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Between us we’ve been testing the best running watches for decades and runners have never had it better than they do now, with even the cheapest watches offering accurate tracking, training advice and basic smart features.
It’s a crowded marketplace, and a raft of excellent devices have been launched at all price points over the past few months. We’ve tested pretty much every running watch and smartwatch launched in recent years, and picked out the top options in a five categories below:
- Best beginner running watches
- Best running watches overall
- Best value running watches
- Best running watches for battery life
- Best running smartwatches
You’ll also find links to videos on our YouTube channel where we dive into each category in greater detail, if you want a fuller explanation of our top picks to help determine which one might be for you. We’ve also linked each watch to our full review video on YouTube, so click the name to get more detail on the one you’re considering. Just remember that the reviews were done when each watch was originally launched, so some info might now be out of date.
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The Run Testers are a team of running journalists who have been testing and reviewing the best running watches, shoes and other kit for runners for decades. If you search for running reviews or advice across the internet, the odds are that at least one of us will pop up in your results. There’s more info on the core Run Tester team here, including some insights into their preferred kit and PBs.
All of our reviews, articles and videos are completely independent and impartial, and the range of products we’ve tested means we feel confident you’re getting the best advice on the internet when it comes to choosing running gear.
The Best Running Watches 2025
The best running watch for you will depend on your budget, fitness goals and the type of runner you are. Beginners might want a cheaper device that gives some training advice, while adventurous ultramarathoners hitting the trails might want a rugged device with offline maps.
We’ve broken our top watches into five categories — beginner, overall, value, battery life, and smartwatch. The best overall category contains the most feature-rich watches available but you’ll be paying a pretty penny to get them, so for many runners the best value section might well have a better option.
Check out the best Garmin running watches
Best Beginner Running Watches
For us, beginner watches should be fairly cheap, offer accurate tracking and easy to understand advice and training guidance that can help new runners get fitter safely. The watches we’ve picked in this category are not at all just for beginners of course, they’ll work for runners of all levels, but they stand out as great option for new runners in particular.
Coros Pace 4
Price: £229.99/$249.99 | Size: 43mm | Battery Life: 20 days (watch), 31 hours (multi-band GPS)
Our top pick overall for beginners is the Coros Pace 4, which is actually fantastic for runners of all levels — it’s a top pick in our value category as well. It offers long battery life, accurate tracking and extensive training analysis in a lightweight package with a bright AMOLED display.
The Pace 4 has a simple and intuitive user interface and provides detailed training analysis and all the stats you need as a runner. It doesn’t have offline maps or loads of smart features — it can’t link up with music streaming services like the Forerunner 165 — but it’s an excellent running watch you can buy as a new runner confident it has everything you need for your future in the sport.
Read our full Coros Pace 4 review
Suunto Run
Price: £199.99/$249.99 | Size: 46mm | Battery Life: 12 days (watch), 20 hours (multi-band GPS)
Like the Pace 4, the Suunto Run has a good claim to be the best beginner and best value running watch, coming in cheaper than its rivals (especially in the UK) while offering a great slate of features for runners.
For under £200 the Suunto Run offers dual-band GPS, a bright AMOLED screen, solid battery life and extensive training analysis. The Suunto user interface can be a little confusing, but you do get used to it, and the Suunto Run’s tracking was reliably accurate during our testing.
Garmin Forerunner 165
Price: £249.99/$249.99 (standard); £289.99/$299.99 (music) | Size: 43mm | Battery Life: 11 days (watch), 17 hours (all-systems GPS)
The Garmin Forerunner 165 has a bright AMOLED display, gives useful training advice and suggested workouts each day, and the music version offers music storage too. It’s an attractive and well-priced watch that often pops up in sales, and the best entry-level Garmin in our opinion, ahead of the older Garmin Forerunner 55, which has MIP screen.
It does a good job of providing all the info you need as a runner without overwhelming you with stats or training advice, but at the same time you can get more sports features from watches at this price like the Coros Pace 4 or Suunto Run. There’s more of a chance you’ll outgrow the Forerunner 165 if you stick with running as a result, but it’s still an accurate, reliable option for any runner.
