Complete n00b question here.
I was talking to my neighbour about his new garmin smart watch and it just sounded like a poor version of what I imagine an Apple Watch is.

With an Apple Watch can you…

Take it out running without your phone and still use.

Strava
Nike running app
Full use of Spotify

?

Plenty of Garmins allow full use of Spotify. Not sure why you'd want to use Strava or Nike running app on a Garmin when the native Garmin o/s provides a far greater depth of data and functionality. There are some Strava apps you can get for Garmin, such as Relative Effort, if that's your thing. Garmin and Strava accounts connect, so any activity on your Garmin gets automatically loaded to Strava (albeit with a shedload of data missing that Strava can't handle / doesn't use).

Garmins, such as Fenix or FR range, are designed solely for sports / multi-sports. They use ANT+, allowing you to connect multiple devices at once - heart rate monitor, power meter, foot pod, Varia light etc - while connecting your headphones via bluetooth. Apple watch allows 2 bt connections max - heart rate monitor and headphones, or heart rate monitor and power meter.

The biggest one is a Garmin will easily last a week, worn 24/7, with 60-90 mins of GPS activity per day. Some, such as Fenix or higher end FRs, will handle an iron distance tri or 24 ultra marathon on a single charge. This won't be applicable to most casual users but is essential for some.

Apple watches are great, they're a swiss army knife of a smartwatch that can be used for sports, and are more than enough for most people. Think a lot of people now see top end Garmins and buy them purely because they're expensive rather than wanting to use all the available functions.

Beardy

This.
I really struggled first run after COVID and even 2 weeks on from then I’m not back to where I was before Christmas. But I can tell it’s getting easier with each run. I’ve stopped worrying about my times and focussing on going the distance for now

Looks like this has changed:

https://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-has-finally-added-standalone-streaming-to-its-apple-watch-app

For Garmins, playlists are sync'd with the watch and tracks loaded directly onto watch's storage, no phone or wifi / cellular data connection required:

https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=cY9aPeefXh3MIcEyD0zOl9&productID;=612476&tab;=topics

Cheers for the extensive info guys.

I’m still not sure which to go for mind you.

GPS accuracy really annoys me tbh.
On a 10k run, on the same iPhone my strava and Nike app will see 0.4K difference.

I always feel like strava messes up whenever there’s an iOS update.

as other have said, its mainly down to the battery

I bought an Apple cellular watch a few years ago, on the thought that I wouldn't have to take my phone out cycling with me, the reality is, that I still took it, on the times I've forgot to charge my wahoo headunit the battery on the Apple Watch only lasted 3hrs and didn't record any other metrics,

I've recently switched to a Fenix 6 Pro, as it does music/garmin pay and the battery life is so much better and if I need to it can connect to my HRM, Powermeter etc

I went from Apple to Garmin, Garmin defo better if your into all the data it collects from runs etc
I sold my Apple and now miss it tbh
In 2 minds to switch back as apple can do the lot
Anyone seem any decent deals on a 6 ?

I gave Strava a trial. It was always having me finish at a different finishing point for my usual run. Went back to Runtastic. Accurate to the final metre. Never going to change again.