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Garmin Forerunner 170: One minute review
The Garmin Forerunner 170 and 170 Music sit nicely between the cheaper Garmin Forerunner 70 and more expensive 570 and 970 duo, the latter of which features on our best Garmin watches guide. As such, both Music and non-Music versions are a bit of a halfway house; not quite cheap enough to be picked up on a whim by budget-conscious consumers, nor expensive enough to be stuffed with top-quality premium features.
However, it is stuffed with plenty of robust fitness features that will suit any active exerciser, especially runners. Sebastian Sawe, who who broke the world record by running a marathon under two hours in London, was toting a Garmin Forerunner 55 — Garmin’s cheapest, most stripped-back running watch.
What you’re paying for here is the Garmin Forerunner 70 — an excellent smartwatch on the cheaper end, and the successor to the popular Garmin Forerunner 55 — with additional smartwatch features attached. These include Garmin Pay, a virtual wallet which lets you pay with cards held on-watch, and the Smart Notifications feature, which allows you to view and manage alerts from a paired smartphone. The Forerunner 170 Music adds an extra 4GB of music storage.
If you’re largely uninterested in these features and you just want an excellent training tool, I’d get the Garmin Forerunner 70 instead, as it’s the best value of the three newcomers overall. But the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music does allow you to hit that Saturday morning parkrun, pay for your coffee, and jog home with headphones in — all without using your phone at all. It’s incredibly convenient, but not a package everyone will need or want.
Still, during my testing I found the watch good to use, comfortable to sleep in, and accurate against testing units like my Polar H10 heart rate monitor. Our writer Michael Sawh found the same with the Garmin Forerunner 70. You can read my full thoughts on the 170 Music below, but whichever watch you choose, you’ll be in good hands.
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Specifications
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Garmin Forerunner 70 |
Garmin Forerunner 170 |
Garmin Forerunner 170 Music |
|
Price |
$249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399 |
$299 / £259.99 / AU$479 |
$349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549 |
|
Dimensions |
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm |
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm |
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm |
|
Weight |
40g |
41g |
41g |
|
Case/bezel |
Fiber-reinforced polymer |
Fiber-reinforced polymer |
Fiber-reinforced polymer |
|
Display |
AMOLED 390 x 390px |
AMOLED 390 x 390px |
AMOLED 390 x 390px |
|
GPS |
GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou, QZSS, SatIQ |
L1 GPS, GNSS, Galileo, and BeiDou |
GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo |
|
Battery life |
Up to 13 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 16 hours |
Up to 10 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 14 hours |
Up to 10 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 14 hours (6.5 with music) |
|
Connection |
Bluetooth, ANT+ |
Bluetooth, ANT+ |
Bluetooth, ANT+ |
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Price and availability
- Garmin Forerunner 170: $299 / £259.99 / AU$479
- Garmin Forerunner 170 Music: $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549
- Garmin Forerunner 70: $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399
The Garmin Forerunner 170 without music storage costs $299 / £259.99 / AU$479.
The Garmin Forerunner 170 Music, the upgrade with 4GB internal memory for music storage, costs $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549. The Forerunner 70, which doesn’t have the 170’s smartwatch features such as Garmin Pay and Smart Notifications, is cheaper at $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399.
We’re zeroing in on the Garmin Forerunner 170 today, and I think the watch is generally good value for money compared to some of the seriously expensive premium Garmins in the lineup, but perhaps not compared to the 70, which is $100 / £80 / AU$150 cheaper for a very similar watch. If you don’t want Garmin Pay or notifications, you’re better off saving your cash and getting the 70.
None of the Garmins have a particularly wide feature set compared to watches from Apple and Samsung at a similar price point, but their batteries last far longer — up to 10 days for the 170 — and their workout credentials are fantastic. This ensures you can get multiple battery-sucking GPS workouts in each week while still retaining enough smartwatch functionality to matter, all without needing a charge for ages. Each Garmin watch is durable too.
I’d say it’s generally a good value prospect, even if it does edge into the expensive end with the 170 Music.
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Design
- Iterates on existing Forerunner design
- Surprisingly dull AMOLED screen
- Elevate V4 heart rate sensor
The Garmin Forerunner 170 looks very much like every other Forerunner, but if this is your first Garmin that won’t mean much. It’s got a five-button configuration — up, down, light, start, stop or select, and back (or lap). You can use these, a touchscreen, or a combination of the two to navigate the watch, which is ideal if you’re wearing gloves.
