Garmin Venu 4 First Impressions: twelve days between charges, now $499.99 — the stamina Apple’s Ultra 3 can’t match
By Merry
At a glance
- The Garmin Venu 4 just got $50 cheaper, and that changes the arithmetic against the watch it is really competing with.
- Best Buy has it at $499.99 today, 13 November, down from $549.99 — a first-party drop, in stock, for the 45mm Slate model.
Products in this article: Garmin Venu 4 - Apple Watch Ultra 3
The Garmin Venu 4 just got $50 cheaper, and that changes the arithmetic against the watch it is really competing with. Best Buy has it at $499.99 today, 13 November, down from $549.99 — a first-party drop, in stock, for the 45mm Slate model. That is $100 off its $599.99 list price, and, for the first time since both watches were on the site, the Garmin now costs less than the Apple Watch Ultra 3, which Best Buy has back at $549 today. The gap is $49.01. It is not a big gap. It is the wrong gap to stare at, because these two watches do not compete on price. They compete on what you are willing to live with.
Start with the number that decides this watch: twelve days. Garmin rates the 45mm Venu 4 at up to 12 days in smartwatch mode, or 4 days with the always-on display switched on, or up to 25 days in battery-saver mode. The Ultra 3, by Apple’s own figures, manages up to 42 hours of normal use, or 72 hours in Low Power Mode. That is not a marginal difference; it is a different relationship with a charger. The Venu 4 is a watch you charge roughly once a fortnight and then forget about. The Ultra 3 is a watch you charge every day or two, and plan around. If you have ever gone to bed with a dead watch and woken up without the sleep data you bought the thing for, you already know which side of that gap you sit on.
The rest of the watch is built around the same idea: a fitness watch that does not ask you to keep feeding it. The case is 45mm of metal, lighter on the wrist than the Ultra 3’s 49mm titanium, with a 1.4-inch AMOLED display at 454 by 454 pixels that Garmin rates at up to 2,000 nits. There is a built-in LED flashlight with adjustable brightness — the sort of feature that sounds like a gimmick until you are looking for keys in a dark bag at 6 a.m. — and multi-band GPS, an ECG app, on-wrist calls through a speaker and mic, Garmin Pay, and 8GB of storage for offline music. It is rated 5 ATM, so swimming is covered. And there is no subscription: Garmin Connect is free, which matters more every year as other watches put the features you already paid for behind a monthly charge.
What it does not have is the one thing the Ultra 3 sells hardest. There is no cellular. Leave your phone behind and the Venu 4 is a very good fitness watch, not a phone on your wrist — no calls, no streaming, no messages without the phone nearby. The app ecosystem is narrower too: Garmin’s store is functional, Apple’s is not a contest. And the Venu 4 will not do the Ultra 3’s party trick of being a standalone device for a run. If your training involves leaving the phone at home, that is the trade-off, and it is not a small one.
The honest way to read the $499.99 price is that it removes the Venu 4’s weakest argument. At $549.99 it was a dollar more than the Ultra 3’s Doorbuster price on 6 November, and it asked you to pay that for battery life alone. At $499.99 it is $49.01 cheaper than the Ultra 3 is today, and the battery life comes with the discount. The price is verified at Best Buy today, 13 November 2026, for the 45mm Slate model, in stock.
CompareIdea verdict
The Garmin Venu 4 is the pick for anyone who trains seriously and hates charging, and for every Android owner — the Ultra 3 does not work with Android at any price. Twelve days of battery, a flashlight, multi-band GPS and no subscription, now $49.01 less than the Apple Watch Ultra 3 at $499.99, checked 13 November 2026 at Best Buy. The trade-off is real: no cellular, so it cannot replace your phone on a run, and a narrower app ecosystem than Apple’s. If you own an iPhone and want a watch that works without your phone nearby, the Ultra 3 at $549 is still the better buy. For everyone else — and for iPhone owners who charge their phone every night and resent doing the same for their watch — the Venu 4 at this price is the one to buy.
More from CompareIdea: Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Garmin Venu 4 · Apple Watch Ultra 3 First Impressions · Garmin Venu 4 · Apple Watch Ultra 3
Sources
- Best Buy US listing, Garmin Venu 4 GPS Smartwatch 45mm, Slate — price $499.99, checked 13 November 2026.
- Garmin: Venu 4 specifications (45mm, 1.4-inch AMOLED 454 by 454, up to 12 days smartwatch mode, 4 days always-on, 5 ATM, LED flashlight, multi-band GPS, 8GB).
- Best Buy US listing, Apple Watch Ultra 3 — price $549.00, checked 13 November 2026.
All prices checked 13 November 2026.
Last updated: 13 November 2026