Garmin Forerunner 645 Music Review

Hailey By: Hailey | Last updated September 11, 2018

Garmin Forerunner 645 Music smartwatch

9.0 / 10

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PROS:

  • Can store up to 500 tracks
  • Attractive design
  • Lightweight
  • Extremely complex and accurate in terms of sensors and fitness/sports features
  • Great visibility in any conditions

CONS:

  • Expensive
  • Battery life is not great
  • Doesn’t support several streaming services such as Spotify
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SUMMARY:

The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is an upgrade to the Forerunner 645 smartwatch, with one long awaited improvement: it can store and play up to 500 songs directly from the watch, entertaining and energizing your work out sessions. The 645 Music is comfortable, light yet solid, has GPS and a 5 ATM rating.

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COMPLETE REVIEW

The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is among the best smartwatches you can buy if you are into 2 things: fitness and music. The Forerunner 645 Music is an upgrade to the typical sports watches Garmin has released so far, which are accurate, complex and functional but dull when it comes to entertaining features.

Trying to keep up with its competitors, the 645 Music fixes this problem with its ability to store music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. and play them directly from the watch, so you don’t have to carry your phone with you when you work out.

Here are the main specs of the Forerunner 645 Music:

  • Dimensions: 42.5 x 42.5 x 13.5 mm
  • Weight: 42.2 g
  • 2” memory-in-pixel (MIP) display
  • Resolution: 240 x 240 pixels
  • 5 ATM rated (withstands pressures equivalent to a depth of 50 meters)
  • Gyroscope, accelerometer, thermometer, barometric altimeter
  • GPS
  • Bluetooth, ANT+, WiFi
  • Music storage: up to 500 songs
  • Battery life: up to 7 days in smartwatch mode, 14 hours in GPS mode with no music, 5 hours in GPS mode with music
  • Memory: 200 hours of activity data

Design

The Forerunner 645 Music has a premium design. It is a perfect blend between classic and sporty. The strap is made of silicone and it has a quick release system that allows you to replace it with any 20 mm band. The bezel is stainless steel and the display is protected by the Gorilla Glass 3.

The 645 Music has a round shape and it is lighter than previous Garmin models, which makes it comfortable to wear. The watch weighs around 1.4 ounces and it fits wrists with a circumference of 127-204 mm.

The display has 1.2” diameter, it is visible in direct sunlight and has a resolution of 240 X 240 pixels. The transflective technology used by Garmin in most of its watches makes the display easy to read in any light conditions. Of course, there is a minor drawback to this type of display and that’s the fact that you won’t get such vivid colors as with OLED displays, for instance. However, that shouldn’t be a problem, since you are not going to stream movies from your watch.

The Forerunner 645 Music doesn’t feature a touchscreen and instead, it has 5 multifunctional buttons that let you control the watch: 3 on the left side (for Up, Down and Light) and 2 on the right side (Start/Stop, Back). They have additional functions besides the mentioned ones.

Features

Like any other high-end Garmin watch, the Forerunner 645 Music really shines when it comes to features, especially those related to sports. There’s nothing really you can’t find in the 645. This watch is packed with all your sensors: GPS, GLONASS, compass, accelerometer, altimeter, gyroscope and even a thermometer, although the latter isn’t 100% accurate all the time, but it is almost there. The Forerunner 645 Music can track everything you do, whether you are running, walking, cycling, snowboarding, etc. It can measure your heart rate, temperature, can track your location and more. And while that doesn’t seem so special, with the market being flooded with fitness trackers, a lot of them are completely useless when it comes to accuracy. But not the Garmin watches! The 645 is precise and reliable, whether it measures your heart rate, tracks your location, counts your steps or helps you train.

The Forerunner 645 Music it is also 5ATM rated, meaning you can swim with it in peace, knowing that it can cope with a depth of up to 50 m.

Like all Garmin devices, the Forerunner 645 Music also uses the Garmin Connect app and you can download apps from the Connect IQ Store.

The 645 Music is $50 more expensive than the simple Forerunner 645 for a reason: its audio capabilities. Its 4GB internal storage allows you to upload and listen to music, podcasts or what have you, directly from the watch, using Bluetooth headphones. What this means is you can work out while listening to your favorite tunes, without being forced to carry your phone with you. You upload the audio content using the Garmin Express app. You have to download it on your desktop and only then you can load up to 500 tracks. There is also the possibility of downloading the iHeartRadio app if you prefer to sync your playlists instead and listen to them offline. Deezer support is also available. Unfortunately though, the 645 Music can’t stream music from just any third-party service and Spotify is one of those missing.

The Forerunner 645 Music works well in terms of alerts/notifications, too and it can be paired with both iPhones and Android devices. You can also pay with your watch through Garmin Pay and you can send quick replies.

The 645 Music is really complex when it comes to smart features. Some other features worth mentioning are Find My Phone, Find My Watch, VIRB Camera Remote, Calendar, Weather and more.

Battery life is not the biggest strength of the Forerunner 645 Music. It is just average and it is poorer than with other Garmin watches. Garmin claims you can get up to 7 days on a single charge, in smartwatch mode and 5 hours when using the GPS and the music feature, but in real life, you might get even less than that.

The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music is definitely a competitive smartwatch and a top-notch fitness tracker. It works flawlessly in terms of sports features and manages to fill in a gap that needed to be filled for a long time now with Garmin wearables: adding the entertainment feature to their running watches. However, the Forerunner 645 Music is an expensive model and it is up to you to decide whether it’s worth the extra bucks.

Pricing

The Garmin Forerunner 645 Music can be purchased for approximately $450.

Help/Support

Contact: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/ql/?focus=topics

Social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Garmin

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