Apple Watch vs Garmin for running: Ultra 4 against the Forerunner 970, by charge, race and phone

Garmin Forerunner 970: the running watch we'd buy, iPhone and all

Our pick9 photos

Best running watch for an iPhone owner

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Price band: under $800

This is the watch for someone who runs most days and races a few times a year. The GPS is the reason. On that measured 10K course it logged 9.98 km. Across about thirty workouts against reference units, DC Rainmaker called its tracks perfect or near-perfect. On runs, wrist heart rate follows a chest strap nearly beat for beat, so the strap can stay in the drawer until gym day. Then come the extras that earn the price band. You get real maps for a strange city or a new trail. You also get an LED flashlight, the thing owners praise most.

How long does the Forerunner 970 last between charges?

Garmin prints its battery mode by mode, music included. That's exactly how a spec sheet should look. The box's 15 days assumes the screen sleeps between glances. Owners report about two weeks between charges, though most don't say whether their screen was always on.

Turn the screen always on and you pay for it. On launch firmware at default brightness, testers got only 2.5 days. Since Garmin's battery updates, and a notch below full brightness, long-term reviewers measured 4.5 to 5.5 days.

For the run itself, Garmin's table gives 21 hours with multi-band GPS switched on. With music playing too, it gives 12 hours. Its drain during that measured 10K projects to about 21 hours. That's a slow marathon with headphones in, and plenty left for the walk back to the car. Run the numbers for your own race day in our GPS battery planner. On battery alone, we'd buy it. It's for the runner who'd rather forget the charger until the weekend.

Can a Garmin play Apple Music?

No. Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music and Deezer all download to it with the right subscription, and the phone stays home. Apple Music doesn't, on this or any Garmin. The other iPhone limit is smaller but real. Like every Garmin, it shows your texts but only replies to them when paired with Android.

What could spoil it is the touchscreen. On Garmin's forum for the 970, no complaint draws more traffic than ghost touches. The screen reads a scroll as a tap, on some units but not others. Some owners say a replacement fixed it; one went through three watches. Owners suspect the hardware, and Garmin deals with each report individually. Annoying, and it doesn't hit every unit, but it's the one fault we'd keep an eye out for once yours arrives.

Buy it. It turns up on race morning with charge in it and tells you the truth about your pace. It's also our pick for the best watch for marathon training.

Garmin Forerunner 970Under $800

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Apple Watch Ultra 4: right for one runner, not yet for race day

Price band: under $800

For once, Apple's battery claim is the cautious one. It promises 2.1 days of everyday wear, by a test that includes workouts with music. Reviewers living with it reached 2.5 days, and one more reviewer's pace projected to 2.7. That's still a watch that wants the charger every other night. Apple's new Readiness score also wants it on your wrist while you sleep. So you'll be charging it during dinner.

For a run, Apple claims 18 hours in its standard workout mode. DC Rainmaker's drain over long sessions projects to about 18.6 hours. The 45-hour figure on the box comes from Max Extended mode. It gets there by hiding live heart rate and splits. That's a car whose best mileage figure assumes the speedometer is switched off.

Does the Apple Watch measure a marathon accurately?

Not yet, on the evidence. On trails, DC Rainmaker's tracks put it right alongside Garmin's flagship. Crowded city marathons tell a different story. At Frankfurt it logged 43.33 km, about seven-tenths of a mile past the finish line. At Loch Ness it logged 26.57 mi. One owner's race came out longer still.

Every marathon reads a little long on any watch, because nobody runs the measured line. The watches beside it read over too. But a watch that reads long says you're ahead of goal pace when you aren't. At Frankfurt it showed a quicker pace than the race clock gave. Where I come from, a jet engine part that measures long three times in three gets set aside until someone can say why.

Can you stop the Ultra 4 with gloves on?

Barely. Ending a workout takes a swipe on the screen. DC Rainmaker found that so-so in the wet, and falling apart in the cold with gloves on. On a February long run in Minneapolis, you'll be stopping your watch with your nose.

Where it does win is everything around the run. It plays Apple Music and Spotify Premium without your phone. It can stream them over its own cellular connection once the watch has a line. When we read Verizon's smartwatch plans page on November 1, 2026, that watch line cost $15 a month. Streaming costs battery, though. Owners running phone-free with music over cellular see the charge fall noticeably faster than on a plain run. A marathon done that way leaves far less in reserve.

It calls for help by satellite, free for 2 years from activation. Apple publishes no price for afterward; our satellite SOS guide does the sums. It needs an iPhone 11 or later and won't work with Android at all.

Wait. For the iPhone owner whose music lives in Apple Music, this is the watch to watch. We'd hold off until it reads true on a measured race course. We'd also want more than a couple of months of owners behind it.