Garmin Venu X1 vs Apple Watch Ultra 2: Which Premium Sports Smartwatch Should You Buy?

Introduction

The Garmin Venu X1 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 are two premium square smartwatches that sit in and around the same price, and both offer plenty for runners. Both have been used for long stretches of marathon training and racing, and both have proven solid performers across the board.

This comparison looks at what they are like to live with side by side: design, running performance, training and analysis features, battery life, and those all-important smartwatch features, and then helps you decide which one to go for.

Design and On-Wrist Feel

The Venu X1 takes the design win for its thin, light build. It is so lightweight and slim that you almost forget it is there, even though it carries a massive screen. That on-wrist comfort is a genuine reason to keep coming back to it over other sports watches. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 feels a bit more premium and hefty, with slightly nicer looks and a case that wraps around the screen for added durability.

Both are big smartwatches, and there is no getting away from that on slimmer wrists, but both are manageable once you get used to the stature. The Venu X1 is a lot slimmer than the Ultra 2, which may appeal to anyone concerned about a bigger, heavier watch. Both have very good AMOLED/OLED displays: bright, sharp, colourful and easy to read for stats, notifications, and mapping. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 gives you an extra physical button, the Action Button, and if you like more physical buttons on a running watch, that counts in its favour. The Venu X1 has two buttons of its own.

The Venu X1 also has a built-in flashlight, a dedicated feature rather than the screen-based torch on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. It initially seems gimmicky, but Garmin keeps making smarter use of it, prompting you to switch it on when running later in darker conditions. It is the more useful flashlight option between the two.

Running Performance and Tracking

The native sports tracking on the Venu X1 is a little better than Apple’s. It just works very well, with fine-tuned customization, built-in maps, and routing features that are superior to what the Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers natively. The run tracking on the Ultra 2 is still really good, and there are plenty of apps to tailor it further, but for simplicity, Garmin has the edge out of the box.

Heart rate accuracy is close to a wash. Both have been pretty good, with the Venu X1 possibly a shade better overall, though that impression may be coloured by testing it in warm conditions. Neither is the best optical heart rate monitor on its respective platform, so pairing a chest strap, which is easy on both watches, remains a sensible option.

GPS and Heart Rate Accuracy

Here is the clearest hardware difference: the Apple Watch Ultra 2 has dual-band GPS, which the Venu X1 lacks. The Venu X1 still delivers very accurate GPS with all-systems-on tracking, and across many runs with both watches there were no major errors. The exception was a city centre 10K, where the Venu X1 went a bit more wrong in spots than a dual-band watch would. Dual-band gives extra peace of mind for inner-city runs in particular, and it is a shame the Venu X1 omits it at this price point.

Training Analysis

The Venu X1 has a pretty clear advantage here. Garmin has added interesting features like running tolerance and running economy stats, and the whole training load package is much more polished, engaging, and useful. Training readiness, training load, and recovery time simply work better and are better presented on the Garmin.

Apple’s approach, where you rate each workout, is a decent way to force you to think about how hard you worked, but the level of analysis on Garmin has proven genuinely useful across several marathon training cycles, and it is not something third-party apps can replace very well on the Apple side.

For building structured running workouts, both offer strong support, and the Apple Watch actually offers the best experience for building interval workouts directly on the watch. Garmin counters with Garmin Coach tailored running programs, plus strength training programs, so out of the box the Garmin offers a bit more for race training.

Battery Life

Neither watch excels on battery, but the Venu X1 goes further across the board. With always-on displays enabled, the two are almost identical, both reliably lasting around two days, which is impressive for such big, bright screens given how thin the Venu X1 is.

In raise-to-wake mode, the Venu X1 comfortably outstrips the Apple Watch Ultra 2, pushing past a week even with pretty heavy use including regular GPS activities. Turn on an activity with the screen burning at full brightness, though, and the Venu X1 drains at an alarming rate, so heavy activity use still eats into that advantage. The Venu X1 also offers more battery saver options. Charging uses proprietary cables on both, and both charge relatively quickly when running low.

Smartwatch Features

Outside the run, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is unmistakably the smarter watch. There is a full app store, cellular connectivity if you want it, seamless Apple Pay that is miles ahead of Garmin Pay, more streamlined music, and better everyday usefulness for things like loyalty cards and plane and train tickets.

The Venu X1 offers music storage, streaming service links, NFC payments, notifications, and music controls, and it can even handle calls over Bluetooth, but some features are fiddly depending on your region. If you care about notifications, music, and weather, it gives you enough. If you are locked into the iOS ecosystem, though, the Ultra 2 experience is simply slicker and more effortless. A bonus for runners: the app store is full of sports-tracking apps, so the Ultra 2 can fill any gaps in its native run tracking.

Buying Advice

If you are on Android, this is an easy call: get the Garmin Venu X1, because the Apple Watch will not work with your phone, and the Venu X1 is about as close to an Apple Watch Ultra 2 experience as any Android-compatible watch gets.

For iPhone owners, it comes down to the classic Garmin versus Apple trade-off. Go Venu X1 if you want the thinner, lighter design, the better out-of-the-box sports tracking, richer mapping and routing, more approachable training analysis, and longer battery life. Go Apple Watch Ultra 2 if you want the more premium (if heavier) build, dual-band GPS for city running, the extra physical button, and a genuinely full smartwatch experience. The Ultra 2 is also likely to appear in sales more readily, so it may come in a little cheaper right now.

Conclusion

Both are very good run trackers and very nice watches to wear outside of runs. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the true smartwatch and fills its tracking gaps with apps, while the Venu X1 is the better sports watch, with more accurate and customizable tracking, excellent training analysis, fantastic mapping, and better battery life. For sports-focused buyers, the Venu X1 is the lean, but you will get a great experience from either if you are on iOS.