Garmin FR70 & FR170: One Easy Rec, One Complicated Story

Garmin just announced two new Forerunners, and they landed very differently.

I don't have either of these in hand — they announced today, available May 15th. Everything here is based on specs, pricing, and a lot of time with this lineup. If you want a hands-on review after they ship, drop a comment on the video.

The FR70 — $249.99

This one is easy. The Forerunner 70 replaces the FR55, which has been around since June 2021 and was really starting to show its age against what competitors are putting out at the same price. MIP display, older design — it wasn't a bad watch, but it wasn't an exciting recommendation anymore.

The FR70 fixes that. AMOLED display at $249 is a real upgrade for this slot. Single-band GPS, the gen 4 Elevate sensor, 80-plus sport modes, 13 days of smartwatch battery, smart notifications. Solid numbers across the board.

Who's this for: someone brand new to running who wants a proper GPS running watch without overspending. The FR55 used to be the answer to "what's a good first Garmin?" — with a caveat that it was getting old. That caveat is gone. The FR70 is a clean recommendation.

The FR170 — $299.99 / $349.99

The FR170 adds a barometric altimeter, compass, gyroscope, thermometer, and Garmin Pay over the FR70. Base price is $299.

Honest read: hard to justify for most runners. That's $50 more for sensors that matter in specific use cases — hiking with real elevation tracking, or tapping your watch at the coffee shop mid-run with Garmin Pay. If neither of those applies, the FR70 is the smarter buy.

The FR170 Music at $349 makes more sense. 4GB of onboard storage for Spotify, YouTube Music, and Deezer. If offline music matters to your runs, there's now a real reason to spend up. That's the only version of the FR170 I'd actively recommend.

The broader picture: this feels like a model number update rather than a new watch. The transition from the FR165 to the FR170 brings no new sensors, no new hardware. A lot of what changed could have been pushed as firmware on the 165. Garmin needed to get to the "70 family" and this is how they did it.

The full breakdown of where each watch fits — and who got left holding awkward hardware when Garmin made these announcements — is in the video above.