Garmin really segments the market with its smartwatches or fitness watches. There are 6 product lines. Each line spans wide range in price. And Garmin purposely hold back features in order to differentiate the products. Consumers new to Garmin products (like me) can have difficulty finding right product for their usage. Sometimes just reading reviews is not sufficient. Really need to test out the product in person.
Previously, I purchased Forerunner 245 and 255. I decided to go with Forerunner 255 for size, comfort, and ergonomics. Here is link to that post: https://jimmy1photo.wixsite.com/blog/post/garmin-forerunner-245-vs-255
After using Forerunner 255 for 3 weeks, I had second thoughts. For my purpose as general fitness watch, 255 is overkill and poor value. Some of the features that I thought will be helpful turned out to be completely useless. I don't know if it is just marketing fluff or it depends on individual. I suspect it is a bit of both.
And the worst thing I experienced was instability with firmware/software. In 3 weeks, I had to reset the watch twice. The issues are related to using Garmin Connect app on smartphone to customize settings on the 255. This feature is not available on Forerunner 245 or Vivoactive. The customization issue I encountered is customizing activity data field. Certain data fields cannot be selected in the Connect app, but it works fine when I select these data fields on the watch. In one case, when I countered this problem, I noticed my watch batter drained 25% overnight. In another case, 3rd party watch face looked incomplete as some data fields and display are bland (missing). In both cases, I had to reset the watch to resolve the issue.
I was already debating if I should return Forerunner 255. Then during Amazon Prime Day, Garmin Vivoactive 4 was on sale for close to 1/2 the price of Forerunner 255. That was the deciding factor. I bought Vivoactive 4 and returned Forerunner 255.
Styling
I want Vivoactive 4 with 45 mm diameter, not the 4S with 40 mm diameter. The color choices for the larger Vivoactive 4 are Silver on Gray and Black on Black. Well, I am not a fan of both. I don't want Black on Black as it is just a black mess. I'm ok with some black, but this is just a black blob.
I prefer the Gray body over Black. However, for an exercise watch made of plastic, I don't think polished stainless steel bezel is a good match. If there was Black bezel on Gray body, I would go for that. In any case, I decided to go with Silver bezel on Gray body as it is lesser of 2 evils.
Here is the Silver bezel on Gray body. Image taken from Amazon:
Black bezel on Black body. Image taken from Amazon:
Summary
Garmin's focus and advantages, compared to typical smartwatches, are on training, running, and long battery life. The disadvantages of Garmin are inferior hardware and poor value. So it is really dependent on your purpose. If you are hardcore runner and want a smartwatch for training and looking to improve, then Garmin can be worth the cost. Forerunner 255 has loads of features for runners. For someone like me who just want a general fitness tracker, many mid-tier to high-end Garmins are overkill and offers poor value. I am interested in Garmin over competition mainly for the battery life.
Comparison Table
In the table below, I will do quick overview comparison between Forerunner 255, 245 and Vivoactive 4. I use + for positive (better feature); 0 for neutral; and - for negative (lacking feature). I know some of these can be dependent on individual, so I just list my experience. I only note down features I tested and have direct experience. In next section, I will go thru the details of my experience.
​ | Forerunner 255 | Forerunner 245 | Vivoactive 4 |
Size | Larger (45.6mm) | Medium (42.3mm) | Larger (45.1mm) |
Strap Comfort | + | - | - |
Display | + | - | + |
Battery | + | - | - |
Buttons / Touch Screen | + | + | - |
Build Quality | - | - | + |
GPS | + | - | - |
Training Features | + | - | - |
HRV | + to 0 | - | - |
Morning Report | + to 0 | - | - |
Sleep Score | + to 0 | - | - |
Sleep Tracking | - | + | + |
Courses | + to 0 | + to 0 | - |
Data Screen | + | - | - |
Data Field | + | - | - |
Custom Activity | 0 | 0 | - |
Detailed Review on Each Feature
Size: Forerunner 255 and Vivoactive 4 are similar in size (45.6 and 45.1 mm in diameter, respectively). Forerunner 245 is smaller (42.3 mm) in diameter. All these watches have very similar height (12.2 to 12.9 mm). As I mentioned in my previous post comparing 255 and 245, I like 255's size better. And I find it more ergonomic. I believe the weight is more spread out due to its larger size.
