Garmin has celebrated Global Running Day in style by launching updates to its popular Forerunner 245 and Forerunner 945 watches, both of which we rate among the best running watches available.
The Garmin Forerunner 255 now comes in two sizes, with the smaller Forerunner 255S fitting thinner wrists better, and there are two models – one with music storage and one without. The Garmin Forerunner 955 also has two models, with solar panels on the face of the Forerunner 955 Solar to extend its battery life.
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You can order the watches on the Garmin US and Garmin UK website now. The Forerunner 255 and 255S cost $349.99/£299.99, while the Forerunner 255 Music and 255S Music cost $399.99/£349.99. The Forerunner 955 costs $499.99/£479.99 and the Forerunner Solar $599.99/£549.99.
We have both watches in for testing, and you can check out our first-look Garmin Forerunner 255 review and Garmin Forerunner 955 review for our early impressions of both watches.
The key updates on the Forerunner 255 are that it is now a full triathlon watch, with new sports modes to track multi-sport activities, and it also offers multi-band GPS for more accurate outdoor activity tracking.
Other new features include a morning report that provides info on your sleep and suggested training for the day to come, and a new heart rate variability (HRV) status, which can help you judge how well recovered you are.
Multi-band GPS, the morning report and HRV status have also been added to the Forerunner 955, which also brings a new training readiness score to Garmin’s range. This goes further than the HRV status rating by taking into account several factors including your recent training, sleep and stress scores to give a rating of how ready you are to train.
The Forerunner 955 also has an updated design compared with the 945, with a touchscreen and a slightly thicker case, though it is still lighter than the Garmin Fenix 7 and Epix 2 watches.
While the Forerunner 255 is more expensive than the Forerunner 245 was at launch, (the latter cost $299.99/£249.99 for the base model and $349.99/£299.99 for the 245 Music), the Forerunner 955 is actually cheaper than the Forerunner 945, which costs $599.99/£519.99.
