widgets were available at launch. Developers have to certify them for every new watch. This is a ridiculous situation that has not been rectified in December 2024. [IMPROVING] I know how to sideload apps and data fields from old copies, solving some of my CIQ problems. For example, I can still use the discontinued Humon Hex SmO2 data field! Newer data fields are implemented more modernly, making side-loading harder. [Kinda fixed, but old ones still don't work and don't seem to let settings be changed] The 965 pairs reasonably quickly to sensors before each workout, but for some reason, it will not let me calibrate a Stages G3 power meter. [KINDA FIXED] The Garmin standard watch faces seem to have been designed by 7-year-olds for 7-year-olds. I'm not seven years old. I'm a grown-up. Please, Garmin, please give me some grown-up watch faces. There is no excuse now that your colours and resolution are so good. I'm also not especially keen on some of Apple's simplistic and sometimes naive watch faces, but at least many are designed for grown-ups. The images below show what I consider to be grown-up watch faces, or instead, browse the Apple.com website to see more of what I mean. [gallery size="medium" columns="2" ids="89107,89108"] Some third-party watch faces do not support proper Always On Display, and the AOD reverts to a standard, cut-back Garmin screen showing the date and time. The following image shows the same watch face on a 935 (left) and 965. The screen is a bit brighter and has a larger usable area. However, to benefit from the 965's superior resolution, we need watch faces specifically designed for high resolutions, unlike this one. Even many/most of Garmin's watch faces do not do that. [caption id="attachment_80178" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Max backlight/brightness settings[/caption] The screen is beautiful. There are three or four brightness settings, depending on which aspect you control, and I've used the brightest setting in these photos with max backlight. For my personal use, I've cranked the brightness down to the lowest, and that's perfectly fine for me. I cycled over the weekend on a sunny March day with it on my wrist, and I could read it when my wrist was angled, but it could have been easier had the brightness been cranked up to the max. There is a delay in going from the 'screen saver' to fully restoring the watch face it was hiding. It's a fraction of a second and noticeable, but again, it's fine for me, just. The start button is now bigger and more oval-shaped. It also sticks out less from the watch, which is bad if you wear gloves. It has a slightly soft but positive pressing action. I'd like this to be different, stick out more, and be more clicky. But, again, this is fine. I can certainly live with it, and there is none of the nonsense we had with button-gate on the 945. I thought the new titanium bezel would not blend in with the aesthetics of the rest of the watch, but it looks great. Strangely, the bezel is slightly lower than the glass, and I would have hoped that would be the other way around to add further protection to the glass. Only time will tell if this matters. The Gorilla Glass is supposed to be harder than the 955, so let's hope that helps, too. (1 year in and no scratches to the lens) The charging/data transfer port is still as rubbish as it always was and is unchanged, but now there is at least a USB-C on the other end of the cable. Sadly, I have just about nothing that will fit into it! I use a third-party charging puck that's been great so far. All Garmin's music-enabled watches cannot connect to a PC as an enumerated drive, and the FR965 is no different. My VO2max has already risen by a few points in a few days. Once again, this highlights the nonsense that different eras of Garmin watches patently have different VO2max algorithms as of 2023. (935 >> 965) My overnight HRV averages are notably different from those of other non-Garmin devices, which, to be fair, are also notably different from each other. The Elevate HR sensor just isn't sufficiently accurate for anything other than emergency use. More 965 accuracy insights here. Beware of reviewers who tell you Garmin ELEVATE is awesome and the most accurate, and then say the same thing about the next ELEVATE sensor when it comes out. The Elevate sensor is Gen 4 and is superseded by a Gen 5 with ECG, so in that sense, you are buying an old tech component with the FR965. If the same watch came out tomorrow with only the optical HR changed, I would keep what I have; it's fine for passive (non-sport) HR, and I use a chest strap for sports! And Elevate is fine for overnight usage to feed the recovery/HRV calculations. My 965 has given me a 1% lower FTP than my Edge 540 despite recording the same workouts with the same