- Garmin Venu X1 gets a new Soft Gold color
- The Soft Gold comes with a new French gray strap color and retains its titanium back
- It starts at $699.99 / £679.99 / AU$1,499
The Garmin Venu X1 was one of my favorite smartwatches last year because it was a true innovation – the antithesis of Garmin’s normal design philosophy. Where most of the best Garmin watches are chunky and round, this one was square and very slim with an unusually bright display while still packing in the titanium back, LED light, speaker, microphone, GPS and the powerful health tracking tools Garmin is known for. It was a true Apple Watch Ultra 3 rival, both in design and performance.
Long story short, I gave it 4.5 stars after testing, calling it “Garmin’s most innovative watch in years”. Now we’re getting a new Garmin Venu X1 and we’re less than two weeks into the new year, even if it’s just a new color rather than a full-fledged successor.
Garmin Venu X1’s new Soft Gold color variant continues to echo the Venu series’ design philosophy of pushing the boundaries between ‘powerful fitness tracker’ and ‘stylish smartwatch’. The Soft Gold color has a lighter gray polymer body with gold buttons and clasp and titanium back. A French gray Velcro strap completes the new look.
It’s priced at $699.99 / £679.99 / AU$1,499 (like the rest of the Garmin Venu X1 line) and is available to buy from Garmin right now.
A sign of things to come?
Garmin released a whole range of watches last year and revamped almost its entire range. Since CES 2026 has come and gone without a new Garmin watch announcement (just a Nutrition Tracking feature for Connect+ users), I wonder if this is a sign of things to come.
I imagine we’ll see fewer watches coming out this year and more minor tweaks to the lineup like this one. However, I’m sure Garmin will make an exception for the Garmin Fenix 9.
The Garmin Fenix 8 arrived in September 2024, while the upgraded Garmin Fenix 8 Pro with a MicroLED display and satellite connection arrived last year. If I had to take bets, I’d say we’ll see a Garmin Fenix 9 at the end of this year, with a Fenix 9 Pro sometime in 2027.
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