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Garmin Venu 2 review

There’s a lot to like about the Garmin Venu 2 if you’re looking for a fitness-focused smartwatch. It’s compatible with Android and iOS, has a bright AMOLED screen and more than enough health and fitness features to keep you busy. Plus, the battery life is better than most of its competitors. Read the full review…

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There’s a lot to like about the Garmin Venu 2 if you’re looking for a fitness-focused smartwatch. It’s compatible with Android and iOS, has a bright AMOLED screen and more than enough health and fitness features to keep you busy. Plus, the battery life is better than most of its competitors.

Read the full review

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53 Comments

  1. Donny 5000

    April 22, 2021 at 11:03 am

    I just bought a Garmin ……ugh

  2. Lokesh Bharti Chauhan

    April 22, 2021 at 11:20 am

    Will CNET give me this for free?

  3. Zack

    April 22, 2021 at 11:44 am

    Can’t trust CNET anymore these days, they seem to recommend almost every product they get their hands on. Just like the crappy oneplus watch.

  4. Alexis Velez

    April 22, 2021 at 11:45 am

    So its basically the exact same as the original venu except for the “2” after the name.

    • silvertreasure

      April 22, 2021 at 1:48 pm

      No, sleep tracking for Venu 1 is awful, the new one has Firstbeat Sleep tracking

    • KParks

      April 22, 2021 at 1:49 pm

      I mean what were you expecting? It’s Double the battery, bigger better screen, better sensor 🤷 seems decent enough

    • silvertreasure

      April 22, 2021 at 1:54 pm

      @KParks yes, but it annoys me how fast they abandon older watches.

    • KParks

      April 22, 2021 at 1:56 pm

      @silvertreasure it’s been 2 years that’s a decent upgrade path better than cell phones at least

  5. Gary Just Gary

    April 22, 2021 at 11:49 am

    Nice review. Do you know how much storage the watch has? Garmin’s website didn’t say. Thanks.

    • TylerTron21

      April 22, 2021 at 6:08 pm

      I find this interesting, they only list “650 songs” vs the Venu 1st gen “500 songs”. If we knew the quality the music files were in we could do napkin math to tell the free space.

    • playthemdrums

      April 23, 2021 at 12:18 am

      7GB

  6. Mar Allen Eiji Baga

    April 22, 2021 at 12:02 pm

    Is Garmin even trying? Loooool.

  7. Mr. Water Melon

    April 22, 2021 at 12:03 pm

    I just thought want to buy a Venu SQ

  8. Pamela McGee

    April 22, 2021 at 12:04 pm

    I Actually Need This ASAP.

  9. Qasim Hassan

    April 22, 2021 at 12:12 pm

    Samsung watch 3/TicWatch Pro 3 are much better

  10. RyanExx

    April 22, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    But does it have GPS

    • Bas Kooij

      April 22, 2021 at 8:08 pm

      Yes, although that will severely limit battery life. You can get about 6 to 8 hours of GPS use out of the Venu 1.

  11. Ymse

    April 22, 2021 at 12:55 pm

    “Garmin had always had a good sleep tracking algorithm”… Erm… I mean, they’ve continuesly been the worst at it, in every study that checks out sleep trackers. Hopefully it’s better now that they’re using firstbeats technology, but it’s one heck of a stretch to say that Garmin has had a good sleep tracking algorithm 😜

    • Matthew Ferrara

      April 22, 2021 at 2:38 pm

      Ive never seen them ranked, actually. Where can i find that?

  12. Philson

    April 22, 2021 at 1:04 pm

    D:

  13. KParks

    April 22, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    Would it kill someone to come out with even a remotely decent tennis app for these things?

    • Joel

      April 23, 2021 at 3:15 am

      What additional metrics are you hoping for it track besides steps, HR, distance travelled etc (something which is already available in run or cardio modes).

    • KParks

      April 23, 2021 at 3:20 am

      @Joel that plus a scoreboard that doesn’t drain the battery completely in 2 hours would be nice

    • Joel

      April 23, 2021 at 3:28 am

      @KParks Fair. A score card would be nice!

      I think I’ll look into writing up a ConnectIQ app that does exactly that.

    • KParks

      April 23, 2021 at 3:35 am

      @Joel heck yeah let me know there’s 1 that tracks HR, distance and calories but not score and the one that’s decent at keeping score doesn’t track the other stuff and kills my vivoactive 4 battery extremely quick

  14. silvertreasure

    April 22, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    As A Venu 1 user I am really annoyed that all the features like Sleep Tracking is available for the 2 and the Venu 1 is already deprecated.

    • TylerTron21

      April 22, 2021 at 6:10 pm

      I know, we just bought Venu’s not even 5 months ago. I like that we get updates every 3 months but I wonder if 5.75 will be the last update. (after the beta). Fingers crossed some features get back ported!

