Garmin vívomove Trend Review: A Proper Watch That Quietly Tracks Everything

The vívomove Trend is a Garmin that doesn't look like one. From across a table it reads as a smart 40mm analogue watch with a stainless steel bezel, and only when you tap or raise your wrist do the hands swing aside to reveal a colour touchscreen underneath. At £232 on Amazon UK, it's the best-looking way to get Garmin's health tracking, Body Battery and Garmin Pay on your wrist. It's also a poor choice if you want a training watch, because there is no GPS inside and the battery only runs for around five days.

That split is the whole story here. Judge it as jewellery that counts your steps, scores your sleep and pays for your coffee, and it's very good. Judge it against a Forerunner and it falls apart, and Garmin never pretended otherwise.

Check price on Amazon£232.00

Key specs

Garmin launched the Trend in February 2023 at £279.99, so today's Amazon price is a fair discount for a watch whose hardware hasn't been replaced yet. The figures below come from Garmin's own vívomove Trend page and the Amazon UK listing.

Design and display

This is the reason to buy it. Garmin's earlier hybrids, including the vívomove Sport that a lot of people search for, hid a small monochrome strip in the lower half of the dial and asked you to read your data through a letterbox. On the Trend, the hidden display covers most of the face and shows colour, so heart rate graphs, notifications and the Body Battery gauge are legible without squinting. When the screen lights up, the hands move out of the way; when it times out, they sweep back to the correct time.

The 40mm case suits slim and average wrists well, and the steel bezel lifts it above the plastic Sport. Owners consistently mention that it passes for a normal dress watch at work, which is exactly the brief.

There's a catch, though. Even on the Trend, the display window is small next to a full smartwatch, so longer messages need scrolling and the touch interface asks for a few more swipes than a Venu. It's fine for glances, which is the point, but you won't be reading emails on it.

Health and activity tracking

Underneath, the Trend runs the same wellness software as Garmin's mainstream watches. You get continuous heart rate, stress, sleep score, Pulse Ox, respiration, women's health tracking and Body Battery, which rolls sleep, stress and activity into a single 0 to 100 energy figure. Steps, floors climbed (from the barometric altimeter), calories and intensity minutes are all logged, and Garmin Connect lays the trends out clearly over weeks and months.

Intensity minutes are quietly the most useful number for most buyers. The NHS physical activity guidelines ask adults for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, and the Trend tracks your progress towards that target without you having to start a workout.

For workouts themselves, there are profiles for walking, running, cycling, yoga, strength, cardio, HIIT, pilates and more. Optical heart rate is reasonable for steady sessions but, like every wrist sensor, it struggles with sharp intervals and heavy gripping. A 2019 study of wrist-worn monitors in cardiac rehabilitation found that none of the four wrist devices tested matched an electrode chest strap, and the gap widened during exercise. If accurate interval heart rate matters to you, a chest strap paired to your phone or gym kit is the better tool, and our heart rate zone training guide explains why the numbers matter.

No built-in GPS

This is the biggest functional gap. The Trend relies on connected GPS, so outdoor runs and walks only get a route map, accurate distance and pace if your phone is with you. Without the phone, it falls back on the accelerometer to estimate distance, which drifts.

For dog walks and commutes with your phone in a pocket, connected GPS works well enough. For anyone who wants to run phone-free, it's a dealbreaker, and the cheaper Fitbit Charge 6 has GPS built in for well under half the price.

Battery and charging

Garmin quotes up to 5 days in smartwatch mode and one more day in watch mode once the battery runs low. That's short by Garmin standards; the vívoactive 6 manages up to 11. Turning on overnight Pulse Ox cuts it further, and owners commonly report charging every four days or so with notifications and sleep tracking switched on.

Qi wireless charging softens the blow considerably. The Trend was Garmin's first watch to support it, and it works on most standard Qi pads, so you can drop it on the same charger as your phone. A proprietary clip cable comes in the box as backup.

App, payments and safety

Garmin Connect is free with no subscription, which still counts for a lot when Fitbit locks its deeper insights behind Premium. Garmin Pay works with a range of UK banks, though not all of them, so check yours first. Incident detection can send your location to emergency contacts during outdoor walks, runs and rides if it senses a fall, but it needs your paired phone nearby to do so.

Notifications arrive reliably on both iPhone and Android. Android users can send preset quick replies; iPhone users can only read and dismiss.

Who it suits

The Trend makes sense for someone who:

• wants to track steps, sleep, stress and general fitness without wearing an obvious sports watch to the office
• usually carries a phone on walks and runs anyway
• would use contactless payments from the wrist

Skip it if you train seriously, run without a phone, swim laps or hate charging more than once a week.

Genuine cons

No onboard GPS is the main one, and it rules out phone-free running entirely. Second, the 5 day battery is short for a Garmin and noticeably shorter than cheaper bands. The display window, while far better than the Sport's, is still small for reading anything longer than a text. And at £232 you're paying a clear premium for the hybrid design; similar money buys a vívoactive 6 with built-in GPS, music storage and twice the battery.

How it compares

Garmin Lily 2 Active: the closest rival for people who want a small, stylish Garmin. It has a digital hidden display rather than analogue hands, and it adds built-in GPS, so it's the better choice if you run or walk without your phone.

Garmin Venu 3S: around £284 buys a full AMOLED smartwatch with built-in GPS, up to 10 days of battery, ECG and sleep coaching. It looks like a smartwatch, though, and that's exactly what Trend buyers are trying to avoid.

Fitbit Charge 6: much cheaper at around £85, with built-in GPS and a longer battery, but it's a plastic fitness band, and the best insights sit behind a Fitbit Premium subscription.

Garmin vívoactive 6: the sensible all-rounder at about £252, with up to 11 days of battery, 8GB of music and built-in GPS. If looks don't matter, it's the better watch.

If the hybrid design is what you're after, Amazon UK's current price sits well below the £279.99 launch RRP.

Check price on Amazon£232.00

Recommended reads

• Best Garmin watch UK for the full range ranked by use case
• Garmin Lily 2 Active review, the small Garmin with built-in GPS
• Garmin Venu 3S review if you'd rather have a full AMOLED smartwatch
• Best heart rate monitor UK for chest straps when wrist accuracy isn't enough
• Sleep and muscle recovery to make sense of your sleep score