Garmin Venu 4 – A Buyer’s Guide and Review of the Reviews

I’ve owned, used, and written about Garmin watches for almost 20 years, and Venu 4 is one of the first to reach a key milestone – Peak Garmin! Garmin has the most comprehensive set of sports and health features, and now it boasts a competent set of smart features to tempt you away from the Apple Watch.

Venu 4 is a significant upgrade over its predecessor, Venu 3, and its features broadly match those of the more expensive and uber-sporty Garmin Forerunner 570. Its new raft of smart features makes it a sensible alternative to mainstream devices like Google Pixel Watch 3, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and the cheaper Apple Watch Series 11. But it’s only a sensible alternative if advanced sports features are important to you.

Some key highlights that set Venu 4 apart from other watches include a built-in LED flashlight, a premium full-metal case design, two buttons, excellent battery life, and an on-demand ECG. New health features are now also coming into play, with an array of key stats to rival those already offered by Apple, Whoop, and others.

There’s a lot to confuse you when looking at this tier of products. But what sets Garmin Venu 4 apart from Apple is its superior battery life, lifestyle-oriented round touchscreen, and, of course, Garmin’s winning fitness features. While you will hear a lot about the new health features, they are on par with the competition. You’ll also hear about the latest smart/connected features, but those still lag behind a serious smart watch like the Apple Watch.

You have to weigh up what’s important for your lifestyle. My job is to lay out the details and remind you that the price has jumped to $549, aligning with the Garmin’s Forerunner 570. That price makes sense in the World of Garmin sports features, but is overpriced compared to a super-smart Apple watch.

Garmin Venu 4

Smart Sport Watch

from$549

£499, €599

+other retailers

Evolution of the Venu Series: Lifestyle Tracker to Athletic Powerhouse

The original Venu was a lonely lifestyle sportswatch in Garmin’s stable of sports watches. Its success spawned new sizes, as both small and medium-sized cases were introduced and new rectangular cases (Sq, Venu X1). Its capabilities progressively increased from a basic tracker to effectively encompass an impressive suite of Garmin features, and its techy components are the cutting-edge ones you might hear about, like AMOLED, dual-frequency GNSS, and Elevate 5 OHR.

Venu’s case and lens materials have also improved; they are durable but not the very best (Gorilla glass, not sapphire). Also improved is the naming, where Garmin clearly states the small (41mm) and medium (45mm) case sizes, more explicit than the previous ‘s’ suffix denoting the smaller of the two. The third shortcut button made a brief appearance in the last model (3/2plus) and has now gone, so you are left with a streamlined two-button, touch-first interface that’s great for daily wear but less so for outdoor sport when you’re wearing gloves in the cold and rain.

The case’s thickness is slightly increased to accommodate the new LED flashlight. That doesn’t spoil the looks, balancing new, desirable functionality with a familiar sleek profile.

Those are all aspects you might notice, but under the hood, the software has also meandered over the years. Now, it is in line with other new Garmin models, meaning you will see bugs fixed more quickly and new features added more promptly.

The main impact of this evolution on you, the potential buyer, is that you immediately see a more polished and refined aesthetic—that’s a core reason some of you opt for the Venu once you decide on the Garmin brand. Under the veneer, you can be assured that the hardware and software are Garmin’s standard for the price.

Venu 4 – A Technical Deep Dive: Hardware and Health Innovations

Let’s start with the outside.

There are two case sizes. The larger one has space for a larger battery and weighs slightly more, at 56g and 46g, respectively. That’s pretty light by industry standards.

The larger case also has a larger display, which eats more power, but not enough to bring the overall battery performance back to parity. This is why the larger size’s watch-mode battery life headlines at 12 days (vs 41mm, 10 days). Always-on-display watch mode is good at 4 days (vs 41mm, 3days), and even full-accuracy GNSS/GPS modes are solid at 19 hours (vs 41mm, 13 hours)

Displays – industry-leading

The AMOLED displays are highly competent. Find a watchface you like and its colours will pop.

