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

The Garmin Venu 3 was our favorite all-around Garmin watch of late, so when the Garmin Venu 4, came around in late 2025, it was exciting. What's different and is it worth the upgrade over this already great smartwatch? There are subtle design changes and expected hardware upgrades. But there's also a long list of new fitness features that make this wearable feel like a Forerunner 570 with fewer buttons.

Following in line with upgrades Garmin has been adding to many of its newer smartwatches, the Garmin Venu 4 has a flashlight, a display that's twice as bright, the addition of voice commands, smart alarms, and new Garmin Coach plans. The Venu X1 vs. Venu 3 gap is wider, but the Venu 4 has plenty of tempting upgrades for those who thought Garmin held back too much on the Venu 3 software in order to make it accessibly "mainstream."

So, what specifically is upgraded with the Garmin Venu 4 vs Venu 3, and is it worth getting instead or upgrading? Let's take a look.

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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 when you're using it outdoors, like for a run or outdoor sports. 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.

It has a similarly rounded face with cleaner, flatter sides, a design change likely made to fit the flashlight that's tucked into the top. Since it doesn't have as many smaller buttons on the side, it looks less like a sports watch and more like a traditional wristwatch.

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. That's disappointing considering 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 is 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 can feel a bit uncomfortable after a while, especially in bed, Derrek Lee points out in his review.

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

Both smartwatches run on a Garmin-developed processor and Garmin OS. They both 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.

The software experience, however, is where you'll find a huge change, according to Lee, with the new software implementation making a huge difference. From swiping motions to access menus to responding to messages right from the watch by typing on the tiny keyboard or using voice, it's intuitive. He loves the Morning and Evening reports as well, which help to kick off and summarize your days, respectively.

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. Lee found it lasted about eight days per charge through his review period, even with the always-on display turned off. But that's still pretty good.

Another feature worth mentioning with the Venu 4 is the phone's own AI assistant for calling up things like workouts and timers. But Lee finds it only understands him half the time. He also adds that the volume isn't very loud when trying to make calls or even listen to music without earbuds.

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.

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.

Lee wrote a fitness review of the watch focused specifically on his experience using it to track workouts, but to sum it up, he found it pretty accurate but for a few odd heart rat readings. "It's a reliable fitness tracker with numerous sports modes to choose from," he assures. He also loves the pre- and post-workout features like training status, designed to help you not only gauge how hard you have been working but also how hard you should work to reach your goals.

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. Overall, you get more involved sleep data.

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. Lee says this feature sounds useful in theory, but he would often forget to log data, and would prefer reminder notifications to prompt him to do so.

The Venu 3 gets 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 builds 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 builds 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.