Tired of hearing about carbon fiber? Too bad. Years after appearing in golf clubs, carbon fiber has finally made its way onto (or into) a golf GPS watch. Today, Garmin announced the newest iteration of its luxury smartwatch lineup: the Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection. 

Crafted from 130 layers of fused carbon fiber, three new models are ready to grace your wrist. 

But why the heck does carbon fiber matter in a watch? 

Let’s talk about it.

Release Details:

Three new models: MARQ Commander, Golfer and Athlete Available now at Garmin Amoled touchscreen display Domed Sapphire Lens 46-millimeter diameter 16-day battery life Retail starts at $2,950

Why Carbon?

Before we go further, you need to set your expectations. You saw the price and started to gawk. Pick your jaw up off the floor and listen closely. The Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection is not your typical Garmin watch.

This collection, similar to the MARQ collections in the past, is positioned as a high-end timepiece first and foremost while the typical Garmin fitness functions you know and love take a backseat to the premium construction and high-end materials.

With that in mind, it’s much easier to understand the choice to build the watch from a solid piece of fused carbon fiber. The goal was to make a timepiece that’s extremely lightweight, exceptionally durable and stunning in appearance. 

The MARQ Carbon Collection watch is for the extremist. It highlights a niche that is best understood by comparison. Think of the Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection as an F1 car.

Its performance and construction are best suited for those who demand the most out of their gear.

How Carbon?

How does one create a full carbon-fiber watch? Garmin created what they’re calling “fused carbon fiber”. Each block is made up of 130 individual layers of carbon fiber. This unique layering process allows Garmin to orient each layer in a different way to create extra strength and maximum durability. Once fused, the blocks are machined to shape and size. 

My minimal understanding of materials provides me with enough clarity on this manufacturing process to say this: By layering each carbon sheet at a different angle, the fused carbon fiber block should have no weak link … so to speak. 

Coupled with the weight savings as opposed to the typical titanium chassis, the MARQ Carbon Collection is the lightest and strongest MARQ watch ever.

The Golfer

The Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection is a three-headed monster. For our purposes, this article will focus on the Golfer model, rather than the Commander and Athlete.

(I’d be remiss not to mention that The Commander is compatible with night-vision goggles and features a kill switch that immediately wipes the device of all data. It’s darned cool if you’re in need of a tactical watch.)

Back to the Golfer. The MARQ Golfer Carbon Edition takes everything you know and love about the software experience of the Garmin Approach S70 and pairs it with the stunning carbon-fiber construction. 

Like the Approach S70, the MARQ Golfer Carbon Edition comes preloaded with 43,000 courses. It utilizes Garmin’s new Virtual Caddie to provide club suggestions and features improved graphics for course maps and green contour data. The “plays like” function that accounts for wind, slope and environmental conditions is also on board. 

The MARQ Golfer Carbon Edition comes standard with a hybrid leather/rubber watch band that’s both sweat- and stain-resistant.

Premium Features

All three of the new MARQ Carbon Collection watches feature the following premium features:

SatIQ technology. This technology relies on the multi-band GPS technology to conserve battery power when using GPS functionality. The SatIQ technology switches GPS bands depending on location. If you’re in a remote area with more demanding GPS needs, it will switch to a high power band. When GPS is more readily available, it will switch to a low power band to conserve battery power.  Health and fitness tracking. The familiar fitness and health functions, including heart rate, sleep tracking and jet lag advisor, are available on all three models.  Contactless pay. Users may add their credit card to Garmin’s virtual wallet in order to pay at merchants via NFC.

Made For Someone (Not For Everyone)

Remember my little spiel about expectations? For most of us reading this, the Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection isn’t for you. And that’s exactly how Garmin intended it to be.

The simplest way I can describe the new MARQ Carbon Collection is this: If you need one of the three new models, you’ll know it. For those of you who can’t quite grasp or understand the value, you won’t.

The Garmin MARQ Carbon Collection, including the new MARQ Golfer Carbon Edition, is available now.

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