Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE review (hands on): A perfect running watch for an imperfect world
Our Verdict
The Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE lets y'all phone call for assistance without your phone
For
- Good pattern
- Long battery life
- Authentic tracking
Against
- Expensive
- Lots of menus
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE lets you call for aid without your phone
Pros
- +
Good design
- +
Long battery life
- +
Accurate tracking
Cons
- -
Expensive
- -
Lots of menus
There are a number of scenarios for which yous'd desire the Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE and its ability to summon help without needing your phone.
In May, 21 ultramarathoners died during a race in China when they were caught in a sudden storm of freezing rain and hail, with only some able to phone call for help. Closer to home, a Runner'due south Globe survey constitute that 84 per centum of women have received some form of unwanted attention while running — and it just got worse during the pandemic.
While I'yard fortunate enough not to have experienced this first hand, no one should have to feel unsafe while working out. The obvious solution: Stop harassing women.
Until that happens, we'll demand devices like the Garmin Precursor 945 LTE. This running watch is identical to the original with 1 difference: A born LTE radio that enables y'all to send a bulletin with your location to an emergency response center and to your emergency contacts.
Information technology can too transmit your location in real time to selected contacts, which tin can be used in happier times — such equally when you're running a race. And, friends can ship you motivational texts and audio messages during your run, too.
I'thou notwithstanding testing the Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE — specifically its LTE-enabled features — but so far, it looks like a very good device for a lilliputian peace of heed.
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Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Toll and release appointment
The Forerunner 945 LTE goes on sale June 2 for $649.99, and is bachelor in white or blackness. It will first become on sale in the U.S. and Canada, and be available elsewhere in the world afterward this summertime. That'due south $100 more the Forerunner 945 without LTE, but that lookout has been on the market for about two years.
Of grade, there's fiddling sense in picking up the LTE model if you're not going to utilise that feature; this service costs $v.99/month if you lot sign up for an annual subscription, or $6.99/month if you want to get calendar month-to-month.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Blueprint and interface
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE Specs
Size: 44.four 10 44.4 x thirteen.ix mm
Display: i.two inches
Display resolution: 240 ten 240 pixels
Weight: one.7 ounces
Water resistance: 5 ATM
Wireless: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE
Battery life: seven hours (GPS/Music/LTE); 12 hours (GPS/Music); 35 hours (GPS only)
The Forerunner 945 LTE looks identical to the regular Precursor 945 — and virtually of the other all-time Garmin watches, for that thing. It has a circular watchface with two buttons on the right and three on the left. There's no touchscreen, which is par for the form with Garmin running watches; simply as well, as I've found a sweaty finger makes information technology a real pain to use a touchscreen.
The 1.2-inch display has backlighting, but it besides uses transflective technology, which harnesses the Dominicus's light to make things brighter. You should accept no trouble seeing what's on the screen even on the sunniest of days.
Because everything has to exist done via button presses, Garmin tries to make its interface as navigable as possible, simply at that place'southward still a real learning bend.
Printing and hold the backlight button for about a second and y'all become ane menu screen, which gives you admission to things such equally LTE, sync, and Do Not Disturb.
If you're on the main watch face and you press and agree the center push on the left, you can admission the lookout man confront, every bit well as settings for sensors, music, connectivity, safety & tracking, and more. Nonetheless, if you press and agree the center push on the left while the watch face up is displaying a widget, and then yous go a menu to adjust that widget — and so scroll down for more general settings.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Safe features
Other Garmin watches, such as the Forerunner 945, accept like rubber features, but crave your smartphone to exist nearby to use its cellular connection.
To transport an alert, you press and concord the backlight button until you feel three beeps; depending on what mode you lot have selected (Assistance or Assistance Plus), you tin alert personal contacts or a professional monitoring service.
