Scratches on MARQ Athlete

Garmin will not admit they made a mistake coating it with black paint (they can call it DLC or whatever, its crap and scratches when a fly lands on it and licks it) its meant to be a sports watch, sports watches should be made with raw materials. 

I was so looking forward to something like this for years but decided not to buy it when I first looked at photos of the black bezel. I was 100% sure it will scratch and eventually the bezel would become unreadable.

If Garmin replaces your bezel it will scratch again, sorry to sound negative but that's just how it is.

I was extremely disappointed and still am but waiting for version 2 hopefully with a bare titanium bezel.

Garmin if your reading this and decide to make this watch without black paint, private message me and I will pay you a premium for it, I say this because you designed one of the best training watches ever in every way except the following, its just that you totally stuffed up with the bezel.........................while I'm here can you also add better screen resolution in version 2, thanks

I hate to say it, but all these posts made me glad I returned it within 30 days.  Build quality is the key component of this, and something so easily scratched did not jive with that.  I temporarily went to a 945 but was not happy with the plastic.  I'm now on a Fenix 6 and it really was the right path to go from a Fenix 5 to a 6.Well built, doesnt scratch, and full featured.  Next time I will be more patient. I was lucky not to lose money on any of these deals as I was within return windows, but that doesnt help the others on here who are past those dates.

In my opinion there is not much to do and I got over the scratches bothering me.  This watch will be outdated in 2-3 yrs anyway so even if it looked unblemished at that point, what difference does it make.  If the tech lasted more than 5yrs, I think the argument would be a little stronger, or if the internals could be swapped out while keeping the casing.  It's just a cost of playing the best and newest.  I get so much use out of this watch that I have no regrets.  The Fenix 6 screen is already ahead of the Marq screen but the Fenix is a bit of a rough and ugly looking watch to me (subjective of course).  I know I could sell my Marq and get a Fenix 6, but frankly I wouldn't always want to wear it.  I actually don't tend to reach anymore for my rolex when dressing up, whereas I used to every time when I had the Fenix 5s.  Enjoy it and don't worry about it.  Hopefully the next version the bezel is ceramic and the screen is of higher quality display with similar battery life.

Mine still looks good after a few months except for a little ding at the top where I knocked it quite hard against a wall. It‘s obvious however that even the slightest scratch will be clearly visible as the coating is very thin... I hope this will improve with the next generation.

Nice VO2!

No series 2,3 - completely different name.

How did the thickness of the aviator compare to that of the athlete? Website specifies 14.1mm vs 14.7mm. Was it really noticeable? How well does your aviator fit under a dress shirt?

I bought it when it was released and no scratch at all, neither on the bezel nor the cas. It looks brand knew... :-)