I wore the Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2 for over a week — which should you buy?

The Garmin Forerunner 970 is the best sports watch available, in my opinion, but it doesn’t come cheap and the Suunto Race 2 is a notable competitor that offers many of the same key features as the Forerunner 970 at a lower price.

I’ve run hundreds of miles with both watches in testing, and put them directly head-to-head by wearing both at the same time for 10 days.

As you’ll see below, aside from design and battery life, the Forerunner 970 outperformed the Suunto Race 2 in all areas in my experience. However, it also costs considerably more, and the Suunto Race 2 is certainly competitive in most regards.

I’ll highlight the key differences I noticed in my testing below — for more detail on either watch check out our Garmin Forerunner 970 review and Suunto Race 2 review.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: price

The Garmin Forerunner 970 comes in three colors and costs $749.99 / £629.99. There’s only one size and model of the watch.

Garmin Forerunner 970: $749 at Amazon

The Forerunner 970 is the best sports watch on the market, in my opinion, offering an incredible array of sports and navigation features in a lightweight, attractive desing.

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There are two models of the Suunto Race 2, giving you the choice of a steel or titanium bezel. The steel watch costs $499 / £429 and comes in black or white, while the titanium watch is $599 / £529 and only comes in black.

Suunto Race 2: $499 at Amazon

The Suunto Race 2 is the best Suunto sports watch yet and comes in considerably cheaper than the Forerunner 970 while offering the same key features, including offline maps.

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Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: specs

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: design and display

Both watches have bright and clear AMOLED displays, and although the Race 2’s display is slightly larger, I didn’t find it made a major difference in how easy it was to read during and outside of workouts.

The Race 2 does feel like a more substantial watch though, in both good and bad ways. It feels very solid and well-built and uses more metal elements than the Forerunner 970, which has a titanium bezel but otherwise is mostly plastic.

This makes the Race 2 heavier though, even accounting for the fact I tested the steel model rather than the lighter titanium watch. It’s still comfortable to wear 24/7, but I think the Forerunner 970 will suit those with thin wrists a little better.

The Suunto does offer a higher level of water resistance at 100m compared with 50m for the Forerunner 970, but the Garmin wins on connectivity, being able to link to external sensors via both ANT+ and Bluetooth, whereas the Race 2 only offers Bluetooth.

A big advantage to the Forerunner 970’s design is the built-in flashlight, which is more useful than the flashlight mode on the Suunto which uses the screen. The Garmin also has a mic and speaker and can be used for calls and voice commands.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: sports tracking and training analysis

Extensive sports tracking and training analysis is available on both watches, but I found the Garmin Forerunner 970 had more features and was easier to use on both fronts.

For example, with the Suunto Race 2 you can’t customize existing sports modes, and have to create your own to pick the stats you want to see. You also have to use SuuntoPlus apps to add certain data fields to sports modes, whereas on the Garmin it’s easier to customize everything and follow interval workouts.

The training analysis is also more extensive on the Garmin, including info like training readiness and estimates of your running economy (if connected to the Garmin HRM600 chest strap) and running tolerance, and it’s easier to understand this info compared with the acronym-laden Suunto training analysis.

Both watches will do everything you need in terms of tracking and analysis, but there are more features, and those features are better presented and easier to use on the Garmin Forerunner 970.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: GPS & heart rate accuracy

I’ve pored over the GPS tracks from both watches after runs and compared both to a chest strap for heart rate accuracy, and on both fronts I’d say the Garmin Forerunner 970 has been more reliable.

The difference in GPS accuracy is slight, and not one that would really influence which I bought, but I’ve seen the Suunto Race 2 run wide at corners and deviate from the route I ran more often when checking the GPS tracks. Both are very strong on GPS accuracy overall, though.

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With regards to heart rate accuracy, the Race 2 is the best Suunto I’ve tested, reading in line with a chest strap during almost all of my workouts, but still threw up the odd run where it got my heart rate completely wrong. While the Forerunner 970 isn’t flawless on this front, it hasn’t ever been completely for an entire run in the same way.

A chest strap heart rate monitor remains the best option for those seeking the utmost accuracy, but if you don’t want to wear one the Forerunner 970 is the more reliable option out of these two watches.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: smart features and navigation

When it comes to smart features Garmin is well ahead of Suunto, offering NFC payments, music storage and support for streaming services including Spotify, and the Garmin Connect IQ app store, which contains some useful data fields and watch faces even if not a full smartwatch app store.

The Suunto Race 2 isn’t really aiming to compete in this area, though it can mirror notifications and has music controls for your phone, but it does put up a better fight when it comes to navigation features.

Both watches offer offline maps and the ability to follow routes with turn-by-turn directions, as well as features to help you judge your efforts on long climbs.

Garmin’s maps are more advanced in that they are ‘routable’, which means the Forerunner 970 actually knows where you are. This means it can create routes on the fly and reroute you if you go wrong, whereas you have to preplan and load routes to use on the Suunto.

Both ill get you where you need to go though, and I prefer the route builder within the Suunto app to the one in the Garmin Connect app, because it’s easier to use.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: battery life

One area where the Suunto Race 2 has a clear advantage is battery life. It offers 50 hours of tracking in the most accurate dual-band GPS mode, compared with 21 hours on the Forerunner 970, and the Suunto lasts up to 18 days in watch mode compared to 15 days on the Garmin.

Neither will last that long if you enable the always-on display, but even then Suunto outlasts the Garmin. With the screen always-on and running every day, the Race 2 lasts me seven or eight days, whereas the Forerunner 970 only lasts four or five.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: activity and sleep tracking

Both watches offer the classic daily activity stats like steps and active calories, and you can set goals for these, as well as getting notifications to move after a long period of inactivity.

However, Suunto’s step tracking hugely underestimates how many steps you take in my experience, to the point where it says I’m averaging around 14,000 steps a day over the past seven days compared with over 20,000 on the Garmin, which is backed up by the 18,000 average on my phone (which I don’t carry everywhere, unlike the watch).

With regards to sleep tracking both watches are prone to errors I find, with the Forerunner 970 often over-estimating how much time I spend asleep because it logs periods when I’m still but awake as light sleep, while the Race 2 sometimes misses half a night’s sleep entirely and has underestimated my heart rate variability throughout testing compared to the Garmin Sleep Index armband.

Garmin Forerunner 970 vs. Suunto Race 2: verdict

The Garmin Forerunner 970 is a better sports watch than the Suunto Race 2 in my opinion, but it costs $150-$250 more depending on if you get a steel or titanium Race 2, which is a considerable jump in price.

The Race 2 is also a great sports watch that has the same key features as the Forerunner 970 and a great design with longer battery life. I’d be delighted to use it as my main sports watch myself as a marathoner, even if its feature-set is not as extensive as the Garmin’s.

That said, throughout testing the Forerunner 970 was easier to use and more impressive all round, and I’d definitely miss its flashlight. It’s worth the extra you have to pay to get it, but the Race 2 is a great value alternative.