In recent years we’ve seen the price of the best GPS running watches hit as much as £800 for a premium Garmin Fenix 6 and for a mid-range watch you can still expect to pay over £200. That’s a significant investment. The Runtopia S1 wants to make tracking your runs a little more affordable with a touchscreen, GPS and heart rate, all for under £100. But is it any good? I tested it for The Run Testers and here’s my full Runtopia S1 review.
Runtopia S1 review: A bargain run tracker or a waste of £69?
The Runtopia S1 is a budget running watch with GPS and built in heart rate that connects to the Runtopia app – a fairly basic run-tracking app that converts your miles into virtual coin that you can cash in for rewards. The Runtopia app has been around a while and the watch joins a set of smart running shoes in the mix on the company’s excursion into hardware.
And when we say budget we mean it. The list Runtopia S1 UK price is £69. In the US it’s $99 – but you can find it even cheaper.
So if you’re looking for a cheap running watch that does the simple tasks, that’s a very attractive proposition, on paper at least. But it’s still $99 dollars wasted if the Runtopia S1 doesn’t do those basic with enough accuracy to make it meaningful.
So is this a bargain watch or should you run a mile? Hit play on the video above for the full detailed review. Or if you’re short on time here’s the summary.
Runtopia S1 review: TLDW
Design
Looks-wise it has the design of a much pricier watch with a tidy looking zinc alloy case, a decent rubber strap and good clasp.
There’s a 128 x 128 monochrome display with a pretty big bezel. It’s old school looking but it is a touchscreen, though it can be a bit unresponsive
You control the watch with a combination of the screen and the two side buttons. The buttons are also not particularly responsive.
It’s waterproof to 30ATM so it’s sweatproof, rainproof and waterproof. You can swim with it though there’s no swim tracking function.
It’s light and comfy on the wrist with an official listed weight of 55g. We weight it and it was closer to 65g. That’s still much lighter than something like the Fenix 6 which is a similar-sized watch.
Runtopia app and data
The app is pretty basic and far too much of the interesting data on this watch is locked behind a premium subscription. Sync and pairing was also really glitchy and temperamental. It often flat our refused to sync data from watch to app.
Battery life
Official claims are 8 hours of GPS runtime and we got a week’s worth of runs on a single charge so that held up well.
There’s no battery life indicator on the watch, you have to look on the phone which is just plain dumb.
What the Runtopia S1 tracks
As you’d expect it has very limited and basic functions – it tracks indoor and outdoor runs. Beyond running it also does step counting and movement reminders.
Stats you get on the watch:
- Average Pace
- Distance
- Heart rate
- Stride length
- Cadence
- Calories
You also get a rudimentary map on the watch – but it’s almost impossible to make any sense of.
Post-run in the Runtopia app you get:
- Distance
- Average pace
- Max pace
- Average speed
- Max speed
- Calories
- Cadence
- Elevation
- Heart rate and heart rate zones
Runtopia S1 accuracy
The GPS seemed solid for overall distance measurements up against the Garmin Fenix 6. But it was questionable for real-time pace, tracking much faster then we moved.
Heart rate was awful, all over the shop. On our runs it went straight to 170BPM plus and stayed there for 90 minutes even though we were running at a very slow pace. Wildly incorrect. And this is a big deal breaker with two of the big three tracking smarts failing on reliability.
Should you buy the Runtopia S1?
That price makes it very tempting but unfortunately, based on the lack of accuracy and the connectivity bugs alone, it’s hard to recommend this watch. You’re better off sticking with a running app, maybe even paired with a chest strap if you want to unlock heart rate training.
Or you could look at a Garmin Forerunner 35 or the Polar M200. A bit more expensive but the extra investment will give you a tool that you can actually use.
Now read this: Nurvv Run review