Strap Comfort: 255 silicone strap is softer and more elastic, than both Forerunner 245 and Vivoactive 4. As result 255 is more comfortable.
Display: Forerunner 255 and Vivoactive 4 use the same display: 1.3" or 33mm in diameter, 260 x 260 pixels. Forerunner 245 has a smaller display: 1.2" or 30mm in diameter, 240 x 240 pixels. Although that 0.1" doesn't seem like much, for the small screen of the watch, it does make a difference. In terms of pixel area, (260 x 260) / (240 x 240) is 17% difference. 255 and Vivoactive 4 have more usable area.
All these 3 devices have transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) LCD display. This technology is similar to the LCD display on calculators. It uses less battery than AMOLED. In terms of performance, they are different. In bright sunlight, MIP is very legible, whereas AMOLED depends on brightness. In medium light indoor condition, AMOLED is brighter; MIP is less legible and might need help of backlight. In total darkness, MIP require use of backlight. The most difficult condition I find with MIP is in mixed lighting. For instance, in a car where outside is sunny and bright, inside is shaded and dark, it can be very hard to read the display, even with backlight.
In a perfect world, of course AMOLED will be better than MIP display. However, due to battery consumption, AMOLED default mode is not always-on; turning always-on mode will consume more battery. MIP display is always on, like a regular watch. This always-on is important for me. I spend a lot of time in front of computer, with my wrist on the keyboard. I want to look down at my watch and get real-time info, without have to exaggerate wrist/arm raising motion to turn on the display.
Battery: Forerunner 255 has around 2x the battery life of 245 and Vivoactive 4. I use around 1 hour on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends, with GPS activity tracking. 255 battery life is 12 days. 245 and Vivoactive 4 lasts 5-6 days.
Buttons vs Touch Screen: Forerunner 255 and 245 use buttons exclusively. Vivoactive 4 use both touch screen and buttons. I actually prefer buttons only. It is very straight forward on how to navigate, and action are precise. With touchscreen, I have to learn exactly where to touch. Garmin touch sensitivity is quite good, but even then sometimes touch doesn't register.
Build Quality: Vivoactive 4 has slightly more premium feel, because it has stainless steel bezels. Forerunner 255 and 245 are both all plastic. The start (top right) button has a different feel than the other buttons. 255 start button has much more resistance. This feels odd and I actually do not like this.
GPS: All 3 watches has GPS, GLONASS, Galileo systems. 255 has additional dual band GPS. And it has this SatIQ feature where the watch will automatically determine which system to use. So by feature, 255 has advantage here.
Since exact location accuracy is not important to me, I just used GPS only to save on battery life. Even with GPS only setting, 255 does better than 245 and Vivoactive 4. I assume 255 has newer GPS chip. When starting an activity, 255 will lock into GPS within 5 seconds; 245 and Vivoactive 4 takes around 10-15 seconds.
Training Features: Forerunner 255 has many more training features. I'm not qualified to comment on these, since I didn't use them. Best to watch some YouTube review on the details here.
HRV: I thought this HRV feature will be a game changer on 255. It was not. On 255, the HRV data is reported out. On 245 and Vivoactive 4, the HRV data is embedded into the Stress data, but user does not have direct access to HRV data. In any case, my HRV doesn't change at all, during my short usage of 3 weeks. Maybe for someone with variable HRV, this might be useful. Or it is possible I didn't encounter any health issues during my 3 weeks to see variable HRV. Not sure. Even if HRV data varies, I don't know how it will affect me, as I am not training for competition.
