Best Smartwatch for iPhone: Apple Watch vs the Rest
Well, Garmin wants you to think its watches are the only ones that work with an iPhone. Apple wants you to think you need to stay in its walled garden. I've been wearing a watch on every run since 2019, and I've got an iPhone in my apron pocket at the garden center 40 hours a week, so I've got a bit of a different perspective. I've tested the $400+ stuff, and I've also bought four watches in the $17 to $40 range in the last two years. Here's the truth about the best smartwatch for iPhone, from someone who actually sweats for a living.
The short version? The best smartwatch for iPhone is the one you'll actually wear every day. For me, that's a $25 watch that tells the truth about my heart rate, not a $400 one that flatters me. But let's get into the weeds.
Apple Watch Series 10 (B0FQF5BZ8Z)
Let's start with the elephant in the room. The Apple Watch is the obvious answer, and I get why. It's the only watch that feels like it was born attached to an iPhone. I wore a friend's Series 9 for a week and the way it just works, the way notifications flow, the way the screen looks like a tiny iPhone, it's impressive. I'm not going to pretend it isn't.
But here's the problem. The version I tried, and the ones my friends own, they have a battery anxiety problem that I just can't get past. I charge my cheap watch for 15 minutes while I shower every morning and it never drops below 70%. The Apple Watch? My buddy at the running club charges his every single night, and he still gets nervous on long marathon training days. He's got the newer model, the one that's supposed to be better, and he still packs a charger for a 20-mile run. I don't even own a charger for mine. I use the one from an old phone.
And the price. My friend won't shut up about his Garmin, but the Apple Watch is the same story. You're paying $400+ for a screen that's genuinely gorgeous and an app ecosystem that's deep, but the GPS accuracy on my known 5-mile course was fine, not perfect. It said 5.2 miles once. My $25 watch said 5.1. Both are within my acceptable 2% margin. Neither was the truth.
The thing is, the Apple Watch is the best smartwatch for iPhone if you want the watch to feel like an extension of your phone. It's just not the best watch for training. The fitness features are buried under a mountain of notifications, and the battery life means you're always thinking about it. I don't want to think about my watch. I want to put it on and forget it exists until my mom calls me and I answer it from my wrist.
[Check price on Amazon]
Garmin Forerunner 265 (B0CT3SGHXL)
Okay, so this is the one my friend with the expensive taste owns, and he won't shut up about it. And honestly? I get it. I borrowed his Forerunner for a week, the 265, and the GPS trace on my known course was the best I've ever seen. It said 5.0 miles. Exactly 5.0. My chest strap said my average heart rate was 158, and the Garmin said 157. That's the kind of accuracy I'm talking about when I say I want the truth.
But here's the thing about Garmin. The app is a nightmare. I spend half my life fighting with the DaFit app on my cheap watches, and I thought that was bad. Garmin Connect is a different kind of bad. It's dense and overwhelming and it shows me aerobic training effect and I have no clue what that means, but it's cool. My friend loves it. He's a data nerd. I just want to know if I ran my route and if my heart is going to explode.
For the price, and the price is $450 for this thing, you're paying for accuracy that's maybe 2% better than a watch that costs 5% of the price. For a serious marathoner doing zone training, that 4-beat heart rate error matters. It could put you in the wrong zone. I get that. But I'm not a professional. I'm a guy who works at a garden center and runs marathons on the weekend. I need to know my heart rate is close, not perfect.
The battery life is genuinely great, I'll give it that. A week of daily wear and it still had charge. But I also didn't want to take it off to water plants. The stock band is stiff and made my wrist sweat. I swapped it for one of my scrunchie bands from FTYQUEE and it was better, but for $450, should I have to do that? You get what you get, I guess.
[Check price on Amazon]
MorePro Fitness Tracker (B0GJSXGKG8)
Now this is where it gets interesting. I'm blown away by what this thing can do for the price. I've had the MorePro for about four months now, and it's become my daily driver. It costs less than a pizza, and it does 90% of what the Garmin does.
The pairing process gave me nightmares, which is standard for this price range. The QR code on the watch face doesn't work. You have to dig through the manual, the one in the box, not the app, and scan that one instead. It worked on my third try. I've been through this before, so I knew the workaround, but if this is your first cheap watch, you might throw it across the room. I almost did.
But once it's paired, the app gives you an incredible amount of health and activity data that's easy to understand. I get my steps, my sleep, my heart rate. My mom called me once and had no idea I wasn't using my phone. She asked if I got a new phone. I told her it's the watch. She didn't believe me.
The heart rate accuracy is pretty good? I compared it against my chest strap on a few runs. It was off by about 5 beats per minute, which is more than the Garmin but still in the acceptable range for me. It's not going to tell you if you're overtraining, but it'll tell you if you're about to die. The GPS is the weak point. I ran my known 5-mile course and it said 5.6 miles. That's a 12% error. That's not great. It's got GPS, but it's not accurate GPS. For me, that's a problem, because I like to know my actual pace. But for a casual walker or someone who just wants to track steps and sleep? For the price, this is a steal.
Battery life is the best I've had. A full day and night of wear and it still showed 82% remaining. I plug it in when I shower every morning, 15, 20 minutes tops, and it never drops below 70%. It's become this weird ritual. I've been doing it for months and it works. I'm done caring about whether it'll last a year. It might not. But at this price, I can buy another one.
[Check price on Amazon]
The Bottom Line
I don't track prices day to day, so I won't pretend to know next week's. But here's what I know from years of wearing these things. The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch for iPhone if you want the seamless integration and you're okay with charging it every night and paying $400 for the privilege. The Garmin is for data nerds who need pinpoint accuracy and have the budget for it. The MorePro is for everyone else.
I've got a spreadsheet with GPS drift, heart rate error, battery degradation, and app frustration levels. The Garmin wins on accuracy. The Apple Watch wins on integration. The MorePro wins on value. And at the end of the day, that's what matters to me. I'd rather have a $25 watch that tells me the truth about my heart rate than a $400 watch that flatters me. And honestly? For most people, the cheap one is the one you'll actually wear every day. That's the best smartwatch for iPhone. It's the one that doesn't make you think about it.