Garmin’s Marq smartwatch line comprises six distinct models, each optimized for different use. Features including activity tracking, smart notifications, and compatibility with Garmin Pay are in this set.
These timepieces have a titanium case and a sapphire crystal display to provide wearers with an unrivaled sense of luxury.
The question then becomes whether it can compete with the top smartwatches currently available. Find out in this in-depth review of the Marq watches range.
The Top Four Garmin Marq Watches
- Driver
- Athlete
- Adventurer
- Golfer
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Table of Contents
Garmin Watches
Marq Driver
In the Garmin Marq collection, the Driver edition of the smartwatch stands out the most. It’s for a niche group of people that get a rush from going to the racetrack. Even though it’s one of a kind, the luxury watch offers a wide variety of useful features that any driver can appreciate.
The watch has a great auto lap split, tachymeter scale, live delta time, and elegant, lightweight titanium style.
It is the first contemporary wristwatch featuring over 250 pre-loaded global racetracks you can access from the wrist.
With the Marq Driver, you can receive smart notifications such as emails, texts, and alerts on your wrist. It works with both Android and iOS mobile devices. This smartwatch also features a contactless payment system called Garmin Pay.
Pros
- Compatible with Android and iOS
- Offers PacePro function
- Smart features
- Lightweight and comfortable to wear
- Fitness features available
- Multiple location features
- Motorsports features
- Brilliant display
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Expensive
Best Features
Case and Strap
Marq Driver stands out visually among the rest of the Marq series thanks to its sleek, athletic design, which works equally well for the track as the office. The DLC-coated titanium case measures 46 millimeters in diameter and contributes to the watch’s sleek appearance.
It adorns the beautiful ceramic bezel inlay with a tachymeter scale. It also pairs with a matching DLC titanium bracelet featuring red silicon links and a butterfly clasp.
Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass and a durable DLC coating protect the 240-by-240-pixel display. In addition, the smartwatch can withstand water pressure for up to 100 meters.
Driving and Motorsports Feature
The Garmin Marq Driver’s primary function is to deliver the excitement of racing directly to the wrist, which succeeds admirably.
Unique motorsport and driving capabilities are available to both athletes and spectators. The watch face is customizable with your choice of over 250 of the world’s most prestigious racecourses.
Drivers and spectators alike will like the newly designed track time. When used with the tachymeter bezel, it can determine a vehicle’s speed and lap time in seconds.
Health and Fitness Features
It’s possible to use the Marq Driver as a fitness smartwatch because of its features. It includes a heart rate monitor, Pulse Ox sensor, performance analytics, a ClimbPro function, and activity profiles.
Everything you require for a successful workout is at your disposal.
It was the first of its kind to include the innovative PacePro function, which will be helpful to many runners. The innovative software lets users input their specific starting and finishing locations at the desired competition times.
Having access to not just GPS but also Galileo and GLONASS means you can navigate in more challenging areas than you could before. The three handy ABC sensors include an altimeter, electronic compass, and barometer to aid navigation. The barometer keeps tabs on the weather, and the altimeter can provide elevation data.
Battery Life
The battery life of the Marq Driver is one of the best of any fitness smartwatch, lasting up to 12 days when used in smartwatch mode. There’s a maximum battery life of 28 hours in GPS mode, 48 hours in UltraTrac mode, and 9 hours with GPS and music playing simultaneously.
Pricing
Recommendation
The Garmin Marq Driver is outstanding in every way. It shows why it is one of the best smartwatches with a motorsports theme. However, the price tag is high, and you can get the same features on cheaper options.
Marq Athlete
The Athlete is the pinnacle of Garmin’s fitness wristwatch products. As a member of the Marq family, it represents Garmin’s best efforts to date in the realm of GPS and music streaming, also fitness-focused, activity-tracking wearables.
A beautiful titanium case protects their most sophisticated fitness watch to date, which has every imaginable sensor and clever trick.
It’s also a wristwatch with various features, including notifications, storage, Bluetooth, NFC payments via Garmin Pay, and support for music services like Spotify.
With a 7-10 days battery life depending on usage, you won’t have to plug it in every night. As a bonus, this feature also makes it a highly efficient sleep monitor.
Pros
- Lightweight and comfortable to wear
- Fitness features available
- Magnificent display
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Pricey
Best Features
Health and Fitness Features
In its most basic form, the Marq Athlete is a fitness tracker. It records and plots your cardio and weight training workouts, runs, bike rides, and swims. The Marq provides a tracking option for whatever activity you can do and track.
