Hands-On: Everything You Need To Know About The Garmin MARQ Collection (Video)

We are looking at the newly released Garmin MARQ collection, all five watches. This video is about giving you a high level view on what Garmin is offering and what this collection is all about. We will do detailed hands-on reviews following thorough testing of each model the next couple of weeks, so make sure to subscribe and check out those videos as well when they are uploaded .

Here’s what they all have in common, they all have the titanium case, sapphire crystal, the base functionality of Garmin’s famous Fenix watches. Having that shared FENIX DNA these are true smartwatches as well featuring notifications, ability to stream music to your bluetooth headphones, answering your phone calls, incident detection where it will alert your emergency contacts in case necessary and so on and so forth. The watches have an always-on, sunlight-readable display, of course also GPS and more advanced sensors.

They all come with an extra black strap and a charging chord, the battery life ranges from 12 days in smartwatch mode to 28 hours in GPS Mode and up to 48 hours in UltraTrac mode

The MARQ collection uses the essential ingredients found in the world of luxury watches, with the added spices of technology found in Garmin’s sport and smartwatches. A series of luxury digital tool watches, yes indeed.

The Marq Athlete ($1,500) is the most affordable Marq watch. I would call this the luxury version of the Fenix 5 plus. Now when you buy a fully decked out Fenix after initial release it tends to sit around the 1000 mark when they are released. So is the Athlete worth the extra premium here? It is very clear that the extra dollars you pay get you a very polished and indeed luxurious package, if you wear your watch on a daily basis, this is a very compelling package. If you are currently paying 1000 for your fully decked out Fenix, well, you have some thinking to do now, because this is more expensive yes but the fit and finish is excellent and so far unseen in the sportswatch world if you ask me

On the wrist it sits and fits just great. I have a small wrist and the watch while of course large, doesn’t; t wear overly large. I am a long time user of the Fenix series watches, and it makes my Fenix look like a toy in comparison. The difference between both, in fit and finish, is obvious, the Athlete outshines the Fenix by a large margin. Weight wise they both feel about the same.

Functionality of the athlete is geared towards the typical triathlon sports running cycling and swimming. The bezel, non existent on the fenix, presents a quick view on V02 max and recovery time.

The Marq Expedition ($1,750) is designed for long distance hiking. It features a pretty leather strap and a non rotating 360° compass bezel. Think of it as a luxury version of Garmin’s existing GPS watches. Other than the bezel the case design is similar to the athlete with the pushers being notably different.

It features topographical maps, real-time ascent data, a compass, and an “expedition app” mode which extends battery life by weeks , not by hours or days but by weeks, for longer expeditions. It achieves that through clever engineering while keeping the ability to track your progress with GPS enabled.

The Marq DRIVER is aimed at the racing crowd. It sets itself apart from the other collection as it comes in black and features a matching black bracelet with a butterfly clasp. The bracelet has a very unique red lining for extra comfort and it has that Typical racing chronographChronograph A chronograph complication is a feature in a watch that allows the wearer to measure elapsed time in addition to telling the time. It works by having a separate set of gears and levers, called the chronograph mechanism, which is activated by pressing a button or a pusher. The chronograph mechanism starts and stops the chronograph's second hand, which is usually located on the watch's dial, separate from the regular watch hands. The elapsed time is usually displayed on a sub-dial or a register on the watch's dial. [Learn More] look, including the pushers and then of course the bezel with a tachymeterTachymeter A tachymeter is a feature found on some chronograph watches, it is a scale that is usually printed on the bezel, sometimes on the dial. It allows the wearer to measure the speed of an object over a known distance by timing the object's movement with the chronograph's second hand. The wearer can read the speed of the object on the tachymeter scale. [Learn More]

On the wrist it wears very nicely and due to the color it seems to wear smaller than the others in the collection. It comes preloaded with data for more than 250 tracks, and it offers other racing-themned features. And of course, don’t forget, it also has essentially all the features found on the more affordable athlete for example.

The Marq AVIATOR features a polished black ceramic GMTGMT A GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) complication is a feature found in some watches that allows the wearer to track two time zones simultaneously. It typically includes a 24-hour hand and a bezel or a second hour hand that can be adjusted independently of the main hour hand to track the time in a different time zone. [Learn More]-bezel and features pilot-specific functions. It looks very much like a normal watch from a distance. Here the bracelet has a locking clasp, so you have a standard deployment mechanism and the added security of this little lock to make sure the watch doesn’t come off mid flight. Clasp is solid and fits nicely with the overall watch. On the wrist, it is very well balanced.

Aimed at pilots, it has special features such as emergency navigation which guides you to the nearest airport in case you run into trouble during your flight, it has a map, course needle, weather reports, and flight logging. So other than being a sports or smart watch this is really an additional tool in the cockpit for the pilots out there,

The Marq Captain ($1,850) is designed for sailing. This is probably my favourite watch in the collection, both visually and feature wise. It features a great looking deep blue ceramic regatta timer bezel. The strap is absolutely fantastic too by the way.

It has a special regatta timer, autopilot integration and boat data functions, along with a “man overboard” feature that helps mark a person overboard and navigate the captain toward their location. My favourite function is the one that essentially turns this into a remote control for your boat. So you can effectively steer your ship with this watch, how cool is that. The anchor feature is pretty great as well, say you anchored in a place and you are off strolling the local harbour, in case of an issue where the anchor fails and your boat starts drifting off location the watch will kindly let you know by buzzing and beeping and what not. This is a sportswatch a smartwatch and really an extension to your boat’s gear, so in my opinion, just fantastic.

Overall, none of these are available online, These are sold exclusively at authorised dealers, luxury watch stores. Garmin is hereby lining up this collection side by side with the established luxury watchbrands. Garmin is as such also effectively building out a network of high end retailers. It is going to be very interesting to see how this collection evolves and whether Garmin succeeds at establishing the MARQ collection as true luxury.