Vivoactive 3 or Forerunner 235

I replaced a 235 with a vivoactive 3 (after tripping and smashing the 235 on a curb. Ouch!) It was a huge improvement.

I use it to track running primarily, plus walking, and daily fitness. There're golfing features in there, but I haven't investigated them.

-- Pete

Personally, I'd stay away from the 235 for the fact it's going on 3 years old, and doesn't have the same capabilities in general as newer devices. There's no native walking app on the 23x (but I do have CIQ apps for that) while there is on the va3. The version of CIQ on the 23x is CIQ1 vs CIQ3 on the newer devices, which can also limit what apps you can use. While not a "smart watch" thing, neither the 23x or va3 (or fr 645) as a native hiking app, I have one version of an app for that for CIQ1 devices and another for CIQ2/CIQ3 devices where I can have a number features where the CIQ1 devices simply didn't have enough memory

Right now, I'd be looking at the va3 vs fr 645, where both have Garmin Pay and a music option (the 645 doesn't have golf). It's anyone's guess if/when there will be a 245, and it might be what ended up being named the 645. (that happened with the rumored Fenix 4 which came out as the Fenix 5)

In general, think of Garmins as a fitness watch with some smart features, while something like a Galaxy are more of a smart watch with some fitness apps.

I have the Vivoactive 3 which I ended up with after trying two different versons of the fitbit, the last one being the H.R, while I found this acceptable the fact that you had to do any tracking via your phone was a pain and not very reliable. After asking others which Tacker watches they used, I settled on the Gramin Vivoactive 3 which I am well pleased with, the GPS tracker is superb, sometimes it takes a few minutes for the GPS to kick in but normaly it is quite quick, always very reliable. The stair tracker is a bit hit and miss and while this is frustrating its not a major problem. For treadmill running you can actually run for a while on the treadmill and then calibrate your Gramin to the distance travelled accoring to the treadmill stats, I only had to do this once and the treadmill stats and the Gramin stats matched all the time now, which is good. There is a Golf app on there, but not tried that, you can create your own workouts which I have done for Circuit training, its not perfect but it better than what I had before and I am not certain I have set the parameters for Circuit correctly, this is something I need to have another go at. All I can tell you really is I am currently well chuffed with the Garmin.

Just some general considerations on both sides of the question:
Age of the 235 - something new sure to be coming out soon, as has been mentioned above
Touch screen for the VA3 vs buttons for the 235 (I went from the old school original square VA, to a 230, and now the VA3, and I like the touch screen for quick UI action, but not everyone does)
Size of the various units.
Mobile Payments, or not - you'd think 'eh, I'll never use that', but once you have it, you really like it.
Connect IQ stuff as was mentioned above.
Price, etc....