While only one digit separates the two models, the reality is that there’s a pile of differences. Many big-ticket differences (like Training Readiness), but also lots of little and more nuanced differences. The last time I did this type of post, I identified 65+ differences between the Forerunner 965 and Epix. This time, I’m going to try and maintain my sanity and focus on the big ticket ones, and then keep a simple running list of the remainder. That seems more viable.
Update: I failed. In total, I’ve got roughly around 107+ differences detailed. But in reality, for the upper section of this post I’m consolidating things into big groups to keep them simple (versus the reality the Training Status is multiple underlying features). Yet, in the sport profile section alone we’ve got 37 differences. Sorry-not-sorry.
With that, let’s just get straight into it, starting off with one I wouldn’t count, the price. There are effectively two models of each watch, albeit, in different ways:
Garmin Forerunner 165 (base): $249USD
Garmin Forerunner 165 (music edition): $299USD
Garmin Forerunner 265S: $449USD
Garmin Forerunner 265: $449USD
In the case of the Forerunner 165, the inclusion of offline music capability (which also includes WiFi connectivity) costs an extra $50. Whereas for the Forerunner 265, it’s included on all models. Instead, that model has two different sizes. So, let’s start with the sizes.
1) Display & Size Differences
There are effectively three different-sized watches here, including three different display sizes.
Forerunner 165: 1.2” (390×390 pixels)
Forerunner 265S: 1.1” (360×360 pixels)
Forerunner 265: 1.3” (416×416 pixels)
What’s interesting though, as I’ll cover in the battery section, is that the smaller Forerunner 265S actually gets longer battery life than the larger Forerunner 265, because they use the same battery in both models, but the smaller display means it draws less battery life.
When it comes to the physical size of the units, they are effectively considered the following case sizes by Garmin:
Forerunner 165: 43mm
Forerunner 265S: 42mm
Forerunner 265: 46mm
That said, while the 165 is only 1mm bigger than the FR265S, for some reason the FR265S feels notably smaller on the wrist than the FR165. Said differently, as a tall dude, the FR265S felt pretty tiny on my wrist, whereas the FR165 feels more normal.
From a glass/display standpoint, the FR265 has a slightly curved glass surface (technically the last little bit is curved), whereas the FR165 is flat across.
Forerunner 165 glass type: “Chemically strengthened glass”
Forerunner 265/265S glass type: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
And finally, weight-wise:
Forerunner 165: 39g
Forerunner 265S: 39g
Forerunner 265: 47g
Phew, let’s leave spec lists behind, and get into the features.
2) Training Readiness
The single biggest software difference, by far, is the lack of Training Readiness on the Forerunner 165. Training Readiness is Garmin’s umbrella score that encapsulates a suite of metrics that measure training load and recovery, and give you a constantly moving score as to how “ready to train” you are at any point in the day.
Each morning when you wake up you’ll see a score, which includes your night’s sleep data, HRV data, but also your recent training load and recovery data. Let’s say that score is 55 (out of 100), that’d be a ‘good enough’ score in the eyes of Garmin. Now, a few hours later around lunch, you’re ready to workout. By now your score might be 65, because you had a relaxing morning without much stress. But once you go out for that hard run, your score will drop down to perhaps 20, because your ‘readiness to train’ again, is now lower.
The score has six core components it leverages and weights differently:
– Sleep: This one is specifically looking at last night’s sleep
– Recovery time: This looks at your Recovery time from last workout, in hours
– HRV Status: This is comparing your 7-day trend versus historical trend
– Acute Load: This is looking at your 7-day trend
– Sleep History: This is looking at last night versus your prior 2 nights of sleep history
– Stress History: This is looking at the 3 days of daytime data (excluding overnight readings)
I’d argue that Training Readiness is one of Garmin’s most well-executed features in many years. It doesn’t mean though that you need to follow it to the letter, but I do find it’s a good gut check againt training too much, or, when too fatigued. Equally, if I find myself for days in the 70-80’s, then it’s likely I’m on a well deserved vacation from everything. 🙂
Training Readiness is not available on the Forerunner 165, though it is available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299.
3) Training Status
Now, one of those pieces of Training Readiness, is effectively Training Status, albeit in a different way. Training Status focuses more on the training aspect of your life. The best way to think of Training Status is what your coach would say to you, if they looked at your recent workouts. For example, if you just do interval workouts every single day, your (good) coach would roll their eyes and say “that’s unproductive”, because from a training improvement standpoint you need a more balanced diet.