Apple Watch Series 11
Price: £369.99/$399.99 | Size: 42mm or 46mm | Battery Life: 24 hours (watch), 8 hours (all-systems GPS)
While it’s not as sports-focused as our other picks, lacking a lap button in particular, the Apple Watch Series 11 is a very strong option for beginners. It’s still a great running watch, especially with apps like Runna that give you full training plans to follow that are customised to your level.
The Apple Watch Series 11 is also a lovely watch to wear even if you give up running straight away, which is less the case with sportier options like the Pace 4, and a lot smarter than our other picks with regards to how useful it is outside your workouts. The battery life is short, but it does charge quickly and the Series 11 will last you a marathon.
Read our full Apple Watch Series 11 review
Best Value Running Watches
In general we don’t recommend buying a running watch at full price. There are certainly some watches that offer great value at full price, like the Coros Pace 4 and Suunto Run — we’ve covered them above but they are top options in this category too — but you can nearly always get the best deal if you wait for the next sale period to roll around.
As a result, the best value running watches for us are mostly old favourites that are likely to pop up in sales regularly. Despite being older models, we wouldn’t be afraid of buying them because most brands support them for years and they still pack in all the features you need.
Garmin Forerunner 265
Price: £429.99/$449.99 | Size: 42mm and 46mm | Battery Life (46mm): 13 days (watch), 14 hours (dual-band GPS)
The Garmin Forerunner 265 has been superseded by the Forerunner 570, but although the new watch has a more attractive design and a brighter screen, it didn’t really upgrade the core run tracking experience of the watch, so we’d definitely be happy to opt for the older Forerunner 265 for less.
It’s a fantastic AMOLED sports watch with accurate GPS and heart rate tracking, enough training analysis to keep even the keenest athletes on track, and some useful smarts like music storage and NFC payments. It also comes in two sizes to suit different wrists. You’ll likely be able to find the Forerunner 265 in sales for under £300, and the older Forerunner 255 is also a good value pick for those who prefer a MIP display.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Price: From £599.99/$599.99 | Size: 47mm | Battery Life (47mm AMOLED): 23 days (watch), 19 hours (dual-band GPS)
The Forerunner 965 has almost all of Garmin’s top features, including offline maps and impeccable tracking and analysis tools, and costs a lot less than newer models like the Forerunner 970 and Fenix 8 in sales. You should be able to get it for less than £400 when discounted, and at that price it’s a hard watch to top.
Its design is not as durable as the Forerunner 970, which has a sapphire crystal display, and it lacks some other features on the newer watch like a built-in flashlight but the Forerunner 965 is a good-looking, lightweight watch that offers runners everything they need and more.
Best Running Watches Overall
If you have the budget for them, this category is where you’ll find the best running watches available. Along with getting every software feature the top brands offer, you get hardier watches made with titanium and sapphire crystal, and much longer battery life. You do also tend to get larger watches though, so those with thin wrists might still prefer a lighter mid-range watch.
We think Garmin is quite dominant in this high-end category, since other brands simply don’t offer the range of features it does, but alternatives including the Coros Vertix 2S, which has the longest battery life of any watch we’ve tested, the Suunto Race 2 and Suunto Vertical 2, which are good value for top-of-the-range watches, and the Polar Vantage V3 and Polar Grit X2 Pro.
Garmin Forerunner 970
Price: From £629.99/$749.99 | Size: 47mm | Battery Life: 15 days (watch), 21 hours (dual-band GPS)
We test a lot of watches but the one that we all tend to go back to when not testing something new is the Garmin Forerunner 970, which is testament to just how good of a watch it is. It packs brilliant tracking and training analysis tools, plus offline maps, into a thin and lightweight watch that’s more comfortable to wear 24/7 than chunkier models like the Fenix 8 Pro.
Despite this, the Forerunner 970 is still a durable watch itself, with a titanium bezel and sapphire crystal display, and it also has a built-in flashlight and pretty impressive battery life for a lightweight AMOLED watch. Unless you need a more adventure-focused device like the Fenix, this is the best running watch you can get, in our view.
