Garmin Forerunner 570 Review

Introduction

The Garmin Forerunner 570 arrives as another AMOLED-packing sports watch, featuring Garmin’s brightest display alongside some of its latest training and smartwatch features. 

Launched alongside the similarly super bright but more expensive Forerunner 970, the 570 is set to replace the Forerunner 265, which we loved, but were also critical of the price increase on the Forerunner 255.

There’s a price jump again for the Forerunner 570, this time to £459/$549. Does the extra spend get you a significantly better sports watch and smartwatch? Here’s how it performed during testing.

Design and screen

• Features two case sizes
• Available in three colours
• Bright AMOLED touchscreen

While the 570 is essentially a new line for Garmin, this should be considered a replacement for the Forerunner 265. That AMOLED watch came in either 41mm or 46mm sizes, and the 570 has followed with two sizes, this time moving to larger 42mm and 47mm options.

Those cases each come in three different colours, with replaceable silicone straps, and it’s fair to say Garmin has definitely been a bit more playful with its colour schemes. The silicone strap is a translucent one, giving the undeniably sporty watch a more fun look.

The case is made from polymer to keep things light, with an aluminium bezel surrounding the AMOLED display. On the larger 47mm version I tested, you get a 1.2-inch touchscreen with a 390 x 390 resolution.

While Garmin doesn’t specify the display’s peak brightness, having used previous Garmin watches with AMOLED screens, this one is notably brighter. It’s not the highest-resolution display offered on a Garmin and is actually a lower-resolution panel compared to the largest Forerunner 265 model. It’s still a very good green, with a responsive touchscreen and zero signs of lag.

In typical Garmin Forerunner fashion, there are also five physical buttons, and if you look at the base of the case, you’ll spy the added microphone and speaker that gets you access to some, but not all, of Garmin’s latest voice-enabled smartwatch features.

The level of waterproofing remains the same as pretty much all of Garmin’s Forerunner watches, giving you something that’s waterproof up to 50 metres depth. That’s meant I’ve been able to safely take it for swims and make good use of the onboard swim tracking support.

Performance and software

• Latest proprietary OS
• Bluetooth calls and voice commands added
• Optional Connect+ subscription

The 570 runs on a very up-to-date version of Garmin’s proprietary operating system, which is both Android- and iPhone-friendly. I’ve been using it across both, and pairing, syncing and the experience using the Garmin Connect app has been both similar and familiar.

On the watch, you can swipe up from the watch face to view your stream of widgets or swipe down to see your notification stream. Hitting the main sports tracking button takes you into your mix of sports and smartwatch features.

I still remain a little on the fence about Garmin’s decision to consolidate everything in one place, rather than keeping things more separate. However, it certainly makes things feel more smartwatch-like, in the sense of the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.

There are some additional features included that were not present on the Forerunner 265, and these are primarily tied to the added microphone and speaker. You can now make calls over Bluetooth, use your voice to set timers, adjust settings, or summon your smartphone’s assistant. It misses out on the voice memo feature that’s included on the much pricier Fenix 8 though.

If you like the idea of those features being added, then great. I honestly didn’t find hugely compelling reasons to use them in my time, and even if you like the idea of using them when your hands aren’t free, you still need to press buttons to make use of them.

Staples like notifications, the music player, and controls are nicely integrated with support for offline playlists syncing from the likes of Spotify, a real bonus for Garmin over rival sports watches.

You also have access to the Connect IQ Store. It’s a bustling digital storefront, but you’ll need to work to find the good apps, watch faces, and data fields. I’d recommend setting up a Wi-Fi connection to speed up the downloading and installation process.

Tracking and features

• Garmin’s new Gen 5 optical sensor
• New racing-related features
• New evening reports added

Like most Garmin devices, the Forerunner 570 wants to cater for all of your sports tracking needs. It covers running, cycling, swimming (both in pools and open water), with rich support for multisport events like triathlons and duathlons, and also encompasses more niche pursuits like skiing and paddleboarding.

Garmin includes its latest Gen 5 optical sensor to track your heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and skin temperature tracking, the latter of which is totally new, making the 570 more useful for general wellness insights. Interestingly, despite the new sensor being linked to new ECG capabilities that Garmin has introduced on other watches, those capabilities are not available on the 570.

Heart rate tracking, in general, has been very good both during the day and night, as well as during exercise. You also have the benefit of being able to pair it with external Bluetooth heart rate monitors. I found it held up well in testing against one of Garmin’s own heart rate monitor chest straps, even when upping the intensity.

It’s good to see that Garmin’s latest dual-band GPS technology does make the cut, which I’ve found offers some of the best GPS tracking performance compared to other dual-band watches. This doesn’t change on the 570, and if you care about accurate GPS, this watch has you well covered.

What you don’t get when you head outside is access to full maps, as Garmin opts to offer just breadcrumb-style routing along with point-to-point navigation support. Given the price and the fact that other watches from Polar, Suunto, and Coros offer colour maps for less money, it’s disappointing to see it missing on the 570.

You can use this watch just like a fitness tracker and a sleep tracker, offering useful features on both fronts. The daily step goals adjust based on your progress toward your goal from the previous day, along with allowing you to set step count streaks and track distances covered. Crucially, those step counts have been nicely in line with two other fitness trackers I used during testing. 

At night, you’ll see some pretty standard sleep stats, which now include changes in skin temperatures and a sleep coach that can tell you if exercise history could be having a knock-on effect on your quality of sleep.

I’ve been wearing it alongside an Oura Ring 4 and found that sleep duration data and measurements, such as heart rate variability, were similar. It still seems to fall foul of capturing longer periods of sleep or registering when I’d fallen asleep earlier, even when I was just lying in bed.

Like tracking, there is a whole host of training metrics and insights to explore. For runners, there are elements like a dedicated running performance widget to track VO2 Max and provide race predictions. I still think Garmin’s Training Readiness can be a useful feature to guide you on making the right decisions about your training. 

Head to the app, and there’s a whole lot more. Garmin has enhanced its free Coach platform to include training plans for triathlons and better integrate strength training.

You also get access to Garmin’s Connect+ paid-for part of the Connect app, which currently offers features like AI-powered insights from your workouts, additional guidance from coaching plans, and now adds and syncs trail routes.

Do these features and others feel necessary enough that you need to pay extra for them? I can’t see huge value just yet, but maybe that’ll change further down the line. 

Battery life

• Up to 10 days of battery life
• Up to 5.5 days with always-on screen
• Up to 18 hours of GPS battery life

There isn’t a previous 500 series watch to compare the battery numbers with the 570, but if we take the largest Forerunner 265 model to compare to the largest 570 I tested, the battery numbers are generally down. It becomes quite clear why: the brighter screen.

Garmin says you can get up to 10 days using the 570 solely as a smartwatch, and that drops to 5.5 days if you keep the screen on at all times. When using the GPS, the best battery life is achieved by using the more basic GPS mode, which provides 18 hours of tracking. Opt for the most accurate GPS mode, and that drops to 13 hours.

I’ve found the battery drop I’ve experienced points to a lower battery performance. With the screen set to always-on, it was closer to 4 days, with the daily drop around 30% on average.

If you can live without the screen on at all times, then you can comfortably get through a week with some regular smartwatch and sports tracking use. Garmin has since issued a software update to improve battery performance, so things should get better.

The GPS performance was generally fine after an hour of use, with the most accurate GPS model seeing a 10% drop in battery. That’s a little short on the promised numbers, but should be sufficient for most to complete a few GPS-based workouts a week before needing to plug in the proprietary charging cable that Garmin uses for most of its watches.

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