Garmin Forerunner 45 vs Garmin Forerunner 245

Garmin is top of the heap and I won’t switch for the foreseeable future…they also look good for everyday wear. You’ll never catch me with one of those god-awful looking Apple Watches on my wrist.

INTERFACE: It's very fast and I like the new menu interface a lot. It's almost the exact same as the 945, excluding some Firstbeat analytics. My only annoyance is that it's missing Hotkeys, which I actually used on my other watches. I hope that it's just an oversight and not an intentionally-stripped feature

I had (actually still have) a Samsung Gear Sport that is almost 3 years old and I've loved it. Buying the Forerunner 45 has made me realize why. The reasons I chose the 45 were 1. The price - I didn't want to spend $300+ again, mostly just on principle

Really this should be the same price as the vivoactive 3, and serious runners who don't want a touch screen, garmin pay, stairs climbed counting, and want extra running metrics would buy it. Most people still wouldn't. After using it I don't see why its 100 dollars more. Runners pay more money for watches?

I tracked my route on my watch, which worked great but ate the battery. I hadn't adjusted any of the power-saving settings. I will next time, but I wonder if it will affect accuracy. It just gave basic distance speed, etc

I think it may be that some features, like the Pulse Ox (which is fairly inaccurate), cause the battery to drain faster. Garmin's Connect app encourages you to wear this watch all the time, even when sleeping, to get better fitness data. That's another reason the battery drains so fast. Good thing is that it charges quickly

It comes with some of the most commonly used sport profiles like running outdoors running indoors. On a treadmill, cycling walking a generic cardio pr...

Heart rate was also pretty good. You'Ll see some inconsistencies here, but for the most part it was pretty darn close to three other external heart ra...

> If you are primarily looking for a running watch, we recommend that you focus your search on that. If you’re a runner who’s interested in having the Apple ecosystem on your wrist, the Apple Watch will serve you fine, but there are some caveats.

The 245 and the 745 likely fit the bill best for your needs. I've got a 245 now and it's a great watch.

And then next is your stress level, which takes about thirty Seconds to register and then, if we dive in, we can see your stress level over the last f...

However, now I feel like maybe the Garmin FR 245 Music would be a better choice for me. The most basic functions I need are GPS and the ability to download music from Spotify for phone-free runs.

Don't bother with fancy socks or anything like that. I wear free race t shirts. I recently indulged in a garmin forerunner 45 watch so nothing top end, before that I just used to record runs on strava on my phone. Don't bother with strava premium or any subscription apps or anything like that

Or honestly you don't even need a watch if you're comfortable running without technology. There is definitely a freedom to running without anything on you.

I don't think it's overkill at all! Honestly I think it's worth it just for the convenience of being able to easily see your pace/time/distance during your run, alone. I think the Forerunner 45 would be fine for you, but if you think there is a chance that you might want to upgrade in the future, I would just go for the Forerunner 245 now!

I don't know if this is just my watch issues. If I don't have to deal with this annoying process turn on and off of my watch every day, I will give five stars for this review. By the way, one thing I want to mention, the Garmin Express is not working well. Every time I use it, I have to plug-in and plug-out the connecting USB cable five to six times to make connect work

But with the forerunner 45, it's made for this and lasts a long time. I have not used it for daily tracking or sleeping as that was not my intent. So far super happy with my purchase. Only reason it's 4 stars is due to my limited use so far

I have not dropped, banged or otherwise mistreated this product. It has not been exposed to extreme weather nor conditions but a year and a half into use and this strange dot appeared on(in) the screen and today it just froze , can't turn it off - nothing. For the cost of this watch i expect better.

It was extremely frustrating downloading the firmware update when the watch wouldn't stay connected to my phone. But once I got the firmware updated, the watch has stayed connected without issue (iPhone Xs). It's the original firmware that's the problem, not the watch! The one thing that does really bug me (and that Garmin will likely fix in future updates) is that even when I turn notifications off, I still get ALL notifications sent to my phone! The 45s has a choice of all notifications, calls and texts, calls or off. Further, notifications have to be cleared individually

This sends an email to whoever you’ve listed, or all of your connections, with a link to a tracker. I love this as a woman who often goes on runs alone early in the morning or at night. There is also a feature on this watch where if you press a button 3x it sends a text to your emergency contacts and it will also do this if it notices anything unusual (you stop suddenly, etc). Probably my favorite features