The Garmin Forerunner 245 running watches (x2) have arrived and represent very interesting additions to Garmin’s 2019 range, for now, let’s take a long look at the Garmin 245 Specs and compare to the old Forerunner 235 and higher-end 645.

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Where Are We?

The earlier, Garmin Forerunner 235 from 2015 was a sporty-looking, mid-market running watch. It did all the right running things for broadly the right price and added some of the ‘smarts’ that became more prevalent around that time.

Fast forward almost 4 years to the Forerunner 245 (Music) and the older 235 still holds its own as a running watch in my eyes. However tech has moved on and you, the consumer, have moved on in what you might expect these devices to do. Garmin understands that and has significantly revamped and extended their offering as well as re-packaging it into more of a ‘regular watch’ format rather than the plastic, yet sporty, look and feel of the older 235.

What Is The Forerunner 245? What’s New?

It’s an entry-level performance running watch. It’s perfectly fine for beginners and seasoned runners alike but it adds a little more flexibility and tech over an above the lower end models like the 2019 Forerunner 45 (forty-five).

The new Forerunner 245 entirely replaces the position in Garmin range held by the 235. This makes it more of a benchmark device. If you are looking around for a new running watch then it’s a good idea to compare whatever you are thinking of buying to the 245.

What’s New – Hardware Base

The Forerunner 245, when compared to the 235, is basically a totally different bit of kit. The shell has obviously changed as the watch looks different, yet pretty much everything else on the inside has changed too: ELEVATE HR/SpO2 sensor; GNSS/GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO Chip (Sony); battery; screen; all of it. Even compatibility and connectivity has been extended to more sensor types (not PMs), BLE sports sensors and WiFi (245M).

What’s New – Music

The Forerunner 245 MUSIC stores music onboard and plays it back over Bluetooth earbuds as you run or to speakers at home. You can copy your personal music collection or sync from your SPOTIFY account, there are other ways too, but just realise that the Garmin Forerunner 245 doesn’t stream live over a cellular connection.

What’s New – Firmware

There are a few differences here. What we are seeing is that features what were once the preserve of Garmin’s top-of-range tri watches are now making their way on the Forerunner 245. We’re talking here mostly of Running Dynamics and Firstbeat Physiology but there is also some peripheral stuff shown in the comparison specs at the end.

What’s New – Physiology by Firstbeat

Even if you are a casual runner it is useful to know that your training is having a positive effect. But it’s relatively difficult to properly quantify that. Firstbeat provide Garmin with clever physiology algorithms that are mostly based on your age/sex/height/weight/heart rate and performances. And they are generally correct enough to be useful for most levels of runner. There are 14 in total but I suspect these will strike the most interest to most people

• VO2max – when looked at over an extended period of time, this quantifies your increased fitness
• Training Effect – tells you much your workout has had a positive effect on both your anaerobic (speed) or aerobic (fat burning) body ‘engines’.
• Training Status – shows you the cumulative effect of all your training on your level of tiredness and fitness today.
• All-day stress & recovery

There are others too like ‘calories’ and ‘all day stress & recovery’. You can read about them in more detail on Fristbeat’s site.

What’s New – Running Dynamics

When used in conjunction with either an RD-POD or GRM-RUN/HRM-TRI/HRM-DUAL chest strap, you will get Garmin’s extra running metrics which still give you good-old cadence but also which add measures that tell you how long your feet stay on the ground and how much you bounce when running. You probably want to make both of those measures lower to get faster but just how you do that is a complex question usually solved by ‘more training’.

Thus these metrics are interesting but largely unactionable.

The lack of a barometric altimeter further means that you cannot use the Forerunner 245 for Garmin Running Power, though STRYD works.

What’s New in the Garmin 245 Specs – Personalisation & Protection

The physiology stuff is clearly personalised to you but higher spec Garmin watches, like the Forerunner 245, now offer you the ability to make big changes to your Forerunner device through Garmin’s app store (called CIQ apps)

The quality of the CIQ apps is another matter entirely and, like other app stores, the apps range from awesome to ‘meh’. They are almost all entirely free and have a vast scope covering things like support for 3rd party sensors like STRYD; complex screens that can display more than 4 data fields; and support for maps via a connected smartphone. Oh, you can probably also find a Mickey Mouse watch face if you look hard enough! – the watch faces tend to be a bit garish and let down the overall aesthetic a little due to the relatively poor resolution of the screen but I guess most are passable.

For those of you worried about running in remote locations there is also a new assistance & incident detection features which send your location to selected emergency contacts via your smartphone.

What’s New – Garmin Coach

Well, it’s not new-new, but it is a nice addition to the 245 which makes the overall offering more complete and it’s worth mentioning here. Garmin Coach offers “adaptive running plans”; this sounds great but these are a little let down in the execution. Nevertheless, they are great for beginner-to-intermediate level runners (>21 min/5k). This aspect of Garmin’s overall offering has been improved and now covers adaptive 10k and HM plans as well. BUT don’t forget there are MANY OTHER FREE non-adaptive plans that will work with the 245 that you can download via GARMIN CONNECT.

Basic Garmin 245 Specs

More complete specs are shown at the end with a comparison to the old Forerunner 235 and the current, higher-spec Forerunner 645. Here are the headlines and I’d say the specs are pretty good.

• Dimentions: 1.7” x 1.7” x 0.5” (42.3 mm x 42.3 mm x 12.2 mm) and at 38g it’s VERY light.
• Battery life: up to 7 days in smartwatch mode; up to 24 hours in GPS mode (6 hours with music+GPS)
  
• Gorilla Glass (scratch resistant) screen
• Waterproof 5 ATM (you can swim with it)
• It’s NOT touchscreen and the colour resolution is only 240x240px

Price, Discounts & Availability

I would suggest REI in the USA who now have stock and they give members 10% off (link to: rei.com). Definitely use Wiggle in the UK where you can get a new Customer Discount with the code NEWGB at this link (here) with platinum discounts of in-stock products up to 17% in boost periods. They will also get stock earlier than most other retailers. Wiggle is also pretty good on the whole throughout the Eu I’m just not sure of the in-stock status for May 2019 for non-UK markets.

• Forerunner 245  – $299, £249, Eu299
• Forerunner 245 Music – $349, £299, Eu349

Garmin 245 Specs, Comparison to Forerunner 235 and 645 Specifications

These are the detailed differences (Source: garmin.com)

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