Over the years, Garmin has built a solid reputation among runners and adventure enthusiasts from all walks of life.

With reliable GPS and solid timepieces that have performed flawlessly for years, it’s no surprise that Garmin watches appeal to everyone from casual 5K runners to marathoners and triathletes. Forerunner series are especially popular in the running and triathlon communities.

Garmin Forerunner 165 Music continues this legacy. It offers all the basic features runners need and is a budget-friendly option at about the same price. ₹26,000.

Design and display

Garmin Forerunner 165 is available in four color options: Black-Slate Grey, Mist-Whitestone, Turquoise-Aqua and Berry-Lilac. Of all the interesting options, I found the most basic for review: Black-Slate Gray. Although it looks nice, it does not stand out much in terms of design. The device has five physical buttons for operation.

Forerunner 165 series GPS smartwatch has a 1.2 inch AMOLED screen. It’s a bit small compared to what I’m used to on the Forerunner 965, which offers a larger 1.4-inch diameter. But it definitely serves the purpose when it comes to your daily runs, training modules, and tracking capabilities.

Weighing 39 grams, the device is extremely light and is a sought-after feature for many distance runners, as even a gram of extra weight feels like too much during runs. You can easily view your stats while running under the harsh sun or in the rain. The touch sensitivity of the screen is good but honestly, I prefer physical buttons for quickly starting-stopping or switching.

Connect to the app

Connecting to the Garmin Connect app only takes a few seconds. After entering your personal information such as your date of birth and weight, your watch is ready in just a few minutes. What I find most impressive and surprising about the Garmin watches I have used for the last 8-9 years is how quickly they can be set up even without an internet connection.

Battery and performance

Another important feature to consider is Garmin’s impressive battery life, which means you won’t need to keep charging it. According to Garmin, the smartwatch provides up to 11 days of battery life in standard mode and up to 19 hours with GPS tracking enabled. This means you can easily complete a full marathon, run 100km, or even finish a full Ironman Triathlon with GPS mode on.

When it comes to fitness and health tracking, the Garmin Forerunner 165 series offers wrist-based running power measurement, training effect tracking, blood oxygen tracking, sleep tracking, sleep detection and more.

Supports more than 25 activity modes, including running, trail running, pool swimming, open water swimming, pickleball, cycling, hiking, tennis and more. You can also customize workouts and use preset Garmin Coach plans.

Additionally, the smartwatch provides a morning report that compiles information about your workout readiness, fatigue, and more.

For women’s health, the device includes menstrual cycle and pregnancy tracking features.

On the Forerunner 165 Music model, you can download songs and playlists from Spotify or other music accounts to listen to them without your phone via wireless headphones.

My usage

The Garmin Forerunner 165 Music has been one of the easiest Garmin watches to recommend in years. Considering Garmin watch prices have been rising steadily over the last few years, we’d say this watch offers great value without costing a fortune.

I used the Forerunner 165 on many of my runs and it performed well in tracking both my runs and swims. GPS connects in seconds and accurately tracks my runs, even in cityscapes. Heart rate data is also precise. While the lack of dual-band GPS isn’t a problem for me, it could be important at races like the Chicago Marathon, where skyscrapers can affect satellite reception.

The watch behaves a little strangely in indoor environments like yoga or strength training. There are no workout execution points which I really appreciate. These points often created an existential crisis for me; No matter how hard I tried, the app score was always low.

I don’t usually listen to music while running as I prefer to stay awake, but I tested the music feature and it works fine on the watch.

Other important factors to consider are that Forerunner 165 Music lacks metrics such as training readiness and training load; I have trusted both for a while now. Additionally, the watch does not offer proper triathlon tracking.

For triathletes, Forerunner 265 would be a better choice. But for the price, the Forerunner 165 is a great option for anyone running their first full marathon or ultramarathon.