Garmin Vivomove Sport hybrid smartwatch review: Too niche

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Everybody is wearing a smartwatch these days. Those tiny touchscreen displays on the wrist look cool and keep throwing way more information about your life than you could ever want to know. But somewhere in the vast crowd of these mini “wrist phones”, the charm of the old-school analogue watches has vanished. And if you are after that charm, Garmin is one of the very companies wanting to marry the appeal of analogue watches with the future-friendly benefits of a smartwatch. That marriage is going to cost you Rs. 18,990, and it is known as the Garmin Vivomove Sport.

As futuristic as that name sounds, the Garmin Vivomove Sport looks like a fine timepiece at first glance. Most people looking at it would confuse it for a regular analogue watch withs one fancy dial. That said, once its hidden OLED display lights up, it makes it evident there is something serious inside other than the gears for mechanical hands. As someone wanting a break from my Apple Watch Series 7, I wore the Garmin Vivomove Sport for two weeks and by the end? Read on to find out.

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I like the idea behind the Garmin Vivomove Sport — it is a watch first and then a tracker. As a hybrid watch, the watch part has to look good and make a statement. The Garmin Vivomove Sport sadly does not. It is very easy to confuse this for a kids watch costing no more than Rs. 2,000, which is unpleasant. After all, your Rs. 19,000 watch should look like one, and feel like one. The body is made of plastic, which while keeping weight low, feels too tacky. The straps are made of silicone and they neither look good, nor feel nice on the skin. The dial lacks any radium illumination or lighting to see when