Garmin Forerunner 745 vs. 245

It’s been a while since I’ve done a new watch review, so I thought what better time than the holidays incase you’re looking to get one for yourself or a loved one.

The newest watch from the Garmin lineup in the Forerunner 745 which replaces the 735.

There’s nothing super notable about this watch – the features it offers exist in one or more other models, so I’m going to do something different this time around.

I’m going to go through the basics and do a series of comparisons with some of the other Forerunners.

Sensors include:

Satellite sensors:
- GPS – the NA standard
- GLONASS – the Russian standard
- Galileo – the EU standard
Garmin Elevate™ wrist heart rate monitor
Barometric altimeter – for acescent and descent
Compass
Gyroscope for swimming, eyc
Accelerometer
Thermometer
Pulse Ox Blood Oxygen Saturation Monitor

This watch sits in between the 245 and the 945 in the Garmin Forerunner line up and is going to be geared more towards the more intense trainer. It can be used as a multisport athlete tool unlike the 245. That said, it’s not as robust in metrics and features as the 945.

745 vs. 245

Size

The 745 is both bigger and fatter than the 245. Coming in at 43.8mm wide x 13.3 mm thick.

The 245 is 42.3 wide x 12.2 (mm) thick.

You may not think that millimeter and a half wide and .9 MM thick isn’t a big difference, but I urge you to put them both on your wrist before you judge. I find the difference to be pretty big when you actually put them on.

As a side note, I find both to be just a little too small for me. But then, I like the Fenix 6X in the 51MM size, so maybe I’m compensating

Display

The actual displays are the same coming in at just under an inch and a quarter which is just large enough to see four data points on your wrist.

The 745 weighs in at 47 grams where the 245 is 38.5 grams. Easily light enough for a long course race like a marathon or potentially an ultra depending on how fast you are.

And that brings us to battery life

Both the 745 and the 245 will last 7 days in smartwatch mode – meaning you’re wearing it as a watch and you have it hooked to your phone so you’re seeing notifications for calls and texts and such and you’re getting the move alerts and whatnot.

With the 745 you have a few options for either extending or depleting the battery.

So if you’re someone who likes to exercise and use onboard music (which, BTW, the 745 can hold up to 500 songs that you can load from your library or one of the popular streaming services like Spotify or deezer).

Okay so if you’re exercising with music, you can get up to 6 hours using GPS and music

Or 16 hours of GPW without music

And if you use Ultra track mode, you can get up to 21 hours. Basically the mode you want when you know you’re on a long course like 70.3 or an Ultra race.

Compare those with the 245 which will last up to 24 hours with GPS.

I’m not going to compare all of the features across all of the profiles, I’m just going to look at swim, bike and run.

On the Run

For running the big – and really only running specific feature you’re going to get on the 745 and not the 245 is the ability to determine your lactic threshold (using either the HRM Run or the new HRM Pro).

The 745 lets you us the round-trip course creator for both running and cycling in Garmin Connect (but won’t give you turn by turn directions, you can only refer back to the map.

You also get Trendline™ Popularity Routing.

Basically, the difference between the 745 and the 245 is the ability to use maps. The 245 doesn’t have them where the 745 integrates them.

But like I said, you still won’t get turn by turn directions on the 745.

On the Bike

On your bike the 745 is compatible with power meters (including Garmin Vector peddles) and functional threshold power (not unlike lactic threshold but for cycling – and you need to have a power meter connected).

Other than that, both are compatible with speed and Candance sensors, Varia lights and radar.

And on both you get goal alerts for time, distance, heart rate or calories.

Swimming

Swimming is where you are going to see the largest difference in features between these two watches and what separates them from a triathlon watch vs. a watch for an athlete that likes to do swim bike and run.

The 745 includes open water swim metrics including distance, pace, stroke count/rate, stroke distance, swim efficiency (SWOLF) and calories.

The 245 has no open water swim features but does have pool features.

You get all of the requisite pool metrics on both watches – not unlike the open water swim metrics on the 745 – those include lengths, distance, pace, stroke count, swim efficiency (SWOLF) and calories

On the 745, you also get a few extras like

Auto rest
Time and distance alerts
Pacing alerts
And Countdown start

Which should you get?

I guess that all depends on what you’re going to use it for. If you’re training for a triathlon you can use both. But if your race is outdoors, you can’t use the 245 due ti the lack of open water swim features.

That said, if price is a factor, the 245 isn’t really that much different that you’d be missing a ton of features and you’ll pay $150 less (even more if it’s on sale).

The 745 is $499 and the 245 $249