The Marq features a Pulse Ox sensor that monitors the efficiency of your workouts beyond just measuring your progress. It can use that information to determine whether your extra morning run is beneficial. The VO2 Max score and recommended recovery time between them marked workouts on the default digital watch face.
Display and Design
Its lightweight titanium housing is sturdy. You can get a good feel for the buttons. It’s smaller than the standard-sized Fênix 5 Plus at 46mm, but it makes a statement on your wrist.
The silicone rubber strap is a pleasant touch that goes well with the case but may not appeal to all customers. A dome protects the sapphire crystal face and is scratch-proof and clear.
Even in direct sunlight, the screen remains legible.
Tracking your run is possible and extremely precise, thanks to the diverse set of GPS and satellite sensors.
Exercise
You’ll have access to a vast quantity of information once your run is complete. The top-tier Garmin Connect app lets you track your training’s effectiveness and heart rate, elevation gain, cadence, and more.
Many fitness trackers gather health information and either give it to you and let you sort it out on your own or conceal complex functionality behind user-friendly interfaces. It’s not the case with Marq Athlete.
Connecting the Marq Athlete to Garmin Connect is like having a digital fitness dashboard in your hands. It does more than just report numbers. It processes and interprets the information. Afterwards, you can interpret data like your general fitness, how you’ll do in your next race, and more.
Sleep Tracking
Sleep is an integral part of your performance, and Garmin recognizes this. Your Body Battery score reflects your overall health, such as quality of sleep and the intensity of your workouts.
Also, the stress you’re under and the amount of oxygen in your blood. You’ll receive valuable suggestions for day planning as soon as that changes.
Pricing
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Recommendation
The Marq Athlete strikes that ideal balance. The Marq Athlete strikes that ideal balance. As detailed in this Garmin Marq Athlete review, it is a recommendable option.
Marq Adventurer
If you love the outdoors and use a GPS, you need a Garmin Marq Adventurer. The watch excels in various sports, including skiing, trail running, biking, climbing, and hiking.
This GPS watch may be ideal for those who enjoy participating in various sports.
It has unbelievable functionality and cutting-edge engineering. Since it is capable of so much, Garmin dubs it a “modern tool watch.”
The Marq Adventurer monitors various parameters and displays the results in clear, understandable graphs using the Garmin Connect app on your smartphone. It works on iOS and Android devices.
You can enjoy music streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music without a smartphone. You can also use Garmin Pay, its technology for instant contactless payments.
Pros
- Long battery life
- Expedition-specific software
- Beautifully made titanium bezel
Cons
- Expensive
- No solar charging
Best Features
Design and Build Quality
This is where the Marq Adventurer stands out from the competition. It has a 46mm bezel and a casing made of softly brushed titanium. The screen’s resolution of 240×240 pixels is both vivid and legible in direct sunlight.
The smartwatch comes with a QuickFit strap made of Italian Vacchetta leather strap. Unhooking a little latch allows you to swap straps out for more water-resistant and long-lasting rubber alternatives.
The 46mm size is an excellent compromise between the size requirements of different wrists and the customary Garmin aesthetic.
The sports watch has a water resistance of 100 meters, and its domed sapphire crystal lens helps to prevent scratches.
Health and Fitness Features
The adventurer keeps tabs on one’s vitals, including their resting heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and respiratory rate. It also has an altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, temperature gauge, and GPS sensor.
Whether an outdoor enthusiast or a seasoned traveler, the Garmin Marq Adventurer has something to offer you. Using it to keep track of long hikes alone will provide a staggering amount of information, such as distance traveled, calories spent, and elevation gained.
Also included is the capability to monitor and record water intake. It’s a fitness tracker with various pre-programmed outdoor pursuits, each with its unique profile. You can record your kayaking, running, or hiking sessions.
And the best part?
You can analyze the information on your smartphone at a later time. Afterwards, share it on social media and have it uploaded to Strava and other similar sites automatically.
Navigation
Garmin equips this Adventurer model with a 360-degree compass bezel and a handy compass widget on the watch face, making it ideal for navigation.
Built-in TopoActive maps with Trendline feature navigation allow users to plot the optimal routes to their destinations with pinpoint accuracy. Navigating with multiple GNSS satellites is more reliable.
Turn on Move IQ in the Garmin Connect mobile app, and your watch will start tracking your workouts without having to do a thing but move. Standard examples include riding a bike, running, or even using a gym machine. It is an excellent option if you forget to press the record before hitting the gym.