• 45mm has a 1.4″ AMOLED display with a 454x454px resolution. That’s Garmin’s best and is also found on the top-end Fenix 8 Pro and Forerunner 970 models
• 41mm has a 1.2″ AMOLED display at 390x390px

CNET praises the Venu 4’s 1.4″ AMOLED display for its vibrant colours, matching the Fenix 8 Pro’s quality.

Navigation and Sensors – industry-leading

Garmin has an excellent range of onboard sensors and the best support for third-party sensors. Here are the highlights.

The GPS capabilities are simply greedy. They do everything.

• Multiple constellations – Venu accesses GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, and Galileo to ensure solid satellite connectivity and enhanced accuracy.
• When using dual frequency signals, if the two signals differ, one has been reflected or refracted, so it can be discarded as inaccurate, falling back to another, more accurate, satellite
• satIQ – dual frequency uses more power, and the SatIQ mode intelligently determines when it needs to use it – with open skies, it saves batteries by temporarily disabling unneeded dual frequency

Almost all 3rd party Bluetooth or ANT+ sensors are supported, and Garmin recently added the ability to make secure sensor pairings. Examples include power meters on your bike, Stryd when running, Di2 shifters when cycling, inReach communicators in the wilderness, and golf club sensors on the links. And more…obviously. It’s Garmin.

Hardware Features that stand out

Garmin’s newest top-end hardware feature is the built-in white and red LED flashlight. Long-press your chosen button to find a misplaced sock in a tent or to flick the electric trip switch under the stairs. People love the flashlight.

Garmin’s Elevate 5 heart rate sensor is one of the best in the wearables market for recording heart rates during sports or HRV while sleeping. It also has other capabilities, such as SpO2 sensing, which is needed for the Health algorithms and supports Garmin’s AFib detection. The downside is its ECG abilities; whilst ECG sounds great on paper, it’s an on-demand feature and thus of little use if you have periodic events.

Health and Wellness Metrics:

Three new, key health and wellness metrics stand out – Sleep Score, Health Status and Lifestyle Logging.

Garmin has taken sleep tracking just about as far as it can, and you get Garmin’s most advanced version with Venu 4, which includes circadian rhythm syncing and Sleep Consistency. The quick win for sleep quality is to have a consistent bedtime and 7 or 8 hours of sleep; you’ll find that doing that boosts your sleep score. Garmin’s other sleep features, including sleep stages, range from nice-to-haves to a bit of fun when trying to fine-tune your sleep to perfection.

Sleep is vital, but so are your medical vitals! Garmin covers most of them in health status monitoring, including heart rate, HRV, respiration, skin temperature, and pulse oxygen during sleep. Any deviation from a 3-week baseline is used to alert you that something unusual is happening.

The final piece of the wellness jigsaw for Garmin is Lifestyle Logging. Regularly log some of your lifestyle factors on the watch, and behind the scenes, Garmin will determine which changes affect your sleep and health stats metrics. The most obvious examples are that alcohol tanks your HRV, and a cool, dark bedroom helps you sleep better.

The Verge highlights the Venu 4’s Sleep Score as competitive with Whoop’s sleep tracking.

Garmin Venu 4’s Enhanced Training Suite for all Athlete Abilities

Let’s start this section with a negative…There is no map!

You can use or create routes in Garmin Connect/Explore and even create and navigate to POIs, but you only get a simple breadcrumb line to help you on the Venu 4. (Actually, you can use a third-party map tool called dwMAP, but that’s cheating. Shhh, I didn’t tell you that.) Garmin won’t be happy; they want you to buy a more expensive model!

