Garmin fans, I have good news — we could be about to get 2 new smartwatches very soon
Let's start with the official news first. According to an official glimpse from Garmin shared on Chinese social media, we could be looking at a new Forerunner model. The outline of a very Forerunner-esque watch can be seen alongside a date: July 22. Which is tomorrow.
According to fitness tipster the5krunner, this could mean one of a few things. Either it's a new China-only model (unlikely) or a region-specific version of a Forerunner that Garmin already makes. Or, failing that, it could of course be a brand new model that we'll get first eyes on this week.
Alongside the image outline, the tease has a "1XXX" number alongside it. If that's the product number, it's a strange one — Garmin usually favors a three digit numbering schema. Alternatively, it's the price of the device in yuan. Which, even if it's 1999 yuan ($278 / £207), would make it an affordable Forerunner compared to the other models.
Either way, we won't have long to wait to find out if there is a new model coming and whether or not it'll shape up alongside the best Garmin watches already out there.
The latest Forerunner is our new top pick for the best Garmin watch. In our Garmin Forerunner 265 review, we called it "a huge improvement" over the previous model. This iteration of the watch brings a gorgeous AMOLED display with a higher resolution, plus Garmin's Training Readiness Score feature. You also get accurate GPS and lots of advanced training metrics at a glance.
It's been a minute since Garmin released its last Venu watch, the Garmin Venu 3 back in 2023. So it makes sense the brand would be thinking about a follow-up and according to a report from Notebookcheck, we've just seen our first mention of it.
A revised Japanese user manual for the Venu 3, published earlier this month, contains a reference to the Venu 4 when discussing the brand's paid Golf Membership service. The reference states: "In addition, Venu 4 device users can subscribe to Garmin Golf Membership to use course layouts (2nd generation) and PlaysLike distances on the device, and hazard/layup information can be overlaid on the map."
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Which, of course, tells us nothing about the specs or the timeline of the device, other than it likely will exist and probably be useful on the golf course.
The Venu 3 was released in August on 2023, so if Garmin wants to keep to the same release cadence, then maybe we'll get more word about the Venu 4 in the coming weeks and possibly a reveal next month.
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