The Best Running Watches of 2024

Just Buy This (All Around Best)

Garmin Forerunner 265

$446 at Amazon View on Walmart $400 at Best Buy

TL;DR: Garmin is the go-to name for running or hiking watches with the Garmin Forerunner 265 the perfect balance between value and features. It’s easy to use, robust, and has some great monitoring tools.

Why We Recommend This

I’m a fan of the Apple Watch for the most part, but my time with the Garmin Forerunner 265 has made me realize I need to switch things up when I’m running, especially when I want to be serious about my running aims. 

It works with both my iPhone and Android phone with a simple-to-figure-out app. There’s a battery life of about 14 days, too, so I hardly ever needed to remember to recharge it. 

Crucially, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is a great aid when running. It offers information on seemingly everything from pace and speed to your averages, your cadence, how much power you’re pushing through your legs, and so forth. It also has many training plans that you can simply pick out and follow without needing to sign up for any additional services.

The Garmin Forerunner 265 keeps you on track outside of your training sessions. As any avid runner will know, a marathon or half-marathon plan is just as dependent on rest days as it is on active running. 

That’s where the Garmin Body Battery feature is hugely useful. It gives you a score each day so you can see how far you can push things or whether you should be resting. Based on your heart rate variability, stress levels, sleep quality, and how active you’ve been, I’ve found it fairly accurate. Combined with a plan that reminds you to rest, it’s effectively like having a personal trainer on your wrist. 

It’s not the most stylish of watches, but the Garmin Forerunner 265 is fantastic for pure running.

• Who else recommends it? TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, The Verge, and Trusted Reviews strongly recommend the Garmin Forerunner 265. 
• What do buyers think? The Garmin Forerunner 265 has 277 ratings from Amazon customers. 85% of those gave it five stars, with another 6% giving it four stars for an overall average of 4.6 out of 5.

Also Great

Suunto Race GPS Sports Watch

$449 at Amazon

TL;DR:  One of the more stylish running watches, the Sunnto Race has a great display for glancing at while you race.

Why We Recommend This

The Sunnto Race is a bit big on my slender wrist but it still looks good. It has an incredibly crisp display that I found instantly likeable as I ran. I might not run fast but it’s still useful to quickly glance at how you’re doing. 

There aren’t many great pre-loaded digital watch faces but what’s there is classy even if not as much fun as something like the Snoopy watch face on my Apple Watch Series 9. Best of all is its Digital Crown which is something that isn’t a surefire thing on running watches in particular.

It’s easy to scroll through the options with my preference being to check how my training progress is going and when to rest. The Suunto way of doing things isn’t as detailed as the Garmin method but it’s still more than good enough and in exchange, you get a watch that you’re more likely to want to wear on an evening out rather than solely when running.

In my time with it, the Sunnto Race had a near flawless GPS although heart rate monitoring reported a little higher than on other devices although that could be down to its placement on my wrist. 

Instead of Garmin training plans, you get Suunto Coach which still helps you not overload yourself while training, but it does feel a little slower to get going than other watches. Similarly, starting an exercise takes a brief moment which is simultaneously not the end of the world but does soon grate a teensy bit.

On a much more positive note, however, the Sunnto Race has fantastic battery life, at up to 26 days, depending on how you use it. Even with GPS running the whole time, you’ll get about 40 hours, which will suit ambitious ultra-marathon runners and more. There’s extensive offline map support, too, which is great at this price.

• Who else recommends it? Road.cc, TechRadar, UltraRunner Magazine, and Tom’s Guide all recommend the Sunnto Race. 
• What do buyers think? The Suunto Race has 91 ratings from Amazon customers. 66% of those gave it five stars, with another 12% giving it four stars for an overall average of 4.1 out of 5.

Easiest on the Budget

Amazfit Balance Smart Watch

$195 at Amazon

TL;DR: More affordable than most running watches, the Amazfit Balance looks good and covers the basics, even if it does falter in places.

Why We Recommend This

The Amazfit Balance looks fantastic. It’s one of the more stylish watches I’ve used and while a little chunky on my small wrists, feels like something to wear to an event as well as while running. One button on the right offers a shortcut to whatever workout you’re thinking of doing while the Digital Crown is there for interacting with the many apps that are preinstalled.

A lot of these are filler material but I appreciated the meditation app. There’s a body measurement app too but like many others (including those on pricier models), this won’t really compare with a good pair of smart scales. It’s nice insight though. 

The bright and crisp screen is perfect while you run. There’s no convoluted data here so at a glance, I could see exactly how fast I was moving. The only annoyance was how as standard, the watch’s voice assistant will read out your progress which can be awkward if you’re running past someone and didn’t realize it would do that (from harsh experience!). 

There’s no fancy Gorilla Glass here but when running, I’m not really planning on scraping my arm alongside a rough surface so this is only really an issue if you also plan on strength training or rock climbing. 

The Amazfit Balance might lack some finer details but it still squeezes in a daily readiness reading which felt akin to what Fitbits have provided in recent times. It’s not as detailed as something like Garmin’s Body Battery tool but it felt reasonably accurate when I compared it to how I was feeling.

Away from the watch, the Zepp companion app is a little confusing to use but certainly packed with functionality so it’s worth exploring.

Ultimately, the Amazfit Balance won’t compete with the big guns but it’s considerably cheaper than those options. If you’re looking for compromise, the Amazfit Balance gets the balance right.

• Who else recommends it? Wired, Livescience, and ZDNet all recommend the Amazfit Balance.
• What do buyers think? The AmazFit Balance has 220 ratings from Amazon customers. 68% of those gave it five stars, with another 18% giving it four stars for an overall average of 4.5 out of 5.