Garmin Forerunner 165 GPS Watch Review

Bottom Line

There’s a reason this is a bestselling GPS watch. The Garmin Forerunner 165 has all the elements of a more expensive watch without the premium price. Out of all of Garmin’s offerings, it has the best balance of price and performance, making it a great watch for those just getting into the world of fitness tracking. It’s a reliable and accurate tracker and has quickly become one of our favorite GPS watches.

The Forerunner 165 features a 1.2-inch display with an amazingly vibrant AMOLED screen. This high-performance display is great for analyzing workouts, displaying messages, and increasing the readability of small text. However, this high-powered screen results in a middle-of-the-pack battery life. With a stated battery life of 11 days in smartwatch mode and 19 hours of GPS recording, it’s less than other watches of similar size and price. However, for a daily fitness tracker, this is more than enough battery life for recording activities and recharging every few days.

How We Tested

From the trails to backcountry powder to just checking notifications throughout the day, we put every GPS watch through its paces in all kinds of conditions to see where each one shines.

Over a couple months, we’ve completely drained each watch’s battery again and again to really understand what you’ll get out of it, tracked our routes across different landscapes to check how accurate the GPS actually is, and kept them strapped to our wrists for hours on end to make sure they’re comfortable and user-friendly. We own and use all this gear ourselves day in and day out, so our reviews come from genuine experience, not just quick testing sessions.

Accuracy

While the Forerunner 165 doesn’t have dual-frequency GPS, its tracking is still exceptional, and we have trouble finding any hiccups when we use it. When testing on our known-distance loop, it ranged from a few hundredths of a mile short to a few hundredths long, which is not enough for us to question its accuracy. 

While using the watch in different terrains, we only notice some track wobbling in very dense tree cover. We appreciate that we can easily choose the level of satellite connectivity. This can either improve accuracy or improve battery life. The options include entirely off, GPS only, all systems, and UltraTrac. We generally use GPS only or UltrTac for the best blend of accuracy and battery performance.

Battery Life

The Forerunner 165 provides a stated GPS battery life of 19 hours and a smartwatch life of 11 days. Compared to our lineup, this is right about the middle of the road. 

While this is enough for daily use and fitness tracking, it’s not enough for long endurance events, multi-day trips, or long periods between charges. The battery saver mode helps restrict the GPS data to improve battery life, and we extend the battery life by turning on do not disturb and turn down the backlight. Even still, it’s a little lower than others on the market for a similar price.

Comfort & Wearability

Weighing in at 40 grams, the Forerunner 165 is lightweight and hardly noticeable on the wrist.

The watch has five buttons: start, back, up, down, and light. These are some of the lowest profile buttons of any watch we’ve tested, and we love how out of the way they are. We never accidentally bump them and rarely use the auto lock.

The overall size is small at 43mm wide (1.69 inches) while maintaining a respectable 1.2” display size. The Forerunner 165 doesn’t get in the way or catch on backpack straps or cuffs. We love its low profile and slightly rounded edge, keeping it out of the way and sleek.

Features

The Forerunner 165 is a dedicated running and sports watch with many features nice for daily use. Features like step count, heart rate, and sleep scores help quantify your day, and multiple activity types record and display specific metrics for each sport. However, we found that the Forerunner 165 lacks many activity types of common backcountry adventures like backcountry skiing, climbing, and cross-country skiing. 

The watch is highly customizable with the Garmin app, and users can purchase third-party widgets or sync other free options. It also has some features found in smartwatches, like a wallet, find my phone, safety alerts, and music. Route navigation, back-to-start route following, and breadcrumb mapping are all great features that make the Forerunner 165 trail-ready.

Ease of Use

Garmin isn’t new to this game, and it shows with its easy-to-use interface. The Garmin Forerunner 165’s AMOLED is extremely vibrant and is one of the most powerful and easy-to-read of any we tested. The touchscreen functions smoothly even when wearing gloves or when the screen is wet. 

If you prefer to use the five navigation buttons instead, simply disable the touchscreen. The watch quickly acquires satellites and the activity screens are easy to navigate to display different functions. The Forerunner 165 is an approachable and user-friendly watch with a clear emphasis on usability.

Should You Buy the Garmin Forerunner 165 GPS Watch?

The Forerunner 165 is a powerful GPS watch at a price below its competitors. It’s an excellent budget-priced option with enough features that will impress die-hard health metric geeks.

While its battery life is inadequate for recording full-day adventures, it prioritizes a highly vibrant screen. The 1.2-inch display is the best in its class thanks to its AMOLED technology. You may find yourself charging this watch more often, and it’s most at home as a daily fitness tracker for shorter-duration activities.

With plenty of features for both backcountry navigation and daily smartwatch use, the Forerunner 165 is another impressive option from Garmin that balances an affordable price with high performance.

What Other Watches Should You Consider?

Here’s more of our favorite options from our complete GPS watch gear guide:

Garmin Vivoactive 5 Review: Almost identical in battery life, the Vivoactive 5 is slightly smaller and lighter for those with smaller wrists.

Coros Pace 3 Review: Slightly cheaper and with a longer battery life than the Forerunner 165, the Pace 3 is a great entry-level watch.

Garmin Instinct 2 Solar Review: With some of the best battery life of any Garmin product, the Instinct 2 Solar can track activities for days at a time.