Garmin made some big changes to Training Status about two years ago when they introduced Training Readiness, and it’s now much more focused on the components of training, rather than other aspects (which now are shifted into Training Readiness).
Training Status is not available on the Forerunner 165, though it is available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299.
4) Training Load (including Acute Load/Load Ratio/Load Focus)
Next, a key component to Training Status (and Training Readiness) is Training Load. But this is really multifaceted here. First, there’s the training load you’d see on any given completed activity. That training load is largely driven by heart rate zone time (e.g. higher intensity workouts have more load).
You can see here (left) the FR165 doesn’t have this, but the FR265 (right), does.
And then from there, that load gets compiled into your total load for both the week and month averages. Your weekly load is called Acute Load, and that too is only on the FR265 (and higher). Acute load though decays a bit, so it’s not a straight total. Meaning that yesterday’s long-run matters more than a run 6 days ago.
In many ways, my acute load from the last 7 days illustrates this super well. I had a bunch of stuff last week, but then I left Friday for a ski trip, where despite many hours of skiing each day, the ‘Workout Load’ per workout, is actually relatively small, thus the downhill trend.
In addition to per-workout load and acute load, there’s also Load Focus, which tells you how balanced your training diet is (e.g., high intensity vs low intensity), as well as Load Ratio (whether or not you’re increasing or decreasing load too fast relative to your history).
Here again, you can see the impact of skiing this week, where my load ratio is super low, compared to my historical norms.
All these Training Load metrics are not available on the Forerunner 165, though they are available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299.
5) Triathlon & Multisport Capabilities
Next, an easy-button one. The Forerunner 165 doesn’t have any triathlon modes, including duathlon and custom multisport modes. An important distinction here is that the Forerunner 165 will individually record all the triathlon parts – but not together as a single workout. Meaning that yes, you can go record an openwater swim. And you can go record a bike ride. And you can go record a run. But you can’t record those as a single cohesive non-stop activity with transition times. The Forerunner 265 can.
Multisport and triathlon metrics are not available on the Forerunner 165, though they are available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299. What’s that, you’re starting to see a pattern here, right?
6) Skiing/snowboarding sport profiles:
Had this been summer, I might have relegated this to the lower listing of missing sport profiles. But since I’m sitting here at a ski resort writing this post, and had hoped to use this watch to record my runs, I…well…can’t.
Thus, I’m calling out the complete and total wonkiness of this. The Forerunner 165 doesn’t support any ski modes (downhill or otherwise), which is weird given the Venu SQ 2 at the same price supports it. Garmin’s Vivoactive 5 at the same price supports it. And frankly just about every other older Garmin watch they now sell at, or well below, these prices support it.
So, if you wanted to go skiing, you’ll need to choose something else. At least until they add it here…which, I sincerely hope they do.
Skiing and snow sports modes are not available on the Forerunner 165, though they are available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices and basically everything else Garmin makes, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299.
6) Power Meters, Smart Trainers, and Other Sensors
The Forerunner 165 lacks a number of sensor accessory types, but the most notable one is the lack of cycling power meter connectivity. Aside from the skiing bits, this to me is arguably the quirkiest one of this entire list, given that Apple introduced cycling power meter support last summer to their equally priced watches, and Garmin also has it on the Instinct 2 at $299, and heck, even has various sub-$200 bike computers which support it.
In any case, it’s not there today, nor are a bunch of other sensor types. Here’s the key ones missing from the Forerunner 165, that are found on the Forerunner 265:
No power meter sensors (ANT+/Bluetooth), no eBike sensors (ANT+), no Extended Display connectivity (ANT+), no Running RD pod support (ANT+), no Smart Trainer connectivity (ANT+), no VIRB connectivity (ANT+)
Note that, technically speaking, the RD one doesn’t matter too much, since the watch does Running Dynamics natively.
As above, all these other sensors are not available on the Forerunner 165, though they are available on Garmin’s Instinct 2 series devices, which are now the same price as the Forerunner 165 Music, at $299. By now you’ve probably realized that I’m just stirring the pot. It’s my specialty.
7) A Boatload of Sport Profiles
There’s a lot of sport profiles now available on the Forerunner 165, that aren’t available on the Forerunner 265, some 37 additional ones specifically. Note that Garmin is constantly adding new sport profiles, especially to the Forerunner 265. Thus, this list is as of February 22nd, 2024, using the current public beta, which includes more new profiles that are set to hit production in the coming weeks.
