The Garmin Forerunner 970 is the best sports watch I've tested and has some useful extra features compared to the Coros Pace 4 Pro, but costs a lot more.

As well as being cheaper than the Forerunner 970, the Pace 4 Pro is lighter and slimmer, and has longer battery life and a bigger AMOLED display.

I test a lot of smartwatches, but only the very best of them stay on my wrist after I’ve reviewed them to track my own training, and the Garmin Forerunner 970 and Coros Pace 4 Pro both certainly count among the best sports watches I’ve ever used.

The Garmin Forerunner 970 has been my go-to watch for a year and I used it to train for and run the London Marathon in April. For the last month, however, I’ve been using the Coros Pace 4 Pro as my main watch for my Frankfurt Marathon training.

To compare them directly I’ve also run with both at the same time (several times), including on a recent 20-miler. If you’re picking between the two, you can’t go too far wrong, but here are the key differences in design, features and accuracy I’ve noticed in my testing.

The Garmin Forerunner 970 is more expensive than the Coros Pace 4 Pro, costing $749/£629 compared to $449/£389 for the Coros.

It’s a big price difference, but it is reduced a little at times because the Forerunner 970 does usually get discounted in big sales periods like Black Friday, when you can expect to pay $649, whereas Coros doesn’t tend to reduce its watches.

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