Garmin Forerunner 245 Music Review: The Best Running Watch You Can Buy
Our Verdict
Become the Garmin Forerunner 245 Music if you're a serious runner who likes to listen to music.
For
- Bright colorful display
- Onboard music storage
- Good bombardment life
- Loads of preparation metrics
Confronting
- Menus can be difficult to navigate
Tom's Guide Verdict
Get the Garmin Precursor 245 Music if you lot're a serious runner who likes to listen to music.
Pros
- +
Bright colorful display
- +
Onboard music storage
- +
Skillful battery life
- +
Loads of training metrics
Cons
- -
Menus tin can exist hard to navigate
For years, I've ran with a Garmin Forerunner 235. This GPS watch has seen me through half marathons, full marathons and countless 5Ks, dutifully tracking my every step along the mode. I've loved its large, easy-to-read display and customizable menus.
So Garmin had a high bar to articulate with its successor, the Forerunner 245 Music. And it does, in every respect. The Garmin Forerunner 245 Music is smaller and lighter, yet has a more colorful display, and it tin can store music onboard—no more lugging a smartphone forth! And it does all this without sacrificing battery life. Every bit I learned logging miles for this Garmin Forerunner 245 Music review, it's one of the best sports watches and best Garmin watch for runners.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music: Toll and availability
The Garmin Forerunner 245 Music costs $349, and is available with a black, white, or aqua band and case. For those who don't desire the music feature, the Garmin Forerunner 245 is $299, and comes in black or berry ruddy.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music review: Design
The Forerunner 245 has a softer, more than refined design than its predecessor, the Forerunner 235. Notably, the edges are rounder, giving it a less boxy shape.
Still, the 245 retains the v-push pattern common to many of Garmin'due south running watches, with a small tweak here and there. The Start/Cease push in the upper correct now has a red band around it, equally well as a red hash mark on the lookout man bezel, making it stand out only a flake more.
Despite having a smaller 42mm case (compared with 44mm for the 235), the Forerunner 245 has nigh the same size screen — xxx.4mm — as its predecessor. Information technology has a college 240 x 240 pixel resolution, and more important, it doesn't have the flat-tire expect (the height and lesser of the 235'due south display was cut off). The display merely looks brighter and more colorful.
While both watches have transflective displays — which reflect sunlight to make them more viewable outdoors — the 245'southward backlight is much brighter, besides. I had no trouble seeing what was on the display, day or night.
Precursor 245 Music review: Interface
Since the Forerunner 235 came out in 2015, Garmin's devices accept become a lot more sophisticated — almost like any of the best smartwatches — so it was merely natural that the visitor integrated features plant in the Fenix 5 into its flagship running sentinel.
As with all of its dedicated running watches, the Forerunner 245 lacks a touch screen, which is fine by me. In my experience, information technology's a lot harder to swipe and tap than it is to press a button while running, and I didn't have any problems with the Forerunner 245 as I took it out for a run.
Cycling through the Forerunner 245'south various screens, y'all tin can view the atmospheric condition, your agenda, notifications, conditioning history, heart charge per unit, steps, health stats and more than. Each of these screens is referred to as a widget, and you tin can add together, remove and rearrange them as you see fit.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music Specs
Display Size: 1.ii inches
Resolution: 240 x 240
Weight: 38.v grams
H2o resistance: v ATM
GPS Bombardment life: 6 hours w/ music, 24 hours w/o music
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ANT+
Music storage: Up to 500 songs
When diving through all the menus, Garmin keeps things simple. Pressing and holding the heart button on the left side lets y'all suit settings such as scout faces, widgets and sensors. However, at that place are so many menus and submenus — a result of all of the lookout man's features — that it's not difficult to get lost. Pressing the Back button volition eventually get y'all to the home screen.
The Forerunner 245 volition also show notifications from your smartphone, merely unlike a bona fide smartwatch like the Apple tree Watch Series half dozen or the Samsung Milky way Watch 3, you tin can't reply, make phone calls or interact with an assistant like Siri.
Forerunner 245 Music review: Running features
While not all are necessarily new to Garmin's GPS watches, the Precursor 245 incorporates a few more than metrics catering to runners. In fact, it's one of the best running watches and i of the best fitness trackers for running. Preparation Status analyzes your activities to encounter if you're progressing equally you should; Training Load, which looks at your previous seven days of workouts; and anaerobic and aerobic Preparation Effect, to see the effectiveness of your private workouts.
If you take your phone with you during a run, Incident Detection and Aid will let you use the Forerunner 245 to contact emergency services, and will send them your location.
Some of the other more running-focused features include the ability to race one of your previous runs, and, when you pair the watch with a running dynamics pod ($69), you lot can get additional data such as the amount of bounce in your step, ground contact fourth dimension and stride length.
