Garmin Venu 4 vs. Venu 3: Did Garmin's best all-around watch get even better?

The Garmin Venu 4 builds on the Venu 3, our favorite all-around Garmin watch of the past two years, with subtle design changes, a couple of expected hardware upgrades, and a laundry list of new fitness features that make this fourth-gen model feel like a Forerunner 570 with fewer buttons.

This Venu 4 vs. 3 breakdown won't have too many surprises. Most 2025 Garmin watches have added a flashlight, doubled display brightness, voice commands, smart alarms, and new Garmin Coach plans. Anyone hoping for sixth-generation health sensors or other exclusives will be disappointed.

Still, even if the Venu X1 vs. Venu 3 gap is wider, the Venu 4 has plenty of tempting upgrades for anyone who thought Garmin held back the Venu 3 software too much to make it accessibly "mainstream."

Let's dive into every key difference to help Garmin fans decide if the Venu 4 is worth the extra expense, or if the Venu 3 is still worth buying if you find one on sale.

Garmin Venu 4 vs. 3: Design & display

The Garmin Venu 4 has the same 1.2- and 1.4-inch display sizes as its predecessor, except that its max brightness for sunny conditions is doubled, making it much clearer and vivid in the context of workouts. The Venu 3 looks great indoors and is perfectly readable outdoors, but the Venu 4 matches the brightness standard of most other smartwatches these days.

Another subtle change is that the Venu 4 display border no longer has clock markings along the edge at five-second intervals. Sportier Garmins tend to add words and numbers in the margins, making the Venu 4 much more subtle and defined by the watch face.

Unfortunately, the Venu 4 didn't upgrade the Venu 3's Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Garmin reserves sapphire glass for premium models like the Venu X1, not acknowledging that "mid-range" models like the Venu 4 and Forerunner 570 cost hundreds more than other watches with higher-end scratch protection.

The Venu series skips Garmin's typical five-button layout, relying on two buttons and touch controls. But the Venu 3 added a unique third button for shortcuts — which I found quite convenient — before the Venu 4 (and Venu X1) removed it. I'd guess that not enough people used it, and casuals got it confused with the Back button too often. Plus, it detracted from the Venu series' minimalist look.

With the Venu 4, the main Start button is smaller and rounder, but still steel-coated, while the Back button keeps the rectangular look.

Both watches have a stainless steel bezel, but the Venu 4 bezel is smooth where the Venu 3's was ridged. I'd say these design differences are a matter of preference, rather than one being "better" than the other; either bezel is more attractive than the rounded aluminum bezel on the Vivoactive 6.

The most notable design change is that the Venu 4 uses a blend of fiber-reinforced polymer and stainless steel in the case, giving it a more refined look than the Venu 3 but keeping it lighter than the steel Garmin Fenix 8.

Garmin managed to keep the Venu 4 relatively skinny — the 41mm model is still 12mm thick, while the 45mm model is 0.5mm thicker — but both sizes are 9g and 6g heavier than their predecessors, respectively. It's not a massive difference, but where the Venu 3 was lighter than most Garmins, the Venu 4's weight is more typical for the brand.

Lastly, the Venu 4 colors are pretty much unchanged — Slate, Silver, and a gold option for the smaller model — and Garmin once again gave the Venu 4 silicone bands with smaller (less breathable) holes than on the sporty Forerunner bands. But if you buy it from Garmin, you can customize the Venu 4 with a fabric or leather band instead.

Garmin Venu 4 vs. 3: Hardware, sensors, & battery life

Garmin doesn't advertise its processors, but the Venu 4 should run on slightly newer hardware, matching other 2024 and 2025 watches with the newer Garmin OS. This should mitigate the loss of the third shortcut button, because apps and functions are much easier to find with the new UI.

Both the Venu 4 and Venu 3 have a mic and speaker for Bluetooth calls and passthrough commands to your phone's Gemini or Siri assistant. But the newer OS enables on-watch voice commands like starting a workout or pulling up your sleep score. I find these commands to be finicky and limited, unfortunately.

You won't find any changes to the health sensors. The Venu 3 was one of the first models to use Garmin's fifth-generation sensors with ECG readings, skin temperature data, and an HR accuracy boost. Two years later, even ultra-expensive models like the Fenix 8 Pro still use this sensor suite.

Garmin has patented long-term glycated hemoglobin tracking, hemocrit tracking, and other new metrics that we'd have loved to see the Venu 4 introduce. Instead, the only new Venu 4 health features are software-based, which we'll discuss in the next section.

