Garmin Forerunner 970 The Garmin Forerunner 970 is everything you want in a running watch, and almost everything you'd need from a smartwatch. Yes, you'll pay like you're buying one of each, but it's a top-end wearable that you'll almost never have to take off your wrist, and it's light enough that you can go all day forgetting that you're even wearing it.
My running journey started with a Garmin Forerunner. It wasn’t my watch — it was my high school cross country coach’s — but it brought a load of new metrics to a sport I was learning to love. I was amazed that something so small could monitor our team’s distance, pace, and lap times. Alright, maybe it could only monitor those of us running with our coach at any given time, but it’s still much better than a simple stopwatch.
Little did I know that it was the most basic watch Garmin made. Yes, I learned to run with a Garmin Forerunner 10 beeping at me, never dreaming that I’d one day be using its successor to train for a marathon. Yet here I am with a Garmin Forerunner 970 on my wrist, essentially a smartwatch for runners, tracking metrics I never imagined. Here’s what makes it the best road running watch I’ve ever worn — but also why I think Garmin has gone too far in its quest to track literally everything.
Oh, how far Garmin’s designs have come
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
For those of you who never got to experience the Garmin Forerunner 10 back in the day, let me enlighten you. Picture in your mind the most basic digital watch you can — make it a Casio, but not like a cool one. Are you thinking of one? Good. Now, give it a few extra buttons and a red ring around its square bezel, and you’ve got the Forerunner 10. Was there anything exciting about its design? Not really, but that’s what made it so special. It was a watch with a job, and it did that job incredibly well.
So, when I took the Forerunner 970 out of its box and put it on my wrist, I may as well have been strapping a UFO to my arm. It’s about as far apart from the Forerunner 10 as a watch could be, and I generally mean that in the best of ways. Long gone is the old black and white display that may as well have been for a Tamagotchi, with a crisp 1.4-inch AMOLED face sitting in its place. This isn’t my first adventure with Garmin’s vibrant new display style (I’ve previously worn everything from the Forerunner 965 to the Epix Pro 2 to the Instinct 3), but something about this housing might be my favorite.
The Forerunner 970 is light enough that I forget it's on my wrist, but tough enough that I'm not worried about it.
Actually, I know what makes it my favorite: Despite being a pretty big watch with a singular 47mm case, the Garmin Forerunner 970 feels slim and sometimes invisible on my wrist. Sure, I’ve given myself a reminder or two that it’s not invisible — sorry, street signs and climbing gym holds — but the titanium bezel and Sapphire Crystal lens are no worse for wear. After I’ve worn a Garmin watch for this long, it’ll usually bear a battle scar or two, but the Forerunner 970 and its almost flush bezel are clean as the day I first put it on.
As a long-time Garmin user, I can report that the other hardware changes on the Forerunner 970 are minimal. It still uses the same five-button navigation as its predecessor (the Forerunner 965), though the top left button now triggers the built-in LED flashlight, much like its trail-ready counterparts. The proprietary four-pin charging port remains the same, too, which is fine, but I’d still love a Garmin watch with wireless charging so I can ditch at least one cable from my travel bag.
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