Garmin Birthday Sale brings first discounts to Forerunner 70 and 170

Garmin’s new Forerunner 70 and Forerunner 170 are already getting their first discounts. Both watches only launched in May, so this is an early price drop for two of Garmin’s newest running watches.

The Forerunner 70 is the better deal

The Forerunner 70 currently has the larger percentage discount. The Forerunner 170 is also below its original price, so it is worth checking both before buying.

As we covered when Garmin launched the Forerunner 70, this is no longer a particularly basic entry-level running watch. Garmin has pushed a lot of its training software down into the cheaper model.

It has a 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, built-in GPS and up to 13 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. You also get Training Readiness, Training Status, wrist-based running power and running dynamics.

That means the Forerunner 70 already covers most of what many runners will actually use. Getting it below its launch price makes the argument for moving further up Garmin’s range a little harder.

What you get with the Forerunner 170

The Forerunner 170 shares a lot with the cheaper watch, but adds a few useful extras. We went through the changes in our Forerunner 170 vs Forerunner 165 comparison.

The main additions over the Forerunner 70 include a barometric altimeter, Garmin Pay and some extra cycling features. There is also a Forerunner 170 Music version if you want onboard music storage.

So the choice between the two is fairly simple. The Forerunner 70 gives you most of Garmin’s core running and recovery tools, while the 170 makes more sense if you specifically want those extra hardware and everyday features.

Garmin’s Birthday Sale is also live

There is quite a bit of Garmin discounting beyond these two. The company is currently running its Birthday Sale, with reductions across a much wider selection of watches and other devices.

Several Fenix 8 versions are $150 cheaper, so there are some much large reductions once you move further up Garmin’s range. Enduro 3 gets this same discount.

The Venu X1 is another one worth looking at. Garmin has knocked $100 off the slim 2-inch AMOLED watch, bringing it down from its normal $659.99 price.

There are discounts on more mainstream Garmin watches too. The Venu 4 gets a $50 reduction, while the Vivoactive 6 is $70 cheaper during the promotion. Venu 3 is a whopping $150 off.

So there are two quite different Garmin sales worth watching right now. We have the first proper discounts on the new Forerunner 70 and 170. At the same time there’s a much broader Garmin promotion with some fairly substantial reductions across the range.