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Garmin Forerunner 945 Review

Sports Watch for Pros

 
Claiming to be Garmin’s most full-packed wearable, the Garmin Forerunner 945 is the best watch for professional athletes. Despite its lightweight and slim design, it is filled with incredible features you could ever wish for a sports watch. From sports tracking, color maps, and contactless payment, there is no doubt that this watch is one of a kind.

With so many great and interesting sports watches in the market today, Garmin wanted to upgrade its very own Forerunner 935 and released the all-mighty Forerunner 945. But it is more than just an upgrade, this watch has advanced features that are simply exceptional. All the basic features were amped-up to the next level.

Looking at the outside design of the Forerunner 945, there is no much difference with the workhorse the Forerunner 935 is. But when you pay attention to what goes on inside, you will realize how much it has improved in terms of features and functionality. The newly added mapping and Garmin Pay is a great addition which makes outdoor activities feel like a fun adventure. It is the perfect outdoor watch that brings something new to the table.

Aside from GPS and GLONASS tracking system, Garmin includes Galileo to ensure accurate scores on workouts. It also has sensors such as Pulse Ox to measure the oxygen saturation in the blood. Additionally, you get elevate optical heart-rate sensor technology, barometric, altimeter, and thermometer. You can link all of these sensors with external 3^rd party sensors such as running footpods, cycling power, and external heart-rate monitors via ANT+ and Bluetooth. Most other high-end sports watches like the Polar Vantage V only connect over Bluetooth.

The Forerunner 945 will satisfy even the most demanding athletes because it has everything they will ever need for their hard-core training regime. In terms of smartwatch technology, it has smart features such as music storage that can be synced to Spotify, full-color maps for easy navigation, and it is also 5 atm waterproof for water activities. Can this watch get any better?

Pricewise, the Garmin Forerunner 945 is not what you class as in the cheap or mid-range of sports watches, you will have to dig in your pockets. But when you come to think of it, with all the top of the line features built-in, does it deserve a cheaper price? Other watches with the same features cost way more, even within Garmin’s family such as the Fenix 6X Pro range of sports watches.

Design

In terms of design, the Forerunner 945 has the same black plastic body casing as the Forerunner 935, but now instead of silver, it was changed to dark grey buttons. Small details after all. It only weighs 50 g and measures 13.7mm which is super light, making it perfect for runners and triathletes. The screen resolution is 240 x 240 full-color which is not as bright as other smartwatches such as Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch but sufficient for the purpose this sports watch was created for.

 

Upgraded Features

TOPO Maps & Garmin Connect

Garmin found some areas to improve from the previous model including TOPO maps which shows routes you can follow to avoid getting lost and helps you to go back to your destination route quicker. You can even create your own routes, just connect your watch using the Garmin Connect app and you are good to go. Luckily, Garmin’s running watches retain the traditional and now standard five buttons for navigation which is ideal when you are in the middle of an intense workout with sweaty fingers, on rainy seasons or wet screen. Having buttons to navigate the watch means whatever environment you are in you can get to what you want to see within a few clicks of a button.

Assistance and Incident Detection

Assistance and Incident Detection is a feature that we absolutely love. You can choose three contacts that will get an alert via text or email should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position to get into an accident while outdoors. You can also hold the backlight button to give signals to people that you need help. It is a life-saving app so don’t forget to set this all up as soon as you get the watch. We loved it and wish all sports and smartwatches would have it as standard.

Music Player

Some of us enjoy working out more when there is some music in the background to help us carry the load of our training. Let’s not mention the hassle it is to carry a phone or music player. Thanks to the Forerunner 945 sports watch, we don’t have to worry about that anymore. You can now listen to streaming playlists from Spotify directly on the watch providing you have the premium subscription, which we would imagine would be a real winner for many people. Upon trying it, we couldn’t see any problems with music controls or any lagging whatsoever when you sync the songs.

