Garmin’s Marq collection has always represented luxury style in smartwatches, with exceptional build quality and the brand’s absolute latest health and fitness tracking, in return for a four-figure sum. The Garmin Marq athlete even made it onto our list of the best Garmin watches ever.
Now it’s pushing the Marq line even further into luxury territory with the release of its Carbon collection. The lineup is available in three different editions (Athlete, Golfer and Commander) and features an ultra-bright AMOLED touchscreen, a sapphire dome lens and a unique bezel. According to Garmin, each 46mm watch case and bezel is made from 130 layers of Fused Carbon Fiber. It is so unique that the manufacturing process painstakingly requires each individual layer of carbon to be turned at a unique angle to increase the strength of the original block.
These edges then undergo a combination of heat and pressure to conform to the shape of their watch’s case. Several hours of machining, followed by precision diamond cutting, are required to create the final spiral design pattern that is both robust and lightweight. For all this, Garmin Marq Carbon watches are available now, starting at $2,950 in the US, £2,599 in the UK and AU$4,999 in Australia.
Garmin calls each special edition a “toolwatch,” designed to perform different tasks. The Athlete Carbon Edition for example, just like the standard Garmin Marq Athlete (Gen 2)is a training tool pre-loaded with hundreds of sport and activity profiles, everything the latest Fenix 7 and second generation Epix do in terms of athletic tracking.
Sleep quality, training recovery and PacePro, which helps runners prepare for a specific race, are all part of the ecosystem.
Marq Golfer Carbon Edition comes with more than 43,000 courses from around the world and borrows elements and features from Garmin’s best golf watches. These include the Virtual Caddy, which gives players a club recommendation based on wind, elevation and their swing data. An active Garmin Golf app membership then gives access to Green Contour data from the wrist, as well as detailed course maps that show things like trees and cart paths so golfers don’t get lost.
Finally, Marq Commander Carbon Edition adopts features from Garmin’s advanced tactical watches, such as display views designed for use with night vision goggles, as well as a Stealth mode that keeps the watch operational but stops storing and sharing GPS position of the user and disables wireless connectivity and communication. There’s even a kill switch that will completely erase all data from the device if the wearer is captured.
All watches come with premium bracelets and straps, made of perforated FKM leather, jacquard-woven nylon or silicone, depending on the model. Battery life for all three is rated at 16 days, with a full charge taking just an hour.
All the usual useful lifestyle features such as smartphone notifications, Garmin Pay, built-in music storage and automatic incident detection and assistance are present, along with the full range of Garmin fitness, health and wellbeing tracking features such as the Morning Report.
We should think so too – considering the price, these watches should have nothing less than all of Garmin’s best features.