Fast forward into the future with this Garmin Forerunner Black Friday deal

If your upcoming 2021 resolutions include running a 10K, attempting a marathon, or just tracking your everyday health and fitness, chances are you’ve been considering getting a Garmin smartwatch. This just so happens to be the best time of year to buy a new fitness tracker, and we’ve come across some fantastic Black Friday deals on Garmin smartwatches like the Forerunner 45. Best Buy currently has the Forerunner 45 on sale for $50 off its normal price for Black Friday, which means that now is the time to run and grab your Garmin!

Garmin smartwatches are roundly (pun intended) and rightly praised as having some of the most comprehensive and sophisticated health and fitness tracking technology available. For some, the problem with these watches is that they often have so many features and sensors and come in so many different varieties that they can be intimidating to use and even more confusing to pick the right one. But the beauty of the Forerunner 45 is that it gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t.

Some smartwatches like the Garmin Venu SQ pack in a touchscreen and traditional smartwatch features, but aren’t as good necessarily for distance training due to their lack of buttons and battery life. At the same time, other watches like the Forerunner 745 that are focused on triathletes and endurance athletes can prove to be too much even for most hardcore runners.

The Forerunner 45 shines because it provides a simple value proposition — excellent fitness tracking, superb running guidance, and an easy-to-use interface that you can clearly see outdoors. It comes with all of the basics you’d expect from a smart fitness watch, such as step tracking, sleep tracking, and automatic sports tracking and adds unique safety features like real-time emergency assistance and live tracking. This is also the cheapest smartwatch to feature Garmin’s Body Battery technology, which uses data collected from the watch’s sensors to determine your overall energy levels, and provide guidance on rest, recovery, and future training.

You still get notifications, customizable watch faces, and some of the other fun smartwatch features, though you won’t find onboard music, virtual assistants, or touchscreen controls. If you’re looking for a device that can span the range of basic fitness tracker to basic smartwatch at an affordable price, there’s no better option than the Garmin Forerunner 45.