Yous can also connect the Forerunner 245 directly to Wi-Fi networks, so it will sync automatically without y'all needing to open up the Garmin app on your smartphone.
Forerunner 245 Music review: Features
As its name would suggest, y'all can store your tunes on the Forerunner 245 Music. This way, you can leave your phone or crumbling iPod at home if you want to listen to something while you're out exercising.
You can download music to the watch from your computer, or from Spotify or Deezer if you have premium subscriptions from those service. After signing into your account through Garmin's app, you can and then view and sync your playlists to the Forerunner 245 music. Downloading my running playlist, which has 11 songs, took near 3 minutes. You can also sync podcasts via Spotify, as well.
The Spotify app also recommended a number of workout-related playlists, such equally "160 BPM Runner'due south Gild," "Power Conditioning," and "Beast Fashion," but you tin't preview the songs on the lists on the picket without downloading them showtime.
Garmin Precursor 245 Music review: Performance
Out in the burbs, the Precursor 245 picked up a GPS betoken within 10 seconds of me starting a running activity, and accurately tracked me throughout my runs. The screen was bright, and I liked that I could customize it to testify the stats I preferred to view. Y'all tin can also bike through multiple screens, and then i could show your stats for your overall run, while a second screen could show your metrics for the current lap.
The Forerunner will also show you a map of your run. Merely yous'll but see the route, and non a map with streets.
The watch maintained a steady connectedness to my Bose Soundsport wireless headphones during my run. Not once did a song skip or cut out as I jammed along to Eye of the Tiger. It's adequately easy to change tracks using the buttons on the watch, simply I suspect that many (similar myself) volition adopt to use the controls on their headsets for this purpose. Yous can also switch between playlists on the watch while running, only information technology'southward a little more than of a pain. My advice would be to load up one playlist with all the songs you'll need.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music review: App
Similar the watch itself, Garmin's app (Android, iOS) has a lot of features that can exist difficult to navigate. The chief My Day screen shows your daily stats at a glance — heart rate, steps, calories burned and more than. One of these is Body Battery, a metric that Garmin uses to show yous how much energy you have on a calibration from one to 100. A practiced night'due south residue will boost your number, while strenuous activity or stress volition lower it.
Also new to the Forerunner 245, likewise as Garmin's other new fettle watches, is menstrual-cycle tracking.
Other tabs along the bottom of the screen show you challenges you lot've completed, a calendar of your activities, and a News Feed displaying what your other Garmin-equipped friends are doing.
Finally, a More tab brings you down a rabbit's hole of settings and avant-garde metrics, like VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold. Here, you lot tin also start workouts and customized training plans for 5K, 10K and half marathons, and access the Connect IQ Shop, Garmin's ersatz app store, where yous can download additional watch faces and widgets to the watch. Still, you lot won't find apps as you would for the Apple Watch. For the about part, there are merely watch faces and another fitness-related apps, such every bit Strava.
Forerunner 245 Music review: Battery life
One of the benefits of using a fitness-showtime scout, rather than a smartwatch, to track your runs is battery life. Garmin's watches will last for days longer than whatsoever Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Spotter. Without GPS, the Forerunner 245 should be proficient for upward to seven days. With the GPS turned on, Garmin says that the Precursor 245 Music will last up to 24 hours.
If you're using the watch to play music, also, battery life takes a hit: The visitor says that the 245 Music will final just 6 hours in GPS mode with music. My testing would seem to acquit that out: A one-half-hour run using GPS, the heart rate monitor and playing music drained the battery by 8 percent, roughly in line with Garmin'due south estimates. All the same 6 hours is more than plenty fourth dimension to become most people through an unabridged marathon.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music review: Verdict
I've tested a number of running watches over the years, but when it came to actual training and racing, I always went back to the Garmin Precursor 235. It had everything — a big and vivid display, accurate tracking and a bully bombardment life. Its successor, the Garmin Forerunner 245 Music, has all that and more.
At $349, the Forerunner 245 Music is near every bit expensive as the Apple Lookout man 6 ($399), but its in-depth tracking features and much meliorate battery life makes information technology the better choice for serious runners. If you want to save some money, the Precursor 245 ($299) has all the same features as the Forerunner 245 Music, but without the onboard music storage. Garmin fans on a budget should also cheque out the Garmin Precursor 45 ($199), which has fewer features, but a similarly bonny design and display, as well as 13-hour battery life in GPS mode.
After all these years and all those miles, my Garmin Forerunner 235 even so works great, simply it doesn't do music. If I were to upgrade, the Precursor 245 Music would exist my selection.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/garmin-forerunner-245-music,review-6437.html
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