Garmin Vivoactive 5 Review: Is the Older Model the Smarter Buy?

The vívoactive 5 launched in September 2023 and has been replaced by the vívoactive 6, which is exactly why it is interesting now. Amazon has it at around £148.89 at the time of writing (10 November 2026), against the £209.99 Garmin UK still lists it at, and our pick the vívoactive 6 sits at around £210. So the real question for most buyers is simple: is the older watch at roughly £149 the smarter buy?

For a lot of people, yes. You get the same idea in a slightly smaller package: a 1.2 inch AMOLED touchscreen, up to 11 days of battery in smartwatch mode, Garmin Pay, offline music, sleep coaching and Body Battery. What you give up is mostly storage and sport profiles, and neither watch has a barometric altimeter, so that gap does not even come into it.

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Who it is for

The vívoactive 5 suits someone who wants a Garmin for everyday fitness rather than racing: runs, rides, pool sessions, gym work, walks and a good look at sleep and recovery. It's also a sensible step up from a basic fitness band for anyone who wants GPS on the wrist and music without the phone. Trail runners, hikers and anyone chasing precise splits through a city should skip this tier altogether and look higher up our best Garmin watch guide.

Screen, size and battery

The AMOLED screen is the reason to buy a vívoactive over Garmin's cheaper memory-in-pixel watches. At 30.4mm across and 390 x 390 pixels it is sharp, and you can switch on a large font option if you struggle to read small text mid-run. The case is 42.2mm wide and 11.1mm thick, made from fibre-reinforced polymer with an aluminium bezel, and Garmin puts it at 36g including the band. That's light enough to forget about overnight, which matters because the sleep tracking is half the appeal.

Battery figures from Garmin's UK spec sheet are up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, 5 days with the display always on, 21 hours of GPS-only tracking and 8 hours with all satellite systems and music running. Owners generally find the 11 day number is a best case. Three or four GPS workouts a week plus notifications puts you nearer a weekly charge, which is still far better than a nightly one.

Tracking and health features

Garmin says the watch carries more than 30 preloaded GPS and indoor sports apps, and the UK spec list shows that covers far more than the basics: strength, HIIT, indoor rowing, pool and open water swimming, a long list of racket sports, skiing and plenty of team sports. Strength sessions get automatic rep counting and an on-screen muscle map. If you're following a home strength routine or logging treadmill runs, there's a profile for it.

Wrist heart rate behaves as wrist heart rate always does. It's fine for steady runs and daily resting figures, and it lags during sharp intervals. Anyone training seriously by zones should pair it with a strap from our heart rate monitor guide; the watch broadcasts and accepts heart rate over ANT+ and Bluetooth.

The health side is where the vívoactive 5 earns its money. You get sleep score and sleep coaching, nap detection, HRV status overnight, Body Battery, all-day stress, Pulse Ox and a morning report. Intensity minutes tracking lines up directly with the NHS target of 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, which is the most useful number on the watch for most people. The wheelchair mode is a genuine feature, not a token one: it swaps steps for pushes, adds weight shift alerts and has workouts built for wheelchair users.

The missing barometric altimeter is the real weakness, and it is shared with the newer model. Elevation comes from GPS, so ascent on short, repeated hills is rough, and floors climbed simply isn't there. Garmin's owner's manual confirms the Swim, 5 ATM rating, so it is fine in the pool but a notch below Garmin's outdoor watches.

vívoactive 5 vs vívoactive 6

This is the decision most people reading this are actually making. Our vívoactive 6 review scores it 4.3 and calls it the Garmin most people should buy, and at around £210 it's still good value. But look at what the extra £60 or so actually pays for.

The 6 doubles the storage to 8GB and lifts the sport list from about 30 profiles to more than 80, and its satellite support adds BeiDou and QZSS. Screen type, 42mm size, 11 day smartwatch battery, 5 ATM rating, Garmin Pay and the overall health suite are broadly the same. Crucially, the two big omissions are identical: neither has a barometric altimeter and neither has multi-band GPS.

So the 6 is the better watch, but not by much for typical training. If 4GB holds your running playlists and your sports are on the 5's list, the older model at around £149 is the smarter buy. If you want a large offline music library, or you do something the 5 doesn't profile, pay the difference. Anyone who wants an altimeter, ECG or on-wrist calls should skip both and read the Venu 3 review instead.

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