This or Apple Watch 3

I was in a similar boat a few months ago. Both options are appealing but I see the Apple Watch more of a smartwatch with fitness features, while the Vivoactive 3 is more of a fitness watch with smartwatch features.

My needs are to track my daily activities, record my treadmill sessions and track my kayak adventures. I like having notifications from my phone but don't have the need for games/apps. I've been using a Vivosmart HR+ for the past year and the Vivoactive 3 allows me to continue compiling data under the same roof. I'd have to go to a new system with the Apple watch.

I also think the Vivoactive 3 would hold up better to activities than the Apple watch. Don't get me wrong, the Apple watch has solid build quality but it just felt more delicate than the Garmin.

In the end, I went with the Vivoactive 3 and have zero regrets. Battery life has settled down where I'm hunting the charging cable about every 4 days. The watch is light and comfortable enough where I forget I have the watch on. There is room for improvement (mostly software related) such as having a "clear all" option for notifications, the ability to set the HR monitor to periodic sampling to conserve power and the ability to filter which notifications go to the watch (iOS).

My vote is to go with the Garmin if your needs are primarily fitness or go with the Apple if your needs are more smartwatch oriented.

I would agree... here's a good overview from DCRainmaker (the fitness device guru): https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/08/garmin-vivoactive-3-everything-you-need-to-know.html

Also, I like the always on displays on the Garmins... indoors they aren't impressive (dull without the backlight), but outdoors in the sun, in overcast conditions, etc., they are great and don't use up loads of battery to power the screen. I also like the round face of the Garmin... I really didn't want an Apple watch on my wrist all the time.

With the Apple watch, you might start installing apps, playing around with it, etc., just like you do with any new device. But a month later, I think the novelty will wear off. For fitness tracking, Garmin has a pretty good app and website... from my understanding, there's not a great set of toosl/reports for Apple outside of the ios healthkit, so you have to setup exports to get the data off your device and into online sites like Garmin Connect.

My advice would be to get the Garmin from a store that has a good return policy if it doesn't work out for you.

Great responses, I appreciate it.

The reviews from Best Buy are pretty good, along with others including DCRainmaker, but the reviews on Amazon for this particular watch are very subpar.

I wonder what the deal is?

I wonder if I should look at any other Garmin devices compared to this specific model?

As others have already stated, VA3's a fitness device w/ some smartwatch features and the AW3 is a smartwatch w/ some fitness features. Based on your original post, the VA3 should be perfect for tennis and cross training. The Forerunners are geared more towards running & cycling and the Fenix series would give you some extras, but at a higher cost. Just do yourself a favor. What ever you decide to buy, get yourself a chest or arm strap. All oHRM, regardless of manufacturer, will act flakey when doing activities with rapid changes in HR and excessive arm movement. For typical daily use and sleep the oHRM work fine.

The poor reviews may have to do with the bugs that have affected this watch... there are still issues. The two biggest complaints have been poor battery life and problems with the touchscreen (not responding to touch, going haywire with phantom touches, etc.).

I haven't experienced the battery problem myself, but ran into the screen issue which was so bad that I was about to exchange the watch to try a new one before giving up altogether. Fortunately, that issue was just resolved with the 2.9 firmware update. So now I'm happy, but it does make me not so confident in Garmin's software engineering...