Garmin watch prices are dropping early for Black Friday

Garmin’s Black Friday discounts have started early, with live deals now appearing across Amazon and Garmin’s own store. The offers already cover everything from Forerunner and Vivoactive models to Fenix, Instinct and some of Garmin’s more expensive specialist watches.

Black Friday itself does not arrive until November 27, but the Garmin sale season is clearly underway. And this is not just one or two older watches getting a token reduction either, because the current list stretches across a surprisingly large chunk of the range.

The table below pulls in the latest qualifying deals from our live wearable deals tracker and updates as the underlying offers change.

The Forerunner deals are worth watching

For runners, the Forerunner range is probably the most interesting part of the current sale. Both the Forerunner 265 and the newer 970 are showing up in the deal tracker, while the older Forerunner 965 has also been appearing at a price that can make the upgrade decision considerably less obvious.

The 970 brings Garmin’s newer Elevate V5 sensor, ECG, a sapphire lens, an LED flashlight, speaker and microphone, plus several newer running metrics, but the 965 remains a very capable training watch. We went through the differences in our Garmin Forerunner 970 vs 965 comparison, and a large enough Black Friday price gap can easily change which one makes more sense.

There is a similar argument lower down Garmin’s range. The Vivoactive line becomes much easier to recommend when it is heavily discounted, particularly for someone who wants the Garmin ecosystem without paying for the deeper training and navigation features of a Forerunner or Fenix. Our Venu 4 vs Vivoactive 6 comparison is worth a look if those are the two sitting in your shortlist.

Fenix and Instinct prices are getting more interesting

Fenix is where early Black Friday discounts can make the biggest difference in actual dollars. Garmin pushed the range into four-figure territory with many Fenix 8 configurations, so even a fairly ordinary percentage discount can knock a substantial amount off the checkout price.

That also makes the cheaper Fenix E more interesting, but only if the price gap is wide enough. We questioned Garmin’s Fenix pricing when the generation launched, and the basic problem has not really changed. When Fenix E gets too close to a discounted full Fenix model, it becomes much harder to justify the compromises.

Instinct 3 is a different proposition. It gives up the maps and some of the premium hardware you get higher up the Garmin range, but it still brings multi-band GPS, strong battery life, training features and a built-in flashlight, with AMOLED and solar versions available.

There is one thing I would not do yet, which is assume every early deal will be beaten on Black Friday itself. Retailers have spent the past few years stretching Black Friday into a much longer sales period, and some of the best wearable deals can appear well before the actual day and disappear before November 27.