The fenix 9 starts at $999.99 and its sidewall is plastic. That has annoyed a lot of people, and Garmin has now given the actual reason: a full titanium body would turn your watch into a radio-proof brick, and the obvious fix makes it too thick to wear.
Garmin COO Brad Trenkle explained the tradeoff to TechRadar's Andrew Williams in an interview published Monday. It's the most detailed explanation yet of why the fenix 9, fenix 9 Pro and MARQ Gen 3 look the way they do.
Titanium is the easy part
Titanium is lighter than stainless steel, stronger than aluminum, and it doesn't need much selling. Garmin has moved its premium line almost entirely onto it. Stainless steel isn't even offered anywhere in the fenix 9 range.
The problem is that titanium is metal, and metal blocks radio. Every signal a modern Garmin sends or receives needs a non-metal path out of the case: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ANT+, NFC, LTE and satellite. Seal the watch in metal and most of what you paid for stops working.
"There are incredible benefits you can get from having a titanium case, but the all-metal case means radio signals can't get out," Trenkle said.
So you cut holes and fill them with polymer. That's the standard approach, and it's why the base fenix 9 has a fiber-reinforced polymer mid-case with titanium only on the bezel and the back.
The gasket tax
Every joint between plastic and metal needs a rubber gasket to keep water out. Garmin watches are rated for swimming and diving, so this isn't optional. And gaskets take up space.
"You add the polymer, you have to add multiple gaskets. You add multiple gaskets you get thickness, and then suddenly you're wearing a tuna can on your wrist," Trenkle said. "And nobody wants to wear a tuna can on their wrist. We had that with Forerunner 201 years ago. We don't need to go back there."
The Forerunner 201 landed in 2003 and is usually remembered as the first GPS running watch. It's also remembered for looking like a pager strapped to your arm. Garmin is not eager to repeat that shape at $1,099.
Enter nano-molding
The fix Garmin uses on the fenix 9 Pro and MARQ Gen 3 is nano-molding technology, or NMT. Todd Register, Garmin's creative lead for the outdoor segment, described the process: the titanium is etched first, which gives an almost perfectly smooth metal surface a nanoscale texture, and then the polymer is molded directly into that texture so the two mechanically interlock.
No adhesive. No gasket. A bond tight enough to hold up to water while leaving the polymer sections thin.
"The basic idea here is that you are bonding a polymer and a metal together at the nano scale," Register said.
If that sounds familiar from phones, it should. HTC was experimenting with NMT for the Sensation 4G back in 2011. It never became the default method across the phone industry, largely because it's expensive.
What it bought in millimeters
The payoff shows up in the spec sheet, and this is where the interview gets useful:
- The 47mm fenix 9 Pro is 13.8mm thick, the same as the polymer-cased fenix 9 and the same as the fenix 8
- The 51mm fenix 9 Pro is 15.8mm, the 43mm is 13.3mm
- The fenix 8 Pro, which first brought LTE and satellite to the fenix line, was 16.0mm
Read that again. Garmin added a full metal case and kept the thickness of the plastic-cased model, on versions carrying LTE and satellite radios. We went through those numbers when the fenix 9 and fenix 9 Pro launched, where Garmin leaned on a 16 percent thinner figure against the fenix 8 Pro. The interview explains where that 16 percent came from.
The MARQ Gen 3 uses the same approach, with the dark bands in its titanium case being the nano-molded polymer sections that let antennas breathe. We covered the materials story at launch in our MARQ Gen 3 breakdown, and a hands-on from the Mallorca event confirmed the same construction.
Why it isn't coming to the Venu line yet
This is the part buyers should care about most. NMT is not free, and Garmin isn't spreading it down the range.
The Venu 4 still uses a stainless steel bezel and a polymer rear, and its price already climbed to $549.99 from $449.99 on the Venu 3. Adding full titanium would mean another jump on a line that's already been pushing at the ceiling of what people will pay for a mid-range Garmin.
So for now, the full-metal jacket is reserved for the fenix 9 Pro at $1,099.99 and up, and the MARQ Gen 3, which runs from roughly $2,500 to $3,100.
What this means if you're buying
Three practical takeaways:
- The base fenix 9's plastic sidewall is engineering, not cost-cutting. It's how Garmin gets the antennas out without gaskets and thickness. If you want metal all the way around, that's the Pro premium, and it buys you real structural work.
- Thickness is the number to watch, not materials. A titanium case that ends up 16mm thick is worse on a wrist than a polymer one at 13.8mm. Garmin got both here.
- Be skeptical of the "titanium" label alone. Titanium bezel plus polymer body is not the same watch as a nano-molded full titanium case, and Garmin prices them accordingly.
If you're cross-shopping the two, check current fenix 9 pricing against the fenix 9 Pro listings. The gap is usually bigger than the materials difference alone, because the Pro also carries the inReach radios on some models.
Bottom line
Garmin built a process to solve a physics problem, and it charges for it. The plastic on a $999 watch isn't laziness, it's the cheapest correct answer to antennas and water resistance. Nano-molding is the expensive correct answer, and right now it's reserved for the two most expensive lines Garmin makes. Whether it trickles down to a Venu 5 depends on whether buyers will absorb another price hike, and Garmin's own recent pricing suggests it isn't in a hurry to find out.
Sources: TechRadar's interview with Garmin COO Brad Trenkle and outdoor creative lead Todd Register, published November 2, 2026 by Andrew Williams, which carries the direct quotes on radio transmission, gaskets and nano-molding; Garmin's MARQ Gen 3 launch materials, which introduced the nano-molding process and the 100,000x etched titanium image; Garmin's published fenix 9, fenix 9 Pro, fenix 8 Pro and Venu 4 specifications for thickness and pricing; our own fenix 9 Pro and MARQ Gen 3 launch coverage for the model lineups and price tiers.
