The venue sq just doesnt feel as exciting as the original venue advantages feature packed light and comfortable to wear works with external sensors disadvantages, slightly archaic watch, ui, lower quality screen than venue missing, altimeter smartwatch features works with android and ios built in music player with spotify Offline support, garmin pay garmin does a pretty good job of getting the best of its smartwatch features into its smaller venue watch. It works with android phones and iphones, and we tried with both and didnt experience, any major issues. You can view your notifications and you can respond to them when youre using an android phone, its a smaller, more cramped screen to do it than the round venue. But it can be done with minimal fiddling theres. The ability to control your music and if you opt for the music edition you get enough room for 500 songs which can come from your own collection or from offline playlists via spotify, deezer and amazon music. You will need a subscription to those services to do that. Garmin pay is also on board, but the supported banks across the uk, us and australia certainly varies. You definitely have greater support in the us than you do in the uk to use the handy feature buy it. If you want a fitness, focused smart watch for the money the venue sq gives you all the key tools to make it a solid, affordable option to track runs, rides and offer a good fitness tracking experience too.
You want a music player. There are few watches that offer you a built in music player and offline playlist support for the likes of spotify at the price of the garmin venue. Sq music. You want a small, comfortable watch while it lacks some of the nicer design, touches and materials you get on the venue, its a watch that sits well in and outside of the gym, and you can swap those bands easily too dont bite it. If you want a screen like the other venue, yes, this does have a color touchscreen display, but if you want the most vibrant screen, garmin has to offer right now. Youll need to pay out for the other venue. If you care about tracking elevation, an altimeter doesnt make the cut on the venue sq, which is something you will find on the bigger rounder venue and is a desirable feature to have for fitness and sports tracking. You want the best looking garmin smartwatch, while the square isnt a badly made watch. It does miss out on the nicer stainless steel, bezel and altogether more attractive. Look of the venue three minute review. The garmin venue square is a cheaper alternative to the garmin venue, giving you similar fitness tracker and smart watch features, but now with a square display, the venue square is packing. All the core sensors like built in gps, a heart rate, monitor and also includes the very on trend pulse ox sensor, theres dedicated modes for the likes of running cycling and swimming, to make it a solid sports tracking companion, though, we found that picking up a gps Signal was a little on the sluggish side.
It doesnt scrimp on smartwatch features, either with the music edition which we tested here, offering a built in music player and all versions offering contactless payments and access to garmins connect, iq store to download, apps and watch faces. The venue sq promises to do a lot which does cause some problems with the way you get around the watch and it takes some getting used to how things work and where things live. What you really miss out from the main venue is that more impressive, a mold display animated workouts to follow on the watch in an altimeter to track your elevation. If you can live without those features, then the venue sq should be a decent, sporty smartwatch companion. Our overall feeling is that the venue is a better showcase of what garmin can do when it matches the best of its smartwatch and sports watch features with a display that puts it up against some of the best smartwatches available by comparison. The original garmin venue costs 329 pounds per 349 dollars per ounce 649 dollars, so the square is considerably cheaper, whether you opt for music or not. However, it doesnt give you the same crisp mold display if youre not a fan of the venue sq silicon band. There are other options available to buy separately from garmin, including leather and woven designs, design and display comes in standard in music editions 1.3 inch, color display with always on mode safe for pool and open water swimming interchangeable straps.
The aim of the venue square is to really showcase that garmin is capable of making a square sporty smart watch that hosts a color touchscreen display so youre getting a 40 millimeter square polymer case that measures in at 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs 37.6 grams thats. In contrast with the round venue, where youre getting a larger 43 millimeters watch case that at 12.6, millimeters is a chunkier watch and is heavier at 46 grams. While both have the same polymer made cases. The venue sq uses an aluminium bezel compared to the more sleek. Looking stainless steel, one you get on the pricier venue, what youre getting is a lighter, smaller watch, though wed argue, youre, not getting a nicer looking watch, while the square feels well built. It simply doesnt feel as polished as the round venue. Even the two physical buttons feel nicer to use on the bigger venue granted theyre at different price points, but wed hoped garmin would manage to carry some of that attractiveness from its first watch to pack a color display. Speaking of that display youre actually getting an inferior one on the cheaper venue, its packing a 1.3 inch 240 by 240 liquid crystal display the first venue houses, a more vibrant and mold touch screen display, while the sq screen didnt really serve up any major issues. In terms of visibility or brightness, the difference in quality from what you get on the other venue is very clear to see.
It is thankfully, and always on display, though there doesnt seem to be an always on option available when youre tracking exercise fitness tracking, reliable gps, but sluggish to pick up signal. Good swim tracking works with additional sensors garmin coach compatible like pretty much all garmin, watches tracking. Your health and fitness is the core reason. Youd want to buy it. Garmin does it better than most and on the whole youre going to get a good experience with the square on the sensor front, youre getting built in gps and support for galileo and beto satellite systems. To give you better mapping coverage around the world, theres garmins, elevate, heart rate, monitor, which can be used for training purposes and for health features like abnormal heart rate alerts and continuous monitoring. An attractive feature is that it also supports the ability to pair up additional sensors, including external chest, strap monitors if youre not satisfied with the heart rate accuracy, we paired it up with garmins new herm pro and polars h9. Chest strap without issue youre, getting an accelerometer to track indoor activity and count your steps for fitness, tracking and theres, also a pulse ox sensor to measure blood oxygen levels during sleep and width on the spot. Measurements, as is the case with other pulse ox packing garments, enabling it will have a significant drain on the battery for running it, served up reliable, running stats and key metrics were in line with another garmin watch.
We pitted it against heart rate, was okay for steady paced runs, though, if you care about accuracy in using it for serious heart rate based training, our advice is to pair up a chest. Strap our one grip with the run tracking is that it often took a long time to lock onto a gps signal on occasions it took around five minutes or left is so impatient with waiting that we just decided to hit that track. Button garmins watches are generally reliable pool swimming companions and that doesnt change with the venue square. You get a rich set of metrics to look at in real time and post swim, though its not as great to view in the water as the bigger round venue. Crucially, it pushed out accurate data compared to the very reliable form, swim goggles. We pitted it against our . The garmin venue square is a decent all around performer and weve, not seen a garmin watch with a color screen at this price point before the problem is that the screen, quality and design is inferior to the more expensive original venue. The archaic watch, ui and sluggish gps left us with mixed feelings about the cheaper venue.E7L113frZzg