Battery Capacity
When using GPS Mode, Garmin has up to 28 hours, UltraTrac mode has up to 48 hours, and the Marq Adventurer Expedition GPS Activity mode has up to an incredible four weeks. A USB charging cord conveniently hooks onto the back of the device.
Pricing
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Recommendation
This high-end, sensor-laden adventurer’s watch from Garmin is among the company’s highest-priced models. However, the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar Edition is a little more practical at that price.
Marq Golfer
Garmin is a market leader among golf watches, and the Garmin Marq Golfer is the most feature-rich and high-end option available from the company. Its golf elements represent only a fraction of its full potential. Extra features in fitness and navigation help make this watch a top contender among golfing wristwear.
The Marq Golfer, however, is not only attractive on the course but also beyond it. You can wear it to a fancy dinner, which will still fulfill all your typical smartwatch responsibilities, such as notifications.
Pros
- Wide variety of features
- Exceptional display
- Long battery life
Cons
- Expensive
- The screen is more functional than beautiful
Best Features
Health and Fitness Features
It includes all the standard functions on Garmin’s other sports and fitness watches. Support various premium fitness measures, including a blood oxygen sensor and heart rate monitoring.
The Marq has your back no matter what form of exercise you prefer, be it cycling, jogging, or swimming. It monitors your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, stress, and sleep levels.
Golfing Features and UI
What exactly does the Marq Golfer do when they’re out there playing? Let me walk you through it.
With only one click, you can access the many activities and choose Golf as your preferred activity in the Garmin golf app. The watch will then use its GPS to pinpoint your location and download the course information. Since Garmin has over 41,000 pre-loaded routes, likely, you won’t need to worry about finding a route.
Teeing off will prompt you to select your club. If you’re ready to play, go ahead and pick your ball. The Marq will display the distance of your shot, the distances to the front, center, and back of the green, and a comprehensive analysis of any potential risks.
After you’ve hit your second tee shot, the watch will prompt you to enter the club you used again so it can record the distance.
It will continue to do so until you approach the green. Afterwards, it will prompt you to enter your score, several putts, penalty strokes, and whether you hit the fairway or missed to the left or right.
After connecting with your smartphone, send all this information to your Gamin Connect profile. There, you can monitor your progress and identify problem areas. Scorecards, individual club distances, and a neat little graphic displaying your longest drive are all included.
After five rounds with the watch on, the Virtual Caddie will activate. You can trust the Virtual Caddie advice on which clubs to use because it’s informed by data collected on your play.
Golfers can easily scan the approaching shot’s hazards using Hazard View and get crucial distance data. The PlaysLike Distance is another golf-centric feature. It calculates the effects of elevation variations.
Display and Design
Like the other watches such as Garmin Forerunner, the Golfer is a high-end smartwatch featuring notifications, music storage, and Garmin Pay for contactless payments.
The Marq has a ceramic bezel and titanium case measuring 46 millimeters in diameter, with 1-18 golf hole markings carved into the bezel. This high-end gadget is easily recognizable because of its domed sapphire lens and always-on, sunlight-readable display.
It lacks the aesthetic appeal of an OLED display like an Apple watch, but has many of the same valuable features.
There’s a tritone green jacquard-weave nylon strap or a green silicone one to choose from.
The Marq allows for quick and simple strap swaps thanks to its compatibility with Garmin’s QuickFit watch band solution. Changing the watch’s strap to a new color will significantly change the timepiece’s appearance.
Battery Life
The time a single charge will last is astounding. It takes 12 days in smartwatch mode or 28 hours in GPS mode.
Pricing
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Recommendation
This golf watch is miles ahead of the competition. The Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition is a significant rival to the Marq. But in terms of design and functionality alone, the Marq is superior.
Bottom Line: Garmin Marq Review
The Garmin Marq series offers reasonable value. Any leading digital publisher acknowledges that all the features in the watch are identical to high-end Wear OS timepieces. For example like the Tag Heuer Connected Modular series and the Montblanc Summit.
The quality of Marq’s focus is well worth the investment. However, whatever model you select will depend on your requirements.
Marq Golfer’s charm extends far beyond the golf course. The design’s high-end finishing touches make it feel and appear like a high-end wristwatch. It’s, without a doubt, the best Garmin golf watch today. But for some, the cost can be too high when competing models can accomplish the same goals at a fraction of the price.
The Marq athlete has all the capabilities that make Garmin watch the most comprehensive fitness tracking device available. However, its high price makes it unaffordable for most people.
The pricing of the Garmin Marq Adventurer is a crucial factor to consider when discussing this device. Thankfully, it performs well, and we can confidently recommend it to outdoor enthusiasts.