This Garmin Forerunner 265 Running Smartwatch has a black bezel and an aqua case. The outer part of the silicone band is aqua; the inner part is black.
The amoled touchscreen display is the brightest smartwatch screen that Garmin have made to date. The diameter of the watch casing is 46.1 mm. This size is for wrist circumferences of 135-205 mm.
This GPS running smartwatch has a lot of features. However, in summary it: has up to 20 hours of battery life in GPS mode; provides advanced training statistics and recovery insights; uses SATIQ™ and Multi-Band GPS technology; offers a combination of touchscreen and buttons; and stores music on your wrist.
To maximise battery life without compromising GPS accuracy, Garmin recommend choosing AutoSelect in the satellite setting on your Forerunner 265. Garmin SATIQ™ is a GPS technology which will decide when Multi-Band GPS is needed - such as when you are in an area with high-rise offices, or when a low power GPS mode can achieve the same accuracy - such as when you are running in an open area.
In straightforward terms, Multi-Band GPS increases the consistency of tracklogs and improves positioning accuracy in challenging environments. Tall buildings, trees and mountains make it more difficult to provide accurate GPS signals. Multi-Band GPS helps to solve the problem.
Key features of a Garmin 265 Running Smartwatch
- Morning Report: Provides an overview of your sleep¹ and training outlook first thing in the morning, alongside HRV status and weather information.
- Race Widget: Receive training tips and personalised daily suggested workouts, but most notably - get completion time predictions for the course you will be running on race day.
- Daily Suggested Workouts: workout suggestions adapt after each run to align with your performance and recovery status. Upcoming races in your Garmin Connect™ calendar are also taken into account.
- Training Readiness: As soon as you wake up, a readiness score will be available. Your sleep quality, recovery, training load and other factors affect your readiness score. The advantage of it is that helps you to decide how much effort you should put into your days training.
- Training Status: Want to know if you are training is productive, peaking or strained? Indicators such as your HRV status, your recent training history and performance help to create your training status classification.
- HRV Status: Helps you to improve your knowledge of your overall health, training and recovery by providing you with information about your heart rate variability. Developed by Garmin's Firstbeat Analytics™ team.
For the avoidance of doubt, a Garmin Forerunner 265 Running Smartwatch provides:
- wrist-based heart rate monitoring;
- displays smartphone notifications;
- allows phone-free music listening;
- and offers safety and tracking2, and livetrack features2.
Technical Features
- Display size: 1.3 inch (32.5 mm) diameter
- Weight: 47 grams
- Water rating: 5 ATM
- Battery Life:
- Smartwatch mode: Up to 13 days
- GPS-Only GNSS mode: Up to 20 hours
- SatIQ (AutoSelect) GNSS mode: Up to 16 hours
- All-Systems GNSS mode Multi-Band mode: Up to 14 hours
- GPS-Only GNSS mode with music: Up to 7 hours
- SatIQ (AutoSelect) GNSS mode with music: Up to 6.5 hours
- All-Systems GNSS mode Multi-Band with music: Up to 6 hours
- Charging method: Garmin proprietary plug charger
- Memory/History: 8 GB
¹Further details about Garmin's activity tracking and fitness metric accuracy can be found on .
2A compatible smartphone is required. provide further details on compatibility requirements for the Garmin Connect App, and on how incident detection and assistance requirements feature works.
