- Garmin simply dropped three new watches: the Garmin Forerunner 70, 170 and 170 Music
- Designed to be ‘straightforward to make use of’, the watches are outfitted ‘with the whole lot a runner wants to begin their working journey’
- A few of Garmin’s software program from costlier Forerunners makes the minimize right here, reminiscent of wrist-based working energy and working dynamics
Our greatest Garmin watches listing has been overdue getting a brand new funds entry for some time, and we’re now spoiled for selection: Garmin simply dropped three ‘easy-to-use’ working watches.
The Garmin Forerunner 70 is the successor to Garmin’s long-serving Garmin Forerunner 55 running watch, and will cost £219.99 (around $300 / AU$410). The Forerunner 170, meanwhile, will start at £259.99 (around $350 / AU$485). The 170 Music, which allows you to download music and connect headphones and which comes with 4GB of memory, costs £299.99 (around $400 / AU$560).
All three watches come with a 1.2-inch AMOLED screen and Garmin’s standard Forerunner five-button configuration.
The Garmin Forerunner 70 offers up to 13 days of battery life, while the more feature-rich Forerunner 170 series both get up to 10 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. The Forerunner 170 series also adds more smartwatch features, such as Garmin Pay.
In a press release, Lyman said the “Forerunner 70 and Forerunner 170 include premium running and training features pulled in from our more advanced Forerunners, plus popular health and wellness metrics.”
Those tools include Training Readiness scores, wrist-based Running Power (a popular metric to base your performance on, a measure of total effort rather than heart rate), and Running Dynamics features, which calculate stride, cadence and more. It’s not clear yet whether the watches are packing the older, less accurate Elevate V4 heart rate sensors common in cheaper watches, or Garmin’s newer Elevate V5 series.
The Garmin Forerunner 70 and 170 series are available to pre-order now, releasing on May 15.
A well-timed replacement
While there’s plenty of entry-level and beginner-friendly language used when describing these watches, Garmin’s simpler, cheaper Forerunners are still used by the best runners in the world.
As recently as April this year, the five-year-old, still-cheap Garmin Forerunner 55 was used by marathon runner Sebastian Sawe to break the two-hour time barrier at London 2026.
So, even though these watches are ideal for beginners, serious runners should be looking at them very closely too. Stay tuned for our full reviews.
The best Garmin watches for all budgets
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our professional information, evaluations, and opinion in your feeds. Be certain that to click on the Observe button!
And naturally, you can too comply with TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for information, evaluations, unboxings in video kind, and get common updates from us on WhatsApp too