Garmin‘s MARQ range of smartwatches is made up of expensive, premium “smart tool watches” that are specifically designed with different sports/activities in mind. In the Malaysian market, we already have the Driver, Adventurer, Aviator, Commander, Athlete, and the Captain—and now, the Garmin MARQ Golfer has arrived in Malaysia.
The MARQ collection basically brings over a lot of the same functionality from the Fenix series, adds activity-centric features (golf, in this case), and wraps it all in a super premium package. The result? High-end smartwatches that don’t look out of place at both black tie events, and on the green/racetrack/etc.
In this case, the MARQ Golfer has a 46mm titanium case, along with custom golf hole markings along a ceramic bezel. Designed to be used both “on and off the green”, you get a tritone green jacquard-weave nylon strap, along with a domed sapphire watchface. Upfront, there’s a 1.2″ transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) display, as opposed to the more commonly-used AMOLED displays.
This helps contribute to an impressive estimated battery life of up to 12 days in Smartwatch mode, or as Garmin measures it, up to three rounds of golf on a single charge. There’s also 32GB of onboard storage to store music on, and a water resistance rating of 10ATM. Other features should be familiar to those who have used Garmin’s high-end smartwatches such as the Fenix 6X. That’s your standard heart rate monitoring, a Pulse Ox sensor, VO2 Max readings, and so on.
However, it’s the software the really sets the smartwatch apart from others in the MARQ series. 41,000 golf courses will be preloaded, along with a range of golf-focused features such as PlaysLike Distance, Hazard View, and the Virtual Caddie—these are designed to help golfers analyse factors during a round of golf, such as wind speed, course layout, and a the golfer’s own performance. Additionally, the watch also utilises an “Autoshot round analyser” to help record the distance of your shots out on the green, with three Approach CT10 club tracking sensors included in the box.
All of that won’t come at a cheap price, however, The Garmin MARQ Golfer is available at all MST outlets and Garmin Brand stores in Malaysia at a retail price of RM9,300. That said, the price tag means that the Golfer is the second-cheapest smartwatch in the MARQ collection—only the Athlete has a lower RRP.
While some may consider the MARQ series to be overpriced, it has to be said that Garmin probably isn’t going for the mass smartwatch market here. Instead, they’re betting on prospective customers who usually spend upwards of RM10,000 on a conventional timepiece—and of course, golfers.
So, golfers, is the smartwatch for you?
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