Comprehensive Training Metrics:

The training metrics have many high-end advanced analytics previously only found on top models. Venu is the top lifestyle model, so now it gets them too. Here are a few

VO2max estimates are determined for running and cycling, which ultimately feed into your fitness age and race time predictions. VO2max is a key measure of both athletic performance and your healthspan. You boost it by losing weight and getting fitter. #LiveLong

You obviously get all the on-screen stuff anyone could possibly need when you’re working out, but Garmin also gives you Workout Benefit and Recovery Time guidance when you’re finished. These are pretty neat. They say exactly what benefit your completed workout did for you (e.g. Base Miles) and how long you must wait before your next hard workout.

Training Readiness is a more insightful view of your recovery time. It considers additional factors such as an excellent overnight recovery or extra recovery from an impromptu nap.

Then there are moving average analyses of your combined sporting efforts. These look at your short-term efforts and how able you might be to sustain them (load ratio). Advanced athletes following a plan will benefit from seeing if their Garmin training status matches their plan’s intention. Is your training productive, peaking, strained, or recovering? Garmin will tell you.

Plans? Yeah, you get those, too. Obviously! There are several types of Garmin Coach for fitness, running, cycling, strength training, and triathlon. Even if you don’t want to follow a plan, you can choose one of Garmin’s Daily Suggested Workouts to match your readiness.

Running and Multisport Features:

Sports features are advanced. The only downside might be the complexity of customising the various sports displays exactly how you want them.

Taking a few examples of what’s on offer.

Runners

Runners learn advanced running metrics like how much they bounce (VO, vertical oscillation) and how long their foot remains in contact with the ground (GCT, ground contact time). These metrics are key factors in determining how fast they run, although the solution to improving the metrics is often just to run faster!

If you are a club member and do track sessions, Garmin has auto track detection to improve your distance/pace metric accuracy and snap your post-workout GPS trace to the correct lane.

Longstanding and well-loved features like AutoLap are included, as are newer ones to the Garmin stable, like PacePro, which can provide race-day pacing strategies suitable for your abilities.

Perhaps you also want to try out Garmin Running Power—it’s free! Power is like ‘effort’ and a complementary way to temper your exertion alongside heart rate and pace. I prefer the Stryd version of running power, which more accurately considers wind effects.

Triathletes

A full suite of triathlon features is probably superior to any non-Garmin watch. One example is the ability to use a custom multisport profile for RBRBRBR Brick Workouts or for an unusual combination of race-day disciplines like Pool Swim + Trail Bike + Cross Country Run—a silly example, but you get the point: flexibility.

A Mixed Session Profile is unique to Venu 4 and can combine strength work and, say, running into one cohesive workout.

Hikers

Numerous hiking and walking profiles exist, but a new and interesting one is Rucking. Garmin lets you add the pack weight to ensure its VO2max calculations remain correct.

Remember…no maps!

Venu 4 vs. Forerunner 570: Choosing the Right Garmin

Perhaps the most comparable Garmin in the current range is the Forerunner 570. The features are very similar, but the shell is different. Venu 4 has a more elegant look and emphasises touchscreen interaction. In contrast, the Forerunner 570 has a more sporty look and 5 buttons that athletes often need to operate the device better in inclement weather conditions.

But other options are available if the features are not exactly what you need. If you specifically want maps, the approximate $/£500 price point doesn’t give you them. However, if you get a prior-generation watch like an Epix Gen 2 Pro, you will find it’s a similar price, often discounted, and gives you those maps plus a chunkier, more rugged shell.

Guidance to buy the right Garmin at this price

Choose the Venu 4 for elegant looks, the Forerunner 570 for use in inclement weather and the Epix Gen 2 Pro for maps.

For this style of watch, no model is higher than a Venu 4, but there are more premium Forerunner and Epix models, e.g., Forerunner 970 and Fenix 8 Pro (new Epix). Those are athletic running/multisport watches and adventure watches, respectively.

The Competition: Garmin Venu 4 vs. Apple, Google, and Samsung

Garmin positions Venu 4 as a touch-first, lifestyle-oriented smartwatch, precisely where Apple, Google and Samsung position their watches. In many ways, Garmin lags behind the competition..

