Garmin Forerunner 55 review: Back to basics

At first glance, the Garmin Forerunner 55 seems overpriced for what it does. There are several smartwatches and fitness trackers that cost far less and promise a lot more. But the Garmin Forerunner 55 takes a different approach. It focuses on one thing and does it exceedingly well. Spend any reasonable amount of time with it, like we did, and you will find out why it is highly rated among fitness enthusiasts.

The Garmin Forerunner 55 strays away from the large touchscreen form that most watches at this point invariably have. Instead, you are met with a 42mm dial with 5 buttons on the side to navigate through the 208 x 208 resolution memory-in-pixel display. While that might seem like a downgrade from some other smartwatches, when you look at it through the lens of what it is built to do, you wouldn’t mind it too much. The Garmin Forerunner 55 is a running watch and is built keeping that in mind. That doesn’t mean that the watch doesn’t support other activity types.

The watch itself finds the right compromise when it comes to size. It is large enough to have a screen that’s big enough to give you all the important information while not being too large for people with smaller wrists. The silicone strap too is comfortable for long durations. Weighing in at just 37g, it is lightweight as well. The neatly marked buttons are easy to use while on the go, especially with sweaty hands while running.

It is the tracking and fitness features where the Garmin really shines. Before you even begin monitoring an activity, the watch offers training suggestions that can come in handy for people without a very structured plan. Garmin Coach is also present, and you can use it to set a training program to meet a pre-determined goal. The onboard GPS, like on other Garmin watches, is extremely accurate and outdoes just about everything else around and even above the price point. On a trial run, it was able to accurately record a pre-measured run to within a few meters. By default, there is only a handful of information that will be presented to you while in a workout, but you can customize the watch’s screens for pertinent data like heart rate zone.

On the safety front, both fall detection and live tracking are available and can come in extremely handy. You just need to add in an emergency contact and an alert with an extremely accurate GPS location will be sent to them.

The Garmin Forerunner 55 also gives you daily stats that include your step count, heart rate and a parameter called body battery that’s derived from your heart rate variations, stress levels and physical activity. The companion app Garmin Connect lists out a host of information and is probably the most information-dense of all the companion apps across brands. There are also a number of free workout programs to choose from.

The Garmin Forerunner 55 isn’t loaded to the brim with features, but if you can look past that, it is easily the best fitness tracker for the money. And if you are someone who prefers to run, like most people, you’d have no reason to complain about the Forerunner 55.