Assistance Plus, which tin be activated or deactivated merely through the Garmin app on your phone, volition notify Garmin's International Emergency Response Coordination Center (IERCC), which will and then accomplish out to local authorities on your behalf. The IERCC member will stay in touch with you lot on your Forerunner until assistance arrives.
Unlike the Emergency SOS feature on the Apple Scout (which uses voice and text), everything on the Precursor 945 LTE is done via text.
Coverage with Assistance Plus is bachelor in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Kingdom of denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Taiwan, and Singapore.
As with any smartphone, the 945 LTE can merely summon help if yous're in an LTE service area. And so if yous find yourself in a 27 Hours-blazon situation, then you lot and your knife are on your own.
Apart from using its LTE radio to communicate with emergency services or your friends, you can't use it for much else: Unlike the Apple Sentinel Series 6 LTE (or any other smartwatch with LTE) you can't use information technology as a replacement for your phone to make calls or send texts while you're out and away from your telephone. You lot also can't utilise it to stream music from Spotify, download apps and then forth.
Garmin is offering ii payment options: A monthly program with no annual contract is $6.99/calendar month, while a monthly program with an annual contract is $5.99/month. That's less than you'd pay per calendar month if you added an Apple Lookout to your smartphone plan, which by and large costs about $10 per month. Then again, you can do a lot more with a smartwatch on LTE than yous can with the Forerunner 945 LTE.
If you simply desire someone to know near your runs, y'all can use LiveTrack to send automatic letters nearly your elapsed fourth dimension, pace, and the speed of your last lap. You can send these messages to up to five contacts.
Additionally, those contacts tin can transport you messages — both text and audio — to give you encouragement on your run, which can exist a good motivator on race day.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Performance
I've taken the Precursor 945 LTE on a couple of runs, and correct from the start, it was fast and accurate. On the first run, it took less than a minute to acquire a GPS point.
To examination the safety features of the watch, I turned off Assistance Plus and went on a simulated run. I then pressed and held the backlight button for well-nigh 4 seconds. The watch vibrated and started a 5-second inaugural before sending my location and a distress text to my wife.
She received the text within a 2nd or and so, and could respond via text. However, information technology took virtually half an hr for me to receive her messages dorsum. I've reached out to Garmin to determine the crusade.
You can select from three preset messages, or blazon out a bulletin using the on-screen keyboard. Because you take to whorl to select individual messages and at that place'due south no predictive typing, it's pretty irksome.
I also plan to test LifeTrack and other messaging features more thoroughly before giving this hands-on a final rating.
Garmin Precursor 945 LTE: Bombardment life
Understandably, having an active LTE signal is going to impact battery life. Where the older Precursor 945 could last upward to 10 hours with GPS and music, the Forerunner 945 LTE tops out at 7 hours when using GPS, LTE, and music. GPS fashion with merely music gives yous about 12 hours, and GPS manner without music gets you upwards to 35 hours of battery life.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Smartwatch features
Similar to the Fitbit Sense, many of Garmin's fitness-focused watches have adopted a lot of smartwatch-similar features. The Forerunner 945 LTE has built-in music storage for Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music (you can besides sideload music), mobile payments, and the ability to receive smartphone notifications.
Garmin even has a second app, ConnectIQ, which lets you load additional watchfaces and "apps," only information technology'southward nothing shut to what you lot'd become with an Apple Watch or even a WearOS smartwatch.
Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE: Outlook
The Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE is an unfortunate reminder that no matter what precautions women accept — running during daylight hours, running where in that location are other people present — they will always be at risk of getting cat-called, followed or worse. And while the Precursor 945 LTE can't prevent these incidents, it can offer a mensurate of protection by letting a runner contact a friend or emergency services should they feel uncomfortable.
Only peace of mind doesn't come up cheap: The Forerunner 945 LTE costs $650, plus an boosted $5 per month for its LTE connection. Stay tuned for our total review.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/garmin-forerunner-945-lte-review-hands-on-a-perfect-running-watch-for-an-imperfect-world
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