sensors. This is very strange. My automatically calculated FTP was updated one day, only to fall by 10 watts two days later. That just isn't correct. I've had FTPs determined lower than the actual average for 60 minutes! Patently wrong. The FTP calculation is one of the easier ones, and I could just about do it with a simple calculator or even in my head. Luckily, I have a multi-hundred-dollar sports watch for the job. For the first time, I got a blistering effect on my wrist from the new Garmin strap (I have many, many, many Garmin watches). Thoroughly washing it didn't resolve the problem, though soaking in rubbing alcohol improved matters. There was probably a bacterial infection somewhere on the production line for the strap. Yuk. I'm clean. I have MANY straps. It wasn't me! https://the5krunner.com/2023/04/21/garmin-965-accuracy/ Garmin sleep stages are as wrong as ever, even though sometimes they 'feel' right. Then again, so are those on every other brand's tech, although Oura and Eight Sleep are the best of a bad bunch in this regard. Last night, Garmin had half the deep sleep that Oura recorded. Note that how Garmin sleep stages 'feel' to us is irrelevant to their accuracy, and even polysomnography's accuracy is not great (Google: science of sleep stages). Map Render lag takes up to 7 seconds to fully render a new map tile as you pan from one to the next. This probably doesn't affect you much when running, but it makes more of a difference when cycling quickly across the effective map area. But you also have a computer on your bike, right? Use that!! This screen render lag probably also indicates a big battery drawdown. Map labels are tiny (unreadable) on zoomed-out levels. Why are they even shown? When zoomed in, high-detail maps seem pointless in rural areas—they often zoom in to nothing but a blank green screen. That's probably a map problem rather than a watch problem. Perhaps that zoom setting will work better on other Garmin maps, i.e., the paid-for ones like Outdoor+. Other lag—Garmin cleverly disguises the on-screen lag in other parts of the menus by the way the screens are drawn, so that's OK. However, there are noticeable lags, but only the same as found on other recent Garmin watches when it comes to, for example, saving/discarding workouts, which can take 10 seconds or so. All told the Forerunner 965 is probably UNDERPOWERED. But only slightly so when compared to Forerunners of the past. Forerunners of the past were often reasonably OK at launch, but performance (speed) deteriorated over time with newer firmware. Will that happen again? (A: probably, especially if Garmin adjust the device speed in line with the battery degradation like Apple was caught doing a few years ago) The 31-hour GPS recording time and 22-hour high-quality GPS recording time look great on paper. I still don't have an opinion yet on the reality of the battery claims; all I can say is that I've NEVER run out of charge. However, I am CERTAIN that battery life will degrade over time, so if you are planning two years' worth of Ironman training and racing, you might be nervous about this watch for your future. [OPINION: I have no battery issues] There's nothing new on the training features front—well, nothing of note other than running dynamics on the wrist and some peripheral Training Load stuff. You're buying the 965 for the pretty hardware, NOT any fancy new feature that might make you faster. A new beta Auto-Transition feature currently doesn't work properly, but when it does, this will be awesome. However, autotransition seems to have no plans to support brick workouts based on an indoor trainer with power #bizarre. The on-watch CIQ app store is bordering on unusable. My considered long-term take is that "It's rubbish." How do you quickly select what you want from a long list, especially when that list is only loaded four or five at a time slowly over my (speedy) WiFi? Why is my weather widget never showing today's weather (A: I have to open and sync to the Connect app for the widget to update over Bluetooth) - Why isn't this updated in the background over Wi-Fi? Do you have thinner wrists? Tough. There's no smaller version for you (yet). Want ECG/EKG? Forget it; the forerunners can't do that. We see ECG in May/June 2023 on Fenix 7 Pro/Epix 2 Pro, which uses a new optical heart rate sensor module. Want QI/Wireless charging? It doesn't have that either, maybe on the next model. The heat from QI charging could damage a battery. Want a Solar option?...nope. That might come, though, for an AMOLED watch one day. Want an LTE option for Internet connectivity without your phone? Nope. Again, this might come on a 965LTE or 765LTE Want speakers and a mic? You guessed it...nope. Never. 