We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Garmin’s Forerunner 265 was the first modern running watch I spent a lot of time with—you can read my review here about how it drew me back into tracking all my run data, for better or for worse. But there are some things that, in hindsight, I wish I had understood better at the start of the journey. Here are the biggest ones that you might like to know about.

Why it has so many dang buttons

The 265 (and other recent Forerunners) seem to have too many buttons. What do we need five of them for, when we’re doing most things from the touchscreen anyway? Garmin’s Vivoactive line gets away with having just two, as do the Coros Pace 3 and Pace Pro, which have all the same main functions as the 265.

But as soon as I saw the previous generation

See Full Page