Read our full Garmin Forerunner 970 review
Garmin Fenix 8 Pro
Price: £1,029-£1199 / $1,199-$1299 | Size: 47mm or 51mm | Battery Life: watch: 8 days (47mm), 15 days (51mm), dual-band GPS: 23 hours (47m), 41 hours (51mm)
The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro is the flagship watch in the Garmin range, and offers LTE and satellite connectivity as its key upgrade on the standard Garmin Fenix 8. That feature comes on top of best-in-class tracking training analysis and navigation tools, some useful smart features including a mic and speaker, and incredible battery life for an AMOLED watch — the 51mm Fenix 8 Pro lasted us 10 days on a charge even running every day with the screen set to always-on.
However, if you don’t need the connectivity features, we’d certainly look at the Garmin Fenix 8 instead. It’s a lighter and thinner watch and cheaper than the Fenix 8 Pro. As it’s older, the Fenix 8 is also likely to pop up in sales more often than the Fenix 8 Pro as well.
Read our full Garmin Fenix 8 Pro review
Best Running Watches For Battery Life
If you’re planning on tackling some epic adventures on your runs, or just hate having to find a charger, you want a running watch with extra-long battery life. Our picks in this category will not only go weeks on a charge, but also have rugged designs that can withstand weeks in the great outdoors.
Garmin Enduro 3
Price: £679.99 / $799.99 | Size: 51mm | Battery Life: 36 days / 90 days with solar (watch) 60 hours / 90 hours with solar(dual-band GPS)
The Enduro 3 is Garmin’s longest-lasting watch and if you’re in sunny conditions you’ll very rarely have to charge it thanks to the solar panels on its watch face. It has almost all of Garmin’s top training and navigation features too, all packed into what is quite a lightweight case for such a large watch.
Along with long battery life and a hardy design, the Enduro 3 actually offers pretty good value within the Garmin range, since it has similar features to the Fenix 8 at a lower price, while also having longer battery life. The MIP display is not as bright as an AMOLED screen, but it’s perfectly readable and excels in bright sunlight.
The Enduro 3 doesn’t have the LTE and satellite connectivity you get on the Fenix 8 Pro, which can be handy when in the wilderness, but is otherwise a great option for adventurous runners.
Suunto Vertical 2
Price: £529 / $599 (steel); £629 / $699 (titanium)| Size: 49mm | Battery Life: 20 days (watch) 60 hour (dual-band GPS)
If you want a long-lasting AMOLED watch, you can’t beat the battery life on the Suunto Vertical 2, and it actually outlasts most MIP watches as well. Its bright display is easy to read in all conditions, and the design of the watch in general marries style and substance handsomely, with a durable metal case and sapphire crystal screen.
The Vertical 2 also offers offline maps and navigation tools, and its GPS tracking proved very accurate in our testing of the watch. Given the high-quality design and impressive feature set, the Vertical 2 is pretty good value as well, and it’s battery life is remarkable for an AMOLED watch, offering 60 hours of multi-band tracking with the screen always-on.
The Best Smartwatches For Runners
Smartwatches were originally pretty rubbish for running, but they have been steadily improving in recent years, while sports watches have also been getting smarter. No one device has managed to achieve the perfect balance of genuine smarts and top-notch sports tracking yet, but some have come closer than others, especially our overall top pick: the Apple Watch Ultra 3.
Apple Watch Ultra 3
Price: £749 / $799 | Size: 49mm | Battery Life: 42 hours (watch) 14 hours (dual-band GPS)
Apple has improved the native tracking on its smartwatches considerably in recent years through software updates that have added things like structured workouts and training load analysis, and there are also excellent third-party running apps exclusive to Apple watches like WorkOutDoors and YouRace.
We picked the Ultra 3 over the Apple Watch Series 11 because of its hardware upgrades, which include a lap button, longer battery life, and dual-band GPS. It’s still not going to deliver the battery life and training analysis of the best sports watches, but the Ultra 3 is an excellent running watch that lasts longer than past models, and it’s obviously a great smartwatch too.
Overall we remain fairly unimpressed by the running performance of Wear OS smartwatches, though the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is probably the best of them.
The best running smartwatches for Android are probably watches that work with any platform, and in particular the Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro is one that we are enjoying testing at the moment. Garmin watches also offer more smarts than most sports devices, and something like the Garmin Venu X1 might appeal thanks to its ultra-thin design and smartwatch-style looks.
Read our full Apple Watch Ultra 3 review