Here’s the total Forerunner 165 list:
Run, Track Run,Treadmill, Virtual Run, Indoor Track, Trail Run, Ultra Run, Hike, Walk, Walk Indoor, Bike, Bike Indoor, Pool Swim, Open Water Swim, Cardio, Tennis, Pickleball, Padel, Strength, Yoga, Pilates, Breahwork, HIIT, Floor Climb, Elliptical, Stair Stepper
And here’s the total Forerunner 265 list:
Run, Track Run, Ultra Run, Trail Run, Virtual Run, Indoor Track, Treadmill, Hike, Walk, Walk Indoor, Bike, Bike Indoor, MTB, eBike, eMTB, Pool Swim, Open Water Swim, Triathlon, Multisport, Row Indoor, Strength, Cardio, HIIT, Yoga, Pilates, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Floor Climb, Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Jump Rope, Archery, Inline Skating, Ski, Snowboard, XC Classic Ski, Ice Skating, SUP, Row, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey, American Football, Lacrosse, Rugby, Cricket, Softball, Baseball, Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer/Football, Ultimate Disc, Tennis, Padel, Table Tennis, Platform Tennis, Pickleball, Squash, Racquetball, Badminton, Breathwork, Other
I could mention again that the Instinct 2 series has most of these, but honestly, in this case, that’s an entirely different list. Some overlap, some not, probably always changing.
8) Dual-Frequency GPS/GNSS & SatIQ
The Forerunner 265 series has multiband (dual-frequency) GNSS systems. That type of GPS connectivity means that in really tough situations, GPS can connect to a different set of satellite frequencies, that can sometimes assist.
And while that sounds really appealing (and it can be), the reality is that Garmin is likely using the exact same chipset (just without the extra antenna bits). And, as we’ve seen over the last little while – or even in the Forerunner 165 review, the GPS accuracy of the Forerunner 165 is incredibly good. It’s matching and even beating other companies’ multiband/dual-frequency watches from an accuracy standpoint. I dive into this quite a bit in my review in the GPS accuracy section.
But the long and the short of it is, that unless you live in Manhattan and specifically run between the crazy tall buildings there, it’s unlikely you’ll see a big difference (if any in fact), between the two units. And, as I showed with even 30-story buildings in the review, there was no difference.
Finally, note that the Forerunner 265 series has Garmin’s SatIQ technology, which lets it automatically switch from multiband to not-multiband dynamically, based on conditions. Basically that saves a bunch of battery life, since multiband consumes more battery life. But given the FR165 doesn’t have multiband, it’s not really applicable here.
9) Battery Life
Finally, on the big ticket items, we’ve got battery life. I’ll list all the official claims below, but will simply note that in my testing, I found Garmin’s claims pretty much spot on (if, actually a bit conservative). For those smartwatch times, my testing included 1-2hrs of workouts per day (usually GPS/outside workouts), and it still hit those numbers.
Forerunner 165 Battery Specifications:
Smartwatch mode: Up to 11 days (4 days always-on display)
Battery Saver Smartwatch mode: Up to 20 days
GPS-Only GNSS mode: Up to 19 hours
All-Systems GNSS mode: Up to 17 hours
GPS-Only GNSS mode with music: Up to 7 hours
All-Systems GNSS mode with music: Up to 6.5 hours
Forerunner 265S Battery Specifications:
Smartwatch mode: Up to 15 days (5 days always-on display)
Battery Saver Smartwatch mode: Unspecificed
GPS-Only GNSS mode: Up to 24 hours
SatIQ (AutoSelect) Mode: Up to 18 hours
Multiband/Dual Frequency GNSS mode: Up to 15 hours
GPS-Only GNSS mode with music: Up to 7.5 hours
SatIQ (AutoSelect) mode with music: Up to 7 hours
Multiband/Dual Frequency GNSS mode with music: Up to 6 hours
Forerunner 265 Battery Specifications:
Smartwatch mode: Up to 13 days (5 days always-on display)
Battery Saver Smartwatch mode: Unspecified
GPS-Only GNSS mode: Up to 20 hours
SatIQ (AutoSelect) Mode: Up to 16 hours
Multiband/Dual Frequency GNSS mode: Up to 14 hours
GPS-Only GNSS mode with music: Up to 7 hours
SatIQ (AutoSelect) mode with music: Up to 6.5 hours
Multiband/Dual Frequency GNSS mode with music: Up to 6 hours
And yes, the smaller Forerunner 265S does indeed get longer battery life than the larger Forerunner 265. That’s because they use the same battery in both, but the larger display of the larger FR265 draws more power, and drains the battery a bit faster.
