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The Garmin Marq Review: Luxury Sports Watch.

The Garmin Marq Review: Luxury Sports Watch.

, by Mathu, 6 min reading time

The Garmin Marq is one of the most attractive watch series of the company at present. Garmin is attempting to enter the market of luxury watches to compete with some of the best in the world like Tag Heuers and Breitlings. As a result, they have been designing more attractive watches like Fenix Chronos.For this, the company used high-quality materials for the components and priced it on par with some of the best watches in the world. The company tried something very special for the Marq. Using high-quality materials, it has made five versions -- each different from the other -- and considers all of them to have the appearance of a modern device.All these versions also have the features of the sports and smartwatches produced by the company. Normally, the Marq watches are priced from 1,41,000 INR to 2,27,000 INR. The most expensive Fenix 5X Plus was priced at 73,000 INR only. So, this is a quantum jump as far as the pricing is concerned.

Garmin Marq Athlete: Design

Garmin wants the users to be proud of its watches they wear and so they have taken extra care with their designs. The naming of the five different models of Marq watches is done after the companys five divisions -- Driver, Expedition, Aviator, Captain and Athlete. They come in 46 mm titanium casing with a bezel, the crystal lens of the sapphire dome and a 22mm interchangeable strap.All these features are there in Fenix 5X also. In addition, its casing is 1 mm bigger than that of Fenix 5 Plus. The five buttons in metal around the case are neatly arranged and look really good. The start button can be easily spotted as it has a yellow accent.

The Marq Athlete has a unique design which cannot be found in other Marq and Garmin models.The big bezel also functions as an indicator for the VO2 Max and its recovery. This, no doubt, is a good addition, but it works only when it is coupled with analogue watch faces. The users of the sports watch have reasons to be extremely happy - the design is lightweight.The screen has the quality as well as visibility like the screen in Fenix 5X Plus which also has the same 1.2 inches and 240 x 240 resolution transflective display screen. The technology used in the screen has resulted in improved battery life. There are options to increase the brightness which is an added advantage for a watch that would cost above 73,000 INR.

Garmin Marq Athlete: Sports tracking

The Marq easily holds the top spot among all of Garmins smartwatches. It has better features than any of its other models. It tracks almost all sports activities -- cycling, golf, running, skiing, swimming etc. It also monitors all the activities of the entire day like sleep and stress.It also includes mapping and navigation features, safety support, gym models and tactical features. It also includes insights in training and analysis. The Garmin Connect app is available in this model, so you dont need any third-party apps.The model also comes with shortcut buttons for various menus and settings. In addition to all these main features, each Marq model carries some unique features. For instance, the Marq Captain is great for sailing boats as it includes important data like temperature, speed of the wind, information about the tides and more.Adventurers can go for models like Marq Expedition which has TOPO mapping and is also better equipped to handle satellite communication. The Marq Driver comes loaded with important race tracks and offers lap timings during competitive driving.

Running

Additional accessories are required to unlock advanced running modes like that of Garmins Running Dynamics Pod or the Stryd, while the model supports both outdoor and indoor running without much difficulty. The Athlete has commendable accuracy when races, treadmill runs and training runs are measured.The watch is quite compact and easy to carry during actual runs and it has all the satellite support required. The screen size is quite good to display all the available data. Garmins Elevate sensor technology for heart rate checking is another important feature.

Trail running

The Marq performs very well in trail running. It gives additional data on elevation and temperature. It works well on tough terrains and the screen has good visibility.

Hiking

The temperature and distance measurements and mapping during hiking are accurate.

Swimming

Garmin watches are good for swimming. The Marq Athlete is no different. The big screens offer very good visibility underwater while the big touch buttons help open the data screens effortlessly. The Athlete can track swimming data in a variety of events like swimming in open water and swim races.The Athlete efficiently measures lengths and the swimming data are shown in the Connect app. In fact, its performance matches Coros Vertix watches and Form Swim Goggles which are known for its swimming data accuracy.

Garmin Marq Athlete: Main features

The Athlete, no doubt, is one of the best models of smartwatches Garmin has ever produced. It is compatible with Android and iOS phones which offer ANT+, Bluetooth and also Wi-Fi connectivity. So connecting with other devices as heart monitors or Running Dynamics Pod, a Garmin product, for additional data is made easy.There are also other features like notification support and Garmin Pay for easy and contactless payment options. The music storage on-board helps in storing music from provider services like Spotify. It has 32GB storage onboard which is just the double of what one gets from Fenix 5 Plus. That means there is space for about 1,000 tracks and more.

LTE connectivity is not available, though Garmin had introduced it in earlier models like Vivoactive 3 Music.The performance of Marq Athlete is commendable. The improvements Garmin has made in the UI of the latest Forerunner watch is seen on the Marq Athlete too which ensures easy reading from the screen and widgets. The screen is wide enough to read notifications, calendar appointments and weather forecasts without any difficulty. The Garmin Pay is another advantage and can be easily installed. Its music system is just like those in any other watches which Garmin has produced.The Garmin Connect IQ is an app store which enables users to download several apps, data fields, and extra watch faces along with widgets. Garmin has revamped its storefront in recent times and is proud of possessing its own smartphone app. As the Marq also has a lot of similarities with Fenix, a lot of apps and widgets would work on the Marq Athlete too.

Garmin Marq Athlete: Battery life

The battery life of the Marq Athlete and the Fenix 5 Plus is almost the same. It is up to 12 days, 28 hours and 9 hours in smartwatch mode, GPS mode and with GPS and music streaming respectively.In GPS mode it has the advantage of 10 extra hours compared to Fenix. The 48 hours of the Ultra Trac mode is the same as that of Fenix.

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