Battery Life

We know how draining it is on these watches having all the features running at once.  The forerunner 945 give you up to 36 hours of battery life. That is, of course, depending on how much you are using. If you use things like GPS while playing music, expect it will drop to 10-15 hours, which isn’t that bad at all. Basically, a day’s usage. Most people will get 3-5 days of battery life in moderate use.

Garmin Pay

If you decide to get one of these watches, then you can start leaving your wallet at home. Just like Apple Pay and Google Pay, Garmin Pay lets you buy without using cash. Just pull up your watch and grab your favorite drink and snack.

Updated Statistics

Another update in the Forerunner 945 is its metrics. Garmin added heat and altitude acclimation to identify the difficulty of an activity like running. It is an important feature because an increase in temperature and altitude means additional strain in the body and oxygen levels.

 

Training-Load Focus

A new measuring feature that will help you know how much a particular activity is beneficial to your training is known as Training-Load Focus. It uses a quick assessment based on heart-rate and pace for the last seven days’ workouts. This program will help active people find the best training that suites their mobility and training style.

Training and Performance

To help you see if your training is improving, the Forerunner 945 breaks down your workout history into three categories and tells you the time you need to spend (or have spent on) for each of them. The first category is anaerobic which means short but heavy workouts, second is high aerobic meaning moderate to heavy workouts, and last, low aerobic or easy workouts. The secret of having a great and productive training is to find the balance of these three, or else, you might end up burning yourself out or get hurt. The Forerunner 945 displays all this data and metrics in a colour-coded bar chart with target zones for each type of training to make it easy to understand and to improve on.

Beginner? No personal trainer? Not a problem! Just get yourself a Forerunner 945 and it will help you train like a pro. With their Garmin Coach, it can generate customized running training plans from 5k to half marathon distance. Just choose a plan, sync over to your watch, and you can start working out with your pace or cadence.

In terms of GPS and heart rate monitoring accuracy, the Forerunner 945 is one of the best sports watches we have ever tested. It goes without saying that it doesn’t just support GPS, it supports also Galileo and GLONASS natively too (you can use the two systems simultaneously if you want) which translates into superb accurate location logging even if you are running through a forest or a congested city center with tall buildings.

In regards to the optical heart rate monitoring sensor. Its accuracy is not quite there yet when you compare it to a traditional chest strap but the Forerunner 945 is as good as anything we have used. Its lightweight build and slim profile its means that it stayed tight to my wrist and this helped to deliver good readings, most of the time. We have to point out that the optical sensor did lag behind the chest strap for a few seconds, especially noticeable when it came to the ups and downs of my heart rate when doing a high-intensity workout. However, worth noting, on a steady 10K run, the figures were very much similar than the chest strap.

Activity and Sleep Tracking

Garmin never fails to impress us even with the basic features of the Forerunner 945. Tracking features such as step counting, calorie count, and Body Battery (a curious feature that measures and compares the energy you “recharged” during sleep versus what you have used to give you an estimate of when you are likely to crash) are all present in this watch. Garmin watches uses heart-rate monitoring to recognize the level of your stress and what your energy levels are. Amazing.

The standard sleep tracking is broken down into light, deep, and REM sleep. Although the Forerunner 945 is super lightweight, getting accurate readings for sleep tracking can be a slight problem sometimes. When you are still awake but not moving, it’s already considered as light sleep which affects your overall stats. We didn’t find this to be a deal-breaker at all.

 

Conclusion

The Garmin Forerunner 945 aims to rise above all of its competitors. If you are looking for a multisport that offers music, payment system with GPS, then you don’t need to look anywhere else. Its outstanding battery life and sports tracking make this one the best sports watch for athletes and pros.

It is no surprise that Forerunner 945 is the best sports watch in Garmin’s line-up. It has all the great features of Fenix 5X, plus better battery life and in-depth fitness training, making it, in our opinion, a better sports watch overall. It is super comfortable to wear and it terms of looks, it doesn’t disappoint either.

You can have more expensive and better “smartwatches” from Apple and Samsung, but they can’t compare with the wealth of features dedicated to the athlete and running enthusiast. You just can’t go wrong with the forerunner 945. In this price range, you won’t find another watch that has all these premium features.