  15. ar

    April 22, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    What monitor is that please?

  16. jvcex

    April 22, 2021 at 4:22 pm

    thanx for the review Lexy

  17. Cameron Blackmon

    April 22, 2021 at 5:24 pm

    Please add closed captions to your videos

  18. Stricks

    April 22, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    Is there anyone that it’s not fitness focused? That’s why I don’t own one a smartwatch for me should be an extension of the phone and not a sport gadget as they all are

    • Matt Davies

      April 22, 2021 at 6:54 pm

      Just don’t use the sports functions on an apple or galaxy watch. Garmin wouldn’t be for you

    • Stricks

      April 22, 2021 at 7:09 pm

      @Matt Davies imo on any watch if you don’t use the sport options nor the health related ones (I forgot to mention that those are also useless to me) your not using at least 50% of what it can do

    • José Zapana

      April 22, 2021 at 9:23 pm

      all of Garmin’s smartwatches are sport-focused, or at least fitness, most likely you’re not the target demographic

    • Stricks

      April 22, 2021 at 9:38 pm

      @José Zapana Maybe I was not clear enough, I wasn’t talking about this one or this brand in particular when she said that it’s a fitness focused smartwatch the first thing I thought was 🤔 right coz all the other ones in the market aren’t right?, imo there’s so much more that we could do with a device like this besides monitoring our health, sports and what ever but no company dares to make them an extension of the phone instead they prefer to do boring tracking devices or to keep the tracking options but also add more opinion so that it could be both a tracker and an extension of the phone.

    • Dont Worryboutit

      April 23, 2021 at 11:06 am

      @Stricks what exactly do u want it to do?

    • Stricks

      April 23, 2021 at 11:17 am

      @Dont Worryboutit Several things that’s why I said an extension of the phone but to give you an example to control (and I mean to physically control not with google assistant for instance) home automation like switching things on and off

    • Dont Worryboutit

      April 23, 2021 at 12:03 pm

      @Stricks interesting. Thank you.

  19. TylerTron21

    April 22, 2021 at 6:11 pm

    If anyone here has details on the new SOC design with the cpu and gpu merged, like the specs, lithography, and how it compare to the venu 1 that would be great!

  20. TylerTron21

    April 22, 2021 at 6:15 pm

    Oh wait, so the 11 & 10 days of batter life are only in smartwatch standby mode? That stinks and is news to me as other reviewers have failed to mention this. I own the Venu1 and can get 5-6 days of battery life from it. So this watch wouldn’t add any more time to that when in the standard mode like my Venu1 is always in. Bummer

  21. Duane Clarke

    April 22, 2021 at 6:30 pm

    This is a good review for this watch.

  22. Roman Kuzyk

    April 22, 2021 at 7:42 pm

    I like your reviews. Also love this watch

  23. Paul Waldrop

    April 22, 2021 at 7:59 pm

    Having switched to the Vivoactive 4 from the Galaxy Watch 3 a couple of weeks ago I think Im preferring the transreflective always on display.

  24. Pieter Stokking

    April 22, 2021 at 9:49 pm

    Please disable your aggressive auto focus in your next review, its really distracting.

  25. Jona Salas

    April 23, 2021 at 4:34 am

    If you buy a Garmin, polar, sunto. It means you want fitness and a good load of health related information, plus great battery life. Galaxy watch . Iwatch . Not need to apply

  26. ZUMZUL

    April 23, 2021 at 8:26 am

    Overpriced.

  27. Dont Worryboutit

    April 23, 2021 at 11:04 am

    I tell u what. Garmin app is total trash. It’s messy and just about worthless. I’m comparing it to Fitbit which completely blows it out of the water. It’s as if garmin paid some college kids 20$ and a watch to make the damn app. And it’s sleep feature? Unless u set the time the damn thing won’t record what time u go to sleep. Total garbage.

    • Vangellis

      April 23, 2021 at 11:05 pm

      What Garmin product have you actually used? Would like to hear more about your experience.

  28. josh3326

    April 23, 2021 at 12:02 pm

    @ 4:12, she was running all over the place. Running in the grass, crossing the street multiple times, and zig zagging. Maybe she was running drunk?

    😜😂🤣

  29. josh3326

    April 23, 2021 at 12:04 pm

    Could be a worthy replacement for my Apple Watch 6. I dont care about apps, pay, or answering calls texts on my watch. I am just sick and tired of the overpriced one day battery life.

  30. josh3326

    April 23, 2021 at 12:07 pm

    How is the vibration strength?

  31. Allan van den Berg

    April 23, 2021 at 4:21 pm

    G-ahhh-min

  32. G Rodriguez

    April 23, 2021 at 10:04 pm

    I use the first gen and the touch screen is TERRIBLE. OMG the amount of times I’ve gone to Garmin pay n the thing’s an absolute nightmare

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