Garmin Forerunner 265 vs Suunto Race 3S
The Forerunner 265 is $150 cheaper and brings Garmin Pay, music streaming, and Garmin's training tools. The Race 3S adds offline maps, nearly double the GPS battery, and titanium and sapphire.
GarminGarmin Forerunner 265
SuuntoSuunto Race 3S
- •You want Garmin Pay, Spotify streaming, and Garmin's training ecosystem for less
- •You want a smaller 42mm size option
- •You want offline maps and 38 hours of GPS vs 20
- •You want titanium and sapphire glass
The 265 pairs a bright touchscreen with real training-load and recovery metrics, without pushing into flagship pricing. It remains one of the most recommended running watches on the market for good reason: it just covers the bases extremely well.
The Race 3S takes everything that made the Race S a hit for smaller wrists and upgrades nearly all of it: a titanium bezel and sapphire glass, a 2,000-nit AMOLED display (up from 600), 38 hours of dual-band GPS (up from 30), 64GB of storage for free global offline maps, and Suunto's new AI Coach. The watch head weighs just 38 grams. It still skips a speaker, ECG, and NFC payments, and at $599 it costs a lot more than the Race S it replaces.
*Estimated — this model's exact GPS battery life isn't published by the manufacturer. All figures are standard GPS mode, midsize case, no solar boost.
†Estimated — this model launched too recently to have an established customer rating yet.
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