
Garmin
Best AMOLED running watch for serious athletes

Oppo
A week-long-battery budget smartwatch
Garmin Forerunner 965
Garmin Forerunner 965
Garmin Forerunner 965
47mm fiber-reinforced polymer case with a titanium bezel. 1.4-inch AMOLED. Lightweight despite the larger display. Five-button + touchscreen control. Gorilla Glass 3 (no sapphire option).
TechTalkTown may earn a commission from purchases made through links below. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This does not influence our reviews. Learn more.
Oppo Watch S
Oppo Watch S
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S's headline is how little there is of it — a round ~45mm watch just 8.9mm thick and around 35g without the strap, built around a stainless-steel mid-frame. Reviewers say it nearly disappears on the wrist.
Garmin Forerunner 965
1.4-inch AMOLED, 454×454 resolution — nearly 4× the resolution of the Forerunner 955's memory-in-pixel panel. Always-on display. Vibrant, sharp, and readable in sunlight.
Oppo Watch S
A 1.46-inch round AMOLED at 464 x 464 (317 ppi). It can hit a brilliant 3,000-nit peak — but only automatically, in Oppo's workout modes under strong sunlight. In everyday use it's capped at 600 nits, with a 1,500-nit high-brightness mode.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Elevate Gen 4 optical HR, SpO2, HRV Status, sleep tracking, Body Battery, stress tracking, Morning Report. No ECG. Garmin's analytics suite is the strength; raw HR accuracy lags chest straps for intervals.
Oppo Watch S
For a budget watch the Oppo Watch S carries a serious sensor array — an 8-channel optical heart-rate sensor, a 16-channel SpO2 sensor, ECG electrodes and a skin-temperature sensor — anchored by a 60-second check that reads around 14 health indicators at once. ECG availability depends on regional certification.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Garmin's deepest training-science suite — Training Readiness, Acute/Chronic Load ratio, Training Status, wrist running power, Run Dynamics, race predictor, PacePro, daily suggested workouts. The serious-athlete benchmark.
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S covers 100+ workout modes with built-in GPS and an AI sports coach that gauges readiness from HRV and recent training load. It's a capable everyday fitness tracker — though there's little independent accuracy testing to confirm how it stacks up.
Garmin Forerunner 965
~23 days smartwatch mode, ~31 hours all-systems GPS. Garmin's signature multi-week battery — no daily-charge anxiety. Proprietary USB-C charging cable (no Qi, no solar).
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S's strongest card. Oppo rates the 330mAh battery at up to 10 days maximum, 7 days typical and about 4 days with the always-on display on — and fast charging adds a full day in 10 minutes, with a complete charge in roughly 75-90 minutes.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Garmin OS + Garmin Connect app + Connect IQ store for apps/watch faces. Garmin Pay. No speaker/mic, no voice assistant. Works with iOS + Android. Frequent firmware updates.
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S runs ColorOS Watch 7.1 on a power-efficient BES2800BP chip with 4GB of storage — not Wear OS. That choice is the reason the battery lasts a week, but it also means no Google Play app store and a simpler, more limited software experience.
Garmin Forerunner 965
5 ATM water resistance. Titanium bezel + Gorilla Glass 3 (no sapphire). Fiber-reinforced polymer case. Built for daily training abuse — but the glass is the weak point.
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S is rated 5 ATM plus IP68 (and IP69), with Splash Touch that keeps the screen usable when wet. It's fine for swimming and everyday water — but Oppo specifically warns against hot showers, saunas and diving.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Multi-band (dual-frequency) GPS, full-color TopoActive maps, NFC for Garmin Pay, Bluetooth, ANT+, Wi-Fi. No LTE — phone required for connectivity.
Oppo Watch S
Built-in GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC cover the everyday essentials. There's no cellular model, so the Oppo Watch S relies on a paired phone for connectivity.
Garmin Forerunner 965
$599 launch — premium running-watch tier. Competes with the cheaper Forerunner 265, the Fenix-tier Garmins, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Ages well and discounts over time.
Oppo Watch S
The Oppo Watch S launched at around $399 NZD (roughly $230 USD) and is not officially sold in the US. For the price it's a strong value — week-long battery, ECG, a premium-feeling build — as long as you accept the simpler ColorOS platform.