Get the Garmin Approach S70 (42mm).
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| Garmin Approach S12 | Garmin Approach S70 (42mm) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (MSRP) | $199.99Winner | $649.99 |
Get the Garmin Approach S70 (42mm).
The S70 is the better golf watch — it's not close. AMOLED touchscreen, Virtual Caddie with wind data, automatic shot tracking, green contours, plays-like distance, full smartwatch features. The S12 is a stripped-down GPS with one real ace up its sleeve: 30 hours of GPS battery life and a $199 price tag. If you just want yardages and don't want to charge your watch mid-trip, the S12 makes sense. For everyone else, the S70 does more by a wide margin.
Both run on the same Garmin Golf ecosystem, sync to the same app, cover ~42-43K preloaded courses with free basic updates, and offer Green View, hazard distances, and digital scoring. Both are 5 ATM water resistant and compatible with CT10 sensors. The foundation is identical — it's everything built on top of it that separates them.
The S12 has a 175x175 MIP display. Black and white, no touch, button-only navigation. The MIP tech is genuinely excellent in sunlight — crisp and readable without any battery cost for backlighting — but there's no getting around what it isn't. No color, no smooth scrolling, no pinch-to-zoom on a green map.
The S70 runs a 390x390 AMOLED touchscreen. Full color, touchscreen navigation, smooth enough that it feels like a phone. Green contours actually look like green contours. Hole maps are full-color overhead layouts. The tradeoff is that AMOLED screens earn their brightness through power — which is exactly why the S70's GPS battery (15 hours) is half the S12's (30 hours).
The S12 gets 30 hours in GPS mode and 70 days as a watch. That's exceptional. A long golf weekend — four rounds, a practice session, maybe some walking around — and you won't be thinking about charging it once.
The S70 at 42mm gets 15 GPS hours and 10 watch days. Still enough for back-to-back rounds without charging mid-round, but if you're on a golf trip and not bringing a cable, the S12 wins this one outright. The charging difference matters most for frequent travelers.
The S12 is a golf watch. It shows you yardages. That's the job.
The S70 is a smartwatch that happens to be excellent at golf. Heart rate, sleep tracking, 20+ fitness activity profiles, Garmin Pay, 16GB of music storage, smart notifications from your phone. If you want a single wrist device that handles your whole life plus your Saturday round, the S70 makes a credible case. If you're just strapping on a watch at the first tee and taking it off in the parking lot, those features are costs you're paying for nothing.
This section explains most of the $450 price gap.
The S12 doesn't have Virtual Caddie, wind data, or plays-like distance. You get front/center/back, hazard yardages, and a basic green view. If you know your clubs and read your own wind, that's enough.
The S70's Virtual Caddie factors in wind, elevation (via built-in barometer), your swing history, and your shot dispersion to recommend a club. Plays-like distance adjusts for uphill or downhill shots automatically. AutoShot detects your swings without you pressing anything — which works well outdoors with clear sky behind the ball, less reliably under cart canopies or in tight tree corridors.
Green contours on the S70 are membership-locked — $99.99/year for Garmin Golf membership. That's worth flagging on a $650 watch. The green contour feature exists, but you're paying an additional $100/yr to use it. Over three years, that's $299 in membership on top of the $650 purchase price. The S12 by contrast has no membership costs, ever — though it also doesn't offer green contours at any price.
The S12 doesn't have it. The S70 does, pulling from AutoShot data to give you where your game is actually leaking shots. It's only as good as the shot data feeding it — missed AutoShots mean incomplete stats — but for golfers working on their game, it's meaningful.
Get the Approach S12 if:
Get the Approach S70 (42mm) if:
The S12 is a three-year-old watch with no color, no touch, and no smart features. It also has 30 GPS hours, zero ongoing costs, and a sub-$200 price tag. For a certain golfer — someone who wants yardages and nothing more — it's genuinely hard to beat.
The S70 is in a completely different tier of product. Better display, better course features, AI club recommendations, shot tracking, and a full smartwatch experience. It costs $450 more, and if you opt into Garmin Golf membership to unlock green contours, you're looking at another $300 over three years. That's real money. Make sure you're actually using what you're paying for.
If the budget's there and you'll use it, the S70 is the better watch by a lot.
Get the Garmin Approach S70 (42mm).