What They Have in Common
Both run on the Garmin Golf app, both come preloaded with 42,000–43,000 courses, both offer free course updates, and both carry a 5 ATM water rating. Green view, hazard view, and basic scoring are on both. Neither includes CT10 sensors out of the box. Everything else is where they part ways — and they part ways hard.
Where They Differ
Display and Interface
This is the starkest difference. The S12 has a 0.9-inch monochrome MIP display — no color, no touch, buttons only. MIP is great in sunlight, which matters on a golf course, but you're navigating everything with side buttons and looking at a black-and-white screen. It works. It's just showing its age (released March 2021).
The S70's 1.4-inch AMOLED is a completely different experience. Full color, touchscreen, 454x454 resolution. Green maps are actual color-rendered overhead views. Hole maps show bunkers, hazards, water in context. The screen is noticeably larger — and at 47mm vs 43.7mm case size, it fits differently on your wrist. If you've got smaller wrists, worth noting the S70 also comes in 42mm.
Course Intelligence and GPS Features
The S12 gives you front, center, and back distances. Green view. Basic hole maps. That's the list. No wind data, no plays-like adjustment, no green contours.
The S70 adds several layers on top. Wind data pulls in real-time conditions and feeds into plays-like distance calculations — the built-in barometer also accounts for elevation and air pressure, not just raw distance. Virtual Caddie synthesizes all of that with your swing history and shot dispersion to recommend a club. Whether you trust an AI club recommendation is a personal thing, but the data going into it is genuinely useful.
Green contours on the S70 are membership-locked — you'll need a Garmin Golf membership at $99.99/year to unlock them. Worth factoring in: over three years, that's ~$300 on top of the watch price, pushing total cost of ownership to roughly $1,300. The S12's total cost over three years is $199. That's the actual gap you're deciding on.
Shot Tracking
The S12 is manual on-watch tracking with optional CT10 sensor compatibility (sensors sold separately, around $99 for a pack of three). The S70 has AutoShot — the watch detects shots automatically based on the swing motion — plus the same CT10/CT1 sensor compatibility if you want per-club data. AutoShot isn't magic; it needs to see your swing, and under a cart canopy or in awkward stances it can miss. But for casual tracking without tapping your wrist after every shot, it's a real improvement. The S70 also has strokes gained analysis; the S12 doesn't.
Smartwatch Features
The S12 is a GPS watch. That's it. No heart rate, no sleep tracking, no notifications, no music, no contactless payments, no fitness profiles. It tracks your rounds and tells you how far things are.
The S70 is a full smartwatch. Heart rate monitoring during rounds. Sleep tracking. 32GB music storage. Garmin Pay. Smart notifications from your phone. Multiple fitness profiles beyond golf. If this is going on your wrist every day, the S70 actually functions as your daily watch. The S12 mostly lives in your bag until tee time.
Battery
Interesting reversal here. The S12 gets 30 hours in GPS mode. The S70 gets 20 hours in GPS mode. AMOLED eats battery. For a single round that's a non-issue, but if you're playing 36 holes or an all-day trip, the S12 will outlast it. In watch mode the gap is extreme — S12 runs 70 days, S70 runs 16. The S70 charges via USB-C (standard cable you already own); the S12 uses a proprietary clip.
Who Should Buy Which
Get the S12 if:
- You want basic yardages without a subscription and don't need anything else
- You're on a tight budget and $199 is the ceiling
- You want a 30-hour GPS battery for marathon golf days or multi-round trips
- You're a purist who doesn't want notifications buzzing during a round
- You already own a smartwatch and just need a dedicated golf companion
Get the S70 if:
- You want one watch that handles golf and everyday life
- Wind data and plays-like distances actually factor into your club selection
- You want automatic shot tracking without tapping after every swing
- You're comfortable with the $99/yr membership if you want green contours
- Strokes gained data is part of how you track improvement
- You want to leave your phone in the cart bag while still getting notifications
The Bottom Line
The S12 is genuinely good at what it does. Basic yardages, great battery, no monthly fees, light enough that you forget it's there (34g vs 56g — that's a real difference during a round). For golfers who just want distances and nothing else, it holds up.
But the S70 is a better piece of technology in almost every measurable way. The display, the golf intelligence, the smartwatch functionality — they justify the price for anyone who plays regularly and wants the watch doing more than showing yardages. The membership cost is real; just know what you're signing up for before you buy.
Get the Garmin Approach S70 (47mm).
See Also