Garmin Venu 4 Pros: Garmin wins against similar competitors with

• Notably superior multi-day Battery life
• Highly advanced sports Features and deep training analytics

DC Rainmaker notes the Venu 4’s battery life surpasses the Apple Watch Series 11, though it lacks LTE.

Garmin Venu 4 cons: Garmin lags with

• Price—An Apple Watch SE 3 is far cheaper. You pay a premium for the advanced Garmin sports features you may not need.
• 4G LTE/5G – Venu 4 lacks an LTE (phone-free) option, whereas for the same price or less, you can get a 4G or 5G option from the competitors
• Maps – even an entry-level Apple Watch has highly integrated maps with the iOS map app.

I can’t say precisely what you should buy, as it depends on what you value. In my case, I use a higher-end Garmin for sports and an Apple Watch for daily use. Why not just get a cheaper Garmin Forerunner only for your sports and an Apple/Samsung/Google watch that you will wear most of the time, which links better to your smartphone?

Garmin Venu 4 Review of the Reviewers

I like mixing opinion pieces and reviews to try to provide counterarguments to other Garmin Venu 4 reviews. This helps all you intelligent readers out there make up your own minds. However, this time around, there’s quite a lot of agreement between all reviewers.

If you’d rather watch a video review of the Garmin Venu 4, I can recommend these, but they all say the same thing.

• Chase the Summit: here
• DC Rainmaker: here
• Des Fit: here

Quantitative Battery Performance: Venu 4 in Numbers

The killer point for many people is battery life, and the differences across the competition are stark. Where the watch mode measures battery life in hours for most of the competition, it is measured in days for Garmin. Where per-second sports recording modes for the competition are single-digit hours, for Garmin, the figures are invariably at least double.

The stats are clear. If you want battery life, you go for a Garmin.

Garmin Venu 4 Regional Pricing and Availability

Prices are increased by approximately 20% compared to the previous model. (Add $50-$100 for a premium band).

Again, the price difference is clear. You are paying a premium for Garmin’s battery life and sports features. The problem is that Garmin fails to consider its lack of maps, LTE, and deeper smart integration with the phone. In my opinion, these prices are too steep for those omissions.

Here are the official launch prices, with links to the manufacturer’s page and Amazon, where you can find the latest deals.

Take Out: Who Should Buy the Venu 4?

Finally! A new Garmin product justifies an upgrade from its predecessor.

Venu 4’s feature bump is a big one, but more importantly, the features do not feel artificially limited to fit a specific price point. It is clear that Garmin Venu 4 is yet another signal that the company is slowly but steadily increasing prices over its entire range, with sports competency and battery life as the key differentiators.

Venu 4 is suitable for these kinds of buyers.

• The upgrader: You like the Venu or Vivo format and want to treat yourself to something new and special
• Someone looking for a more refined watch appearance: Some of Garmin’s products are a tad chunky, but not so the more sophisticated look of the Venu 4 (41mm), with its quality materials and great-looking watchface packed into the small wrist-friendly format.
• The forgetful charger: You’ve got an Apple Watch, but the screen is always black as you forget to charge it. You want a more practical battery life.
• Fitness Freak: You do a lot of sports and want a proper tool to support your efforts both in the gym and outside. But you also want a watch you can wear the rest of the day.
• Biohacker-lite: You love understanding more about sleep and what makes a healthy body tick. You’re intrigued by the interplay between your lifestyle and health.

If you want phone-free (4G) connectivity or maps, then take your custom elsewhere. But stick with Garmin if you are swayed by its compelling choice for customers who value durability, battery life, and in-depth fitness analytics.

Garmin Venu 4

Smart Sport Watch

from$549

£499, €599

+other retailers

Sources and Resources

• Garmin Venu 4 Official Forum
• Garmin Unofficial Reddit Community
• Garmin Venu 4 Product Page
• Garmin Venu 4 Owner’s Manual

Getting Started with your Garmin Venu 4