Close Menu

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest Tech news from SynapseFlow

    What's Hot

    Mistral Vibe review | TechRadar

    July 10, 2026

    I finally found a perfect nostalgia corner on The Roku Channel

    July 10, 2026

    Third US Security Expert Sentenced to Prison for Helping Ransomware Gang

    July 10, 2026
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    • Homepage
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    synapseflow.co.uksynapseflow.co.uk
    • AI News & Updates
    • Cybersecurity
    • Future Tech
    • Reviews
    • Software & Apps
    • Tech Gadgets
    synapseflow.co.uksynapseflow.co.uk
    Home»Tech Gadgets»Garmin Forerunner 170 review: A solid running watch with no surprises
    Garmin Forerunner 170 review: A solid running watch with no surprises
    Tech Gadgets

    Garmin Forerunner 170 review: A solid running watch with no surprises

    The Tech GuyBy The Tech GuyJuly 10, 2026No Comments9 Mins Read0 Views
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email
    Advertisement


    Why you can trust TechRadar


    We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

    Advertisement

    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.

    Latest Videos From

    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 GPS Watch (Black) at Amazon for £258.60

    Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Specifications

    Swipe to scroll horizontally
    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.

    Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.

    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

    Garmin Forerunner 170

    (Image credit: Future)
    • 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

    Garmin FOrerunner 170 showing a five-day forecast

    (Image credit: Future)
    • 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

    Garmin Forerunner 170 Music showing heart rate

    (Image credit: Future)
    • 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

    Garmin Forerunner 170 close-up on heart rate sensor

    (Image credit: Future)
    Swipe to scroll horizontally

    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…

    Also consider

    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.

    Garmin Forerunner 170 GPS Watch: Price Comparison

    Advertisement
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    The Tech Guy
    • Website

    Related Posts

    I finally found a perfect nostalgia corner on The Roku Channel

    July 10, 2026

    New Motorola Edge 70 Max leaked renders reveal its main specs

    July 10, 2026

    Google already has a fix for Home Speaker setup problems

    July 9, 2026

    Upgrading your Blu-ray collection to 4K is expensive if you don’t know which discs to look for

    July 9, 2026

    AI work slop: What is it & how can UK businesses protect themselves?

    July 9, 2026

    Samsung Galaxy M67 emerges on Geekbench with forgotten Exynos chip

    July 9, 2026
    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Advertisement
    Top Posts

    You don’t need a NAS to self-host — I proved it with hardware from my closet

    June 7, 2026253 Views

    Spotify is giving one of its best playlists a big visual upgrade to give subscribers ‘a closer connection’ to its New Music Friday curators — and I think it could be the update it’s always needed

    June 12, 2026157 Views

    The iPad Air brand makes no sense – it needs a rethink

    October 12, 202516 Views
    Stay In Touch
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • TikTok
    • WhatsApp
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    Advertisement
    About Us
    About Us

    SynapseFlow brings you the latest updates in Technology, AI, and Gadgets from innovations and reviews to future trends. Stay smart, stay updated with the tech world every day!

    Our Picks

    Mistral Vibe review | TechRadar

    July 10, 2026

    I finally found a perfect nostalgia corner on The Roku Channel

    July 10, 2026

    Third US Security Expert Sentenced to Prison for Helping Ransomware Gang

    July 10, 2026
    categories
    • AI News & Updates
    • Cybersecurity
    • Future Tech
    • Reviews
    • Software & Apps
    • Tech Gadgets
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest YouTube Dribbble
    • Homepage
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    © 2026 SynapseFlow All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Ad Blocker Enabled!
    Ad Blocker Enabled!
    Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please support us by disabling your Ad Blocker.