Morning Report: Another feature that I thought might be useful, but turns out to be quite useless. User has select-able options to include in the morning report: Sleep Score, Sleep Data, Body Battery, Calendar, Step Goals/Streak, Suggested Workout, Upcoming Race Info, Weather.
For me, some of these info are not applicable for me: Suggested Workout, Race Info. Others I don't care about, as I can get this info from phone: Calendar, Weather. And other data are just BS and incorrect: Sleep Score, Body Battery. The only info that I value are Sleep data and Step Goals/Streak. I can view Sleep data details inside Garmin Connect app on phone; Step Goals/Streak I can get on 3rd party Watch Face.
Sleep Score: Garmin sleep tracking doesn't work well for me. I am a light sleeper. I typically sleep around 6 hours each night. 255 often state that I slept only 3-4 hours, at least once or twice each week. Garmin's sleep score is heavily skewed by sleep duration. As result, the sleep score is useless and incorrect for me.
Sleep Tracking: Although sleep score (and total sleep duration) is not useful in my case, it seems that with deep sleep duration is related to how I feel. When I get more than 1 hour 10 minutes of deep sleep, I tend to feel recovered. When I get less than 50 minutes of deep sleep, I feel tired. So looking at the sleep data details can provide some info for me.
As for the overall sleep tracking, surprisingly the older watches (Forerunner 245 and Vivoactive 4) are actually more accurate than the newer watch (Forerunner 255). 245 and Vivoactive 4 typically shows that I did sleep 6+ hours. 255 periodically shows that I only slept 3-4 hours, which is completely off. I wonder if 255 has more sensitive data that is not a good fit for light sleeper like me. As I move around, 255 thinks I'm awake, even though I'm still sleeping.
Courses: Forerunner 255 and 245 Music have Courses feature, where user can upload map/route onto the watch for navigation. This is for instances where you are on an unknown route or location. It sounds awesome, but not useful in real life. The issue is what you see on the watch is a trail crumbs, which is a line/path without any background info (no map, no street, no trail, no topography info).
It might work on streets, as street intersections are perpendicular. And this courses also help you navigate back to starting point.
However, it does not work well with trails for hiking. Trail intersection are not perpendicular. When coming up to intersection, the courses does not exactly tell me which way to go. I either need additional information from a map. Or I have to use trial and error. I can take a trail, walk 100 ft, and then I can tell if I'm on the right path or not.
Custom Activity: I didn't use this feature on Forerunner 255, as it has activities I needed. I did try to this on Vivoactive 4, to create Hiking activity, which is not available. I created a custom activity by copying Walk. Guess what, I could not rename the activity. It is just left as Walk (2). It is just lazy and sloppy programming on Garmin's part.
Do I want Walk for walking and Walk (2) for hiking? I decided to just use Walk for both walking and hiking activities. Then on Garmin Connect online, I can see my activities with elevation field. That elevation field tells me if I'm walking vs hiking.
Data Screen: On Forerunner 255 and 245, user can add many data screens. On Vivoactive 4, there are only 3 data screens available + HR zone gauge. So Vivoactive is more limited.
Data Fields: On the number of data fields, Forerunner 255, can display up to 6 data fields per screen. Forerunner 245 and Vivoactive 4 max is 4 data fields per screen. In terms of data fields available, Forerunner 255 also has charts (heart rate, elevation), which are not available on 245 and Vivoactive 4. So 255 has improved data field selections.
Pricing:
Here are the Amazon prices as of June 2023. All prices are in USD. The Amazon links are affiliate links.
​ | ​ | Price (as of July 2023) | Amazon Link |
Vivoactive 4 |  | $270 (Black) $190 (Silver/Gray) | |
Forerunner 255 Music |  | $400 | |
Forerunner 255 |  | $329 | |
Forerunner 245 Music | | $215 | |
Forerunner 245 |  | $160 (renewed) |