965 Accuracy—it's mostly good, and the GPS is excellent but not quite the best available. (It's more than good enough.) But the oHR is not up to scratch during sports for me. Heart Rate accuracy is super important for all the physiology metrics to be correct, and those physiology metrics are perhaps one of the main reasons for buying this watch. I'm just saying. Think about it. Some Noteworthy, Good Points I won't highlight the vast list of triathlon awesomeness. I assume you know roughly what Garmin watches can do, i.e., everything triathlon-related. And I mean everything. These are a list of unusual, positive points that might help you decide to upgrade from an older Garmin watch. The watch dimensions have very slightly changed from the 955. They feel like they have changed back to the thinner proportions of old, and that feels and looks right to me. The 955 didn't. While the watch diameter is unchanged, the display size is SIGNIFICANTLY increased. You have lots more screen real estate from the 1.3" to 1.4" increase. This massively improves the aesthetics and readability of some of the now larger fonts. You can sensibly and easily display six training metrics per screen, which you couldn't previously. I use the Stryd data field, which equates to six data fields. The display resolution is now 454x454px, a significant increase from 260x260px on the 955. Display quality is now like that of a good smartwatch, such as the Apple Watch. Typically, Garmin hasn't delivered the screen imagery to make the most of the new screen resolution. There is now more map detail at the most zoomed-in level, and new terrain and weather overlays will soon be available. The standard maps are good enough but less so at the most zoomed-in levels. Whilst I would always caution against the usefulness of a watch's small map on your handlebars whilst cycling or on a moving wrist whilst running, this map could be improved with Garmin's premium maps or those from TalkyToaster (not free). This screen is as big as it can get for a watch without becoming aesthetically too large for most people. Support Physio TrueUp 2.0 and primary training device designation, which syncs your physiology metrics to/from other Garmin devices (if they support it) and allows you to prioritise training from this device over others (duplicates). This is handy if you have an Edge 540 and record both for your rides. Here is a link to more detailed insights into lesser-known facts about the FR965: tips, tricks and hacks. https://the5krunner.com/2024/01/01/garmin-forerunner-965-tricks-tips-hacks/ Summary This is the greatest endurance sports watch, surpassing even the 955. It's the best triathlon watch. Anyone telling you otherwise has finished one fun triathlon at best. Ignore them. Please note that I've been writing this blog for many years and have been critical of Garmin for most of those years, so you can take my recommendation of the FR965 positivity and the fact that things have improved with the 955/965. Other than cost, there are only three headline reasons I can think of NOT to buy this as your Garmin triathlon watch. It would help if you had more durability (get a Fenix 8), It would help if you had more battery life for Ultra-like events (get an Enduro 3), If you want something super simple (don't buy a Garmin!), Wahoo Rival is an excellent call for £/$100 in repeated sales, especially if you love ELEMNT Bike Computers like me. I'm into sports tech and physiology, so the FR965 is great. But I'm guessing most of you want something that properly covers the essentials - the Garmin FR265 will do that. The childlike aesthetics of the default watch faces will hopefully improve with time, but some of the more naive screen backgrounds will remain. It's worth highlighting again that this watch has a premium-spec outer shell whose plastic appearance resembles the bottom-of-the-range Forerunner watches. The future models? We might get a smaller one, but the next full replacement will have the next-gen oHR sensor, better battery life and the improved Fenix 8 interface style. But so what? That's no biggie. I can't see Garmin's premiere triathlon watch, this one, getting better in any material sense. I can't see me ever needing to upgrade this watch unless the battery dies or the screen gets burn-in damage. The price might fall slightly but don't hold your breath until a replacement is announced in 2025. The direct replacement (975) will probably be worth waiting for, but might come out in late spring after some of your races. If you want to support more critical reviews like this, please support this blog (negative reviews like this very rarely sell watches; that's why you don't see them. I'm just trying to help) Price: USA $599, UK £599, EU649 (links to tier 1 retailers in your country) [caption id="attachment_80174" align="aligncenter" width="493"] Buy Now - Any colour.[/caption]
