Forerunner 645M vs. Forerunner 245M

Garmin seem to be thinking that contactless payments and the altimeter are enough to justify the $€100 price difference. That's crazy when you consider the things that the 245 adds, including (arguably) better core hardware components (Sony GPS chipset and new Elevate sensor).

The 245M almost seems a better watch and is priced $100 lower than a 645M. If the 645M won’t get some of the extra software features of the 245M, I think Garmin does not really care about its customers that bought the 645M.

For me, the Altimeter and Garmin Pay are features I use daily. So 245 isn’t an option. Plus I like the 645 steel bezel when paired with an appropriate metal band.

OnlineChampion Same for me. What metal band are you using?

I also got an interesting answer from Garmin on FB that some of the new features will also come to other watches in a future firmware update. What features and when they could not say yet.

I think that just Garmin Pay and Altimeter do not justify the price, especially when you consider other features and very good battery life on 245(M). In this situation, 645(M) does not make any sense for most people.

I was definitely disappointed by the lack of an altimeter in the 245 - heck, the VivoActive 3 has one! But I agree with others - I was holding off getting a 645M to replace my old 235 (that I sadly sold thinking I would 'upgrade' by getting the VA3) on rumors of the 245. Still going with the 245, just sad to lose that nice hill tracking.

I would totally have bought the 245M had it been offered at the same time as the 645M. I don't use Garmin Pay and elevation isn't a metric I find useful in my training. But I've had my 645M for a year, and technology moves on - I don't consider myself entitled to have all the features of the latest product transferred to my old one. Otherwise I have a real beef with Samsung, Apple, and the manufacturer of virtually every technology product that I own.

Pulled this together if anyone wants a read

https://www.activejr.com/garmin-forerunner-245-vs-forerunner-645-key-differences/

The 245 has some new hardware (new OHR, new gps chipset, the pulseoximeter) and that's ok, you can't transfert these, but all the software improvements like body battery, respiration rate, race prediction more accurate, and something from the 945 like focus training load, etc, I think garmin should transfer these to the 645 because is part of the same x45 series, is a superior model and more expensive and is out only since a year. In this way you'll have a low (45) medium (245), high (645) and top (945) device on the same series, now the proportions are not respected, the 645 is too distant from 945 and too near (or even under) to 245.

I really hope Garmin release a FW update to add all this new features from FR 245 (except for PulseOx cause we don’t have hardware) and some features from FR 945 so FR 645 returns to be a watch between both models...

In my opinion Garmin Pay don’t justify being §100 expensive due to low world expansiom (in Brazil we still don’t have it for example)