Although wearable industry veteran Garmin sells A LOT of different smartwatches at a lot of different price points with at least slightly different target audiences between them, only one of the US company’s multiple product lineups includes actual “mainstream” rivals for the hugely popular Apple Watch Series 7 (and slightly less successful Samsung Galaxy Watch 4).
We’re talking about the Venu family, which is pretty good at blending style and substance, especially when it comes to its second and third (circular) incarnations. As the name suggests, the 2021-released Garmin Venu 2 is slightly less advanced than this year’s Venu 2 Plus, which is why there’s typically a small $50 gap between the two editions of essentially the same device.
But if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can slash a totally unprecedented and hard-to-beat (in the near future, at least) 130 bucks off the $399.99 list price of the Venu 2… and the Venu 2S. Now these two products are basically identical, fitting the exact same internals and features into differently sized bodies.
Both the 45mm case of the “regular” Garmin Venu 2 and the more compact 40mm body of the Venu 2S model are made from a reasonably robust material called fiber-reinforced polymer, with the relatively thick bezel rocking premium stainless steel for an extra touch of glamour and a silicone strap available in a few different colors completing a very well-balanced design package sitting at the intersection of fitness and business.
The Venu 2 duo means business as far as health monitoring is concerned as well, lacking the life-saving ECG technology of several of its direct rivals while promising to coordinate your workouts like no other mainstream smartwatch around and keeping an eye on everything from a wearer’s heart rate to sleep quality, blood oxygen levels, overall stress, respiration, hydration, and menstrual cycle.
With a beautiful round AMOLED touchscreen capable of showing valuable information from both Android handsets and iPhones, and perhaps most importantly, impressive battery life of more than a week (!!!) on a single charge, the Venu 2 and Venu 2S are clearly among the very best smartwatches you can buy right now at their new all-time low price.
