I've got the Garmin Forerunner 735XT and while the software is a little clunky at times, it's a total work horse. Battery lasts for a week when worn all day and with at least 30 minutes of GPS tracked running activity per day, the display is extremely well to read outside in the sun and the smart features I use are the app notifications and that's it. No complaints, that thing is indestructible and I would buy it again. The prices at times are truly comical though, then again I've got this watch since 2017 and it's still going strong, I'm sure I would have gone through at least a couple of Apple Watches or Android Wear watches in the meantime.

"while the software is a little clunky at times"

Are you talking about Garmin Express?

If so, a "little clunky" would be a massive understatement based on my experience...

I love my Garmin watch, but I wish the Garmin software was lot more...usable.

Same here. I had a Samsung Android watch for years that I would use for tracking runs, and I was never very happy with it. Slow gps fix, horrible battery life (the thing died on a bike ride when I started with it fully charged), and the touch screen was hard to use while running.

I wear my Garmin all day, and charge it every other week. Physical buttons are a game changer, and the activity tracking software feels like it was made by someone that actually uses it.

Really happy with my Fenix as well. It's only crashed once when recording where it lost data (3+ hour long GPS session), but other than that I haven't really had serious issues. I will force a reboot occasionally but the user experience is so much better than the Samsung watch I tried.

And battery life...I can put it in low power mode and it just works as a watch until I want to record an activity. And it has power for ~a month that way.

I had a very strange, mixed experience with Garmin customer services recently. My watch died after 2 1/2 years. I'd heard that Garmin will, unofficially, replace broken watches for a bit longer than the official warranty (and so they should, because 1 year life expectancy would be terrible for a smart watch), so I contacted them.

The said they'd replace it for free and gave me a label to download (great!) However, I was travelling and the label wasn't valid for where I was. I asked if I could send it myself or get the label re-allocated when I got back (it had a time limit).

We then exchanged a dozen or so emails where Garmin CS kept ignoring my suggestions and giving me stupid instructions (terrible) until we eventually agreed they'd give me another label when I got back (ok).

I got back home and requested another label. CS demanded payment equivalent to the cost of a new watch (terrible!) I repeatedly asked why they were suddenly asking for payment when they'd previously offered it for free and they kept ignoring the question (argh!)

I'd have been much less annoyed if they'd just said up front that it was out of warranty, as then I wouldn't have wasted weeks and dozens of emails.

I eventually noticed that the original label still seemed to be valid, so I took up their original offer, sent my watch off and got an apparently new replacement within a day or two (great! I think.)

So, very mixed views! It's a lot like trying to write a Garmin app. They've got some nice API documentation (with a tutorial) but very incomplete as soon as you try to do something non-trivial.