Like most 2025 Garmins, the Venu 4 adds a built-in LED flashlight with four white brightness settings and one dim red setting, all accessible by long-pressing the Back button. You can set it to blink or strobe during nighttime activities to avoid collisions or hold your arm steady to illuminate a small portion of the road ahead of you.

What's slightly more surprising is that the Venu 4 now has dual-band GPS tracking! The Venu 3 — and even the $800 Venu X1 — use all-systems GNSS, which delivers dependably accurate data in normal circumstances but isn't quite as pinpoint accurate in tougher conditions. It makes the Venu 4 more appealing to the Forerunner and Fenix crowd.

Another noticeable trend with recent Garmin watches is that their doubled brightness corresponds to lower battery life. The Venu 4 45mm only lasts 12 days (four with AOD), while the Venu 3 45mm lasts 14 days (five with AOD). It's a slight compromise, but an easier one to accept than the Venu X1 (eight days or two with AOD).

If you're looking at a smaller model, both the Venu 4 and 3 41mm hit 10 days per charge, but the older model lasts an extra two days in AOD mode. And the Venu 4 41mm's 12 multi-band GPS hours are low for any Garmin watch.

Garmin Venu 4 vs. 3: Software and features

The table above doesn't cover every new Venu 4 software feature, but I've emphasized the highlights. The training tools, daily suggested runs, downloadable GPX courses, and running tools will be familiar to Forerunner 265 or 570 owners. And it pulls features like the smart wake alarm and daily suggested walks from the Vivoactive 6.

Aside from these imported tools, the Venu 4 introduces a few exclusive perks — at least until Garmin ports them to other models.

Garmin has traditionally siloed its coaching and suggested workouts into individual categories like running, cycling, and strength. The Venu 4, however, is getting a new generalized "Fitness Coach" that "provides personalized workouts for over 25 different fitness activities – from walking and indoor cycling to rowing, HIIT, and more."

This feels tailored to the Venu series, which has traditionally focused more on indoor gym or home workouts with animations and muscle maps. And the same goes for the new "mixed session activity" profile, which will let you track different gym workouts in one general activity instead of splitting them up or using one "Cardio" activity.

Health Status shows how your body's nightly heart rate, blood oxygen, HRV, skin temperature, and respiration rate compare against your baseline. It then warns you via the Morning Report if you have any "outliers" as a sign of illness or poor lifestyle choices.

On that note, Lifestyle logging has you tell Garmin the positive, negative, or neutral actions you've taken throughout the day so that it can provide insights into their physiological impact on metrics like stress and sleep quality. You can log eating or drinking coffee late, having a period or migraine, wearing a CPAP, getting a massage or acupuncture, or many other options.

The Venu 3 will receive both of these features, but only in the Connect app; if you want a Health Status watch widget or easy on-wrist logging, you'll need the Venu 4.

The Venu 3 first introduced a wheelchair mode and tracked pushes instead of steps. The Venu 4 will build on this with accessibility features for the colorblind (color filters like grayscale or red/green) and the visually impaired (a spoken watch face and hourly vocal alerts with health data).

More broadly, Garmin will build on the Venu 3's sleep coach and enhanced body battery data with the Venu 4, judging your circadian rhythm to determine "how aligned the body is to its inner sleep cycle." It'll also track your "sleep consistency" after seven days of tracking.

Garmin Venu 4 vs. Venu 3: Which should you buy, or should you upgrade?

Garmin watches are getting more expensive, so the $550 Venu 4 doesn't surprise me. But it's still expensive for a fitness watch; the Venu 3 felt more accessible, in the same range as other "normal" smartwatches. You can argue that dual-band GPS, flashlight, training load, and other perks are worth $100 extra, but it's not clear if Venu fans will care about these perks as much as Fenix or Forerunner users.

Ultimately, I think your upgrade decision will come down to the new health and training tools, more than the hardware. Do you want a new personalized training plan, or running/ cycling workouts as cross-training for your gym workouts? Or do you want more insights on how to live a healthier lifestyle with better sleep? If this sounds intriguing, the Venu 4 will be a good fit.

If that all sounds superfluous, I'd say you can stick with the Venu 3 and hold out until 2027 for a Venu 5 with newer health sensors. Or if you're weighing the Venu 3 on sale, I'd say it remains one of the best Garmin watches, even if the Venu 4 is objectively better on most fronts.