How happy are you with your 745?

I own the 745 for a few weeks now, I had a 630 before for the past 5.5 years. I changed for 2 reasons: I wanted a better GPS accuracy (I was frustrated with the 630) and the watch helped me to make the switch to the 745 as its GPS died.

I was hesitating before picking the 745 because I practically only run, have a heart-belt and I do not listen to music while running. With all of that, the 745 was a very expensive watch full of features that I don't care of, and the battery life is on the bottom side of today's watches (even compared to the 630). If it lasts as long as my 630, it means I'll have to recharge it every 2-3 days in less than 2 years from now: not great. But, that will not be a problem for my activities.

So, once you have forgotten about the price, am I happy with my 745? Yes. The one thing I wanted was GPS accuracy: so far I'm pleased. On my usual track, which I measured as 8.15Km long with google maps, the 630 was usually measuring 7.7 to 7.8Km. Now, I'm usually around 8.14-8.15Km (highest 8.19, lowest 8.05) - I have elevation and speed 3D on (which should add ~30m to the track length applying basic pythagor maths).

On top of that, just like with the 630 when I bought it, one feature that I was not willing to have turned out to be interesting: at the time of the 630, that was the smart notifications (didn't want it, and quickly found it very useful in practice), with the 745 it's the integrated heart monitor - I'm not using it while running, but for the rest of the time, having that metric is great.

The other thing that I'm happy about, and that was not a surprize, is no more touch screen. Walking when the weather was wet was making my 630 to activate many settings on its own, alarms and so on, so that was very very annoying. I'm so happy now to not have a touch screen anymore.

But, tbh, if the 245 had the GPS accuracy of the 745, I'd certainly have bought it instead.

Flexable said:

But, tbh, if the 245 had the GPS accuracy of the 745, I'd certainly have bought it instead.

Where did you get the idea that the 745 has better accuracy than the 245?  The 245 has the same chipset, antenna and case as the top end 945 and those and the 745 seem to produce 'boringly identical' traces according to DC Rainmaker. 

Flexable said:

So, once you have forgotten about the price, am I happy with my 745? Yes.

If you forget about the price, go for a Marq ;)  Otherwise it sounds as though a 245 non-music at half the price would have given you everything you wanted.

I agree with you on the smart notifications.  So useful. The other thing I didn't think I wanted but now can't live without is Garmin Pay; the lack of that on the 245 would rule it out for me so I'd definitely go for a 745 if I was replacing my current Forerunner. 

Every tests that I read/view said the GPS was more accurate on the 745 than any other Garmin. Some even are assuming that the lower battery life comes from that, more power for the GPS system for a better accuracy.

But, yep, even a 45 would be good enough for me, I guess, if the GPS was as accurate. But it is true that I based that only on reviews - but they were all concluding to the same.

It is good.   I upgraded because my 645/M was crappy uploading my spotify stuff for when I train.   745 is crappy too, not an upgrade.

There are places where after a simple activity, like a run, there are more clicks and info screens just to stop it. Not an upgrade.

It does Open Water Swimming very well.  An upgrade.

About the same size.  Even.

It's a trade-off.  I paid more money, I now have an old 645/M sitting around. It does OWS well.  That's it.