It comes in a single size, with a 42.6mm screen, and its packing an AMOLED display rather than the duller digital-watch-style memory-in-pixel screen of older watches, but it’s not particularly bright even at full power. It comes with a silicon two-tone strap, and on the back it has one of Garmin’s older heart rate sensors, the Elevate V4. More expensive watches get the more accurate V5, but the V4 has been included here presumably to keep the cost down.
It’s very light, with a listed weight of 41g, and feels like less than that in the hand. A light watch is great for running and collecting wellness info as it’s easy to wear, and this checks the boxes.
Those familiar with Garmin products will be happy to know no liberties have been taken with the design of Garmin’s established software, either on-watch or in the Garmin Connect app. I think it’s the perfect mix of stripped-down and information-heavy, although there are a lot of menus to lose yourself in. The buttons make it fairly intuitive to navigate around for old hands. It’s a tried and tested design, that doesn’t break the mold in any significant way.
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Features
- Advanced running dynamics
- Limited smart notifications functionality
- 170 Music offers mp3 and streaming downloads
Plenty of running features abound here. As the name suggests, Garmin’s included its advanced running dynamics tools such as running power (a measure of your total running effort using motion data as well as heart rate), along with advanced statistics such as stride and cadence data after your run. During workouts, you can set up routes in Garmin Connect with virtual pacers to keep you on time.
You also get the usual health stuff, such as heart rate and sleep score, 80 workout modes (although not all have dedicated metrics or GPS enabled) and reports in the morning and evening that provide information about your training along with the weather and a motivational quote. The Garmin Forerunner 170 gets Smart Notifications, which allow you to answer some tests with simple replies and the Garmin Pay functionality which acts as a virtual wallet like Apple Pay.
The 170 Music’s 4GB of storage allows you to upload tunes directly onto the watch, including by saving playlists from the likes of Spotify. Even without the dedicated Music model, you can listen on apps like Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music and so on through your phone, and control music on the watch there. The Garmin Connect IQ store has dedicated widgets for these services, along with thousands of other apps from a mixture of big-name brands and enthusiastic amateurs.
Otherwise, what’s missing? I wasn’t expecting full-color maps at this price, just the breadcrumb navigation and route direction common on most Garmin watches without maps, so I don’t feel like the feature is missing, as such.
However, to justify the price increase from the 70 to the 170 Music, I think it needs more hardware features. A microphone like the Garmin Forerunner 570, and the ability to take calls on watch and use Garmin’s simple voice assistant, would better separate it. As is, most people who want dedicated smartwatch features will just get one of the best Apple Watches or best Samsung watches instead.
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Performance
- Accurate against a heart rate monitor
- GPS works well against an Apple Watch Ultra 3
- Comfortable and easy to wear day-to-day
I checked the Garmin’s heart rate accuracy against an electrical chest-mounted Polar H10 heart rate monitor — the gold standard of heart rate accuracy — during a 25-minute treadmill test, and was very pleased to report that despite the older sensor, both average and maximum heart rate were within 1-4bpm of the heart rate monitor; a very acceptable margin for error and not a statistically significant one.
GPS was accurate compared to my Apple Watch Ultra 3, and battery life was representative of its claims, with total drain taking just over a week with multiple GPS workouts completed. I feel as though the ‘up to 10 days’ listed battery life is reflective of reality.
Being lighter and smaller than many Garmins I’ve tested, it’s comfortable to wear every day and fine to sleep in.
- Performance score: 4.5 / 5
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Scorecard
|
Category |
Comment |
Score |
|
Value |
It’s not barnstorming value compared to the 70, but unlikely to disappoint. |
4/5 |
|
Design |
Builds on the solid existing Forerunner design with little iteration. |
4/5 |
|
Features |
Rich training insights and smartwatch features. |
4/5 |
|
Performance |
Solid performance against industry standards and contemporaries. |
4.5/5 |
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Should I buy?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
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How I tested
I wore the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music for over a week, draining the battery down and using as many of its features as possible. I ran and used it for strength and yoga sessions, tested its smart features, and pitted it against multiple competitor devices, including a chest strap heart rate monitor.
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matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans)