All The Small Differences:
As I noted before, things tend to get out of hand pretty quickly around these parts when it comes to minor differences. The problem is, that some of these differences are actually important for different people. As I often say, one person’s “most important feature ever” is often another person’s “never used it even once”. Thus, while I don’t think the below list is a dealbreaker for most people, it can still be useful.
These are all features the Forerunner 165 does not have:
– Forerunner 265 has the new ‘Lap Undo’ feature
– Forerunner 265 lets you create organizing folders for widgets/glances
– Forerunner 265 currently has Sleep Coach, but the FR165 does not. However, Garmin says it’s coming to the Forerunner 165 in a firmware update , but I just wanted to call that out for now.
– Forerunner 265 has the ABC widget (Altimeter/Barometer/Compass)
– Forerunner 265 has an Altimeter quick-access button
– Forerunner 265 has a Barometer quick-access button
– Forerunner 265 has a Compass quick-access button
– Forerunner 265 has ability to calibrate altimeter
– Forerunner 265 has ability to
– Forerunner 265 has RedShift mode
– Forerunner 265 has Training Readiness Morning Report option
– Forerunner 265 has barometer alerts
– Forerunner 265 has the ability to set the Voice Prompt alerts to either Male or Female, the FR165 can’t change that setting
– Forerunner 265 has Critical Swim Speed metrics/settings
– Forerunner 265 has cycling power zones/settings
– Forerunner 265 has XC Ski power zones/settings
– Forerunner 265 has Max HR Zone detection
– Forerunner 265 has lactate threshold detection (running, with chest strap)
– Forerunner 265 supports GCT Balance data recording because it supports the RD pod, the FR165 does support Running Dynamics, but not the RD pod, so this specific data field won’t show up without the RD pod.
– Forerunner 265 has dedicated navigation data screens (data pages that only show up with a course/navigating loaded)
– Forerunner 265 has the heading “bug” option
– Forerunner 265 has navigation alerts and options for: Final Distance, Final ETE, Off Course, and Turn Prompts
– Forerunner 265 has the ability to turn off vibration alerts in one shot/setting, whereas FR165 requires multiple settings
– Forerunner 265 has the ability to turn off touch during sleep entirely, though that seems duplicate with the ‘General Use’ option the FR165 doesn’t have.
– Forerunner 265 has dedicated automatic Do Not Disturb timeframes, however that’s mostly duplicate with automatic sleep mode timeframes on the FR165. Plus you can always manually toggle DND mode.
– Forerunner 265 has performance condition (an alert that pops up about 5-10 minutes into your workout, letting you know how recovered you are)
– Forerunner 265 has the running Metronome feature
– Forerunner 265 has the Auto Climb option (when ascending, it’ll automatically add a set of customizable data pages)
– Forerunner 265 has 3D Speed and 3D Distance options (basically slightly more accurate in very steep scenarios)
– Forerunner 265 has auto scroll option
– Forerunner 265 has ‘Record Temperature’ option
– Forerunner 265 has dedicated compass data page for sport profiles
– Forerunner 265 has a slate of compass data fields you can put on custom data pages
– Forerunner 265 has a slate of extra data fields for barometric pressure and a barometric pressure chart, plus training load data fields
– Forerunner 265 supports up to 8 data fields per page, versus max 4 data fields per page on FR165
– Forerunner 265 lets you add specific structured workout data fields to custom data pages (FR165 just gives you a standard structure workout data page)
– Forerunner 265 lets you ‘Race an Activity’ to race past activities
– Forerunner 265 has guided Lactate Threshold test feature
– Forerunner 265 has a curved glass, versus the FR165 doesn’t
– Forerunner 265 probably has more features that I haven’t found yet, somehow.
Oh, and there’s exactly one feature that I found that the Forerunner 165 has, but oddly the Forerunner 265 doesn’t:
– Forerunner 165 has Walk incident (fall) detection, somehow the FR265 doesn’t
With that, my work is done here. As always, I failed in my quest to keep things simple. Many hours later, I regret my choices deeply. Hopefully though, it’s still useful for you.
Thanks for reading!
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