Buy the Garmin Approach S12 if you only want green numbers for the least money — a simple display, a huge battery and Garmin's GPS, and nothing you will not use. Buy the Garmin Approach S44 if you want a bright color screen and a watch that doubles as your everyday smartwatch, and you are happy to pay meaningfully more for it. Both are Garmin, both nail the distances; the choice is how much watch you want around them.
This is one of the easier comparisons we do, because the two watches are not really rivals so much as two points on the same line. Garmin builds both, and the golf performance underneath is shared — so this is not a question of which is more accurate or which finds the green better. It is a question of how much watch you want wrapped around Garmin's distances, and how much you are willing to pay for a nicer screen and everyday use.
What they share
These are siblings, and the core is identical. Both use Garmin's GPS — the accuracy standard in golf watches — and both carry tens of thousands of preloaded courses, so you get glanceable distances to the front, middle and back of every green with no aiming and no line of sight required. Both show hazard and layup distances, both keep score, and both are lightweight and comfortable enough to forget you are wearing over a full round. Both also cost far less than a flagship multisport watch. If all you are comparing is the quality of the distances you will read on the wrist, there is nothing to separate them — they draw from the same Garmin engine, and both sit near the top of our best value GPS watches list. Everything that follows is about the watch wrapped around those numbers, not the numbers themselves.
Where the S12 wins: simplicity, battery and price
The S12 is the purist's value pick, and its simple monochrome display is the key to why. That plain screen sounds like a limitation until you see what it buys: it is a big reason the S12 lasts far longer between charges than the S44, and a big reason it costs meaningfully less. The battery advantage is genuinely useful — you can play many rounds before charging rather than topping up before every round, so the watch is one less thing to remember. Operation is dead simple too: turn it on, get your numbers, play. The S12 does distances brilliantly and deliberately skips everything else. If you want your green numbers, the longest battery here, and the lowest price, it is the answer — and the full case for it is in our Garmin Approach S12 review.
Where the S44 wins: color screen and everyday use
The S44 spends its higher price on two things. The first is a bright color AMOLED display, which makes the on-course hole maps clearer and more pleasant to read than the S12's monochrome screen. The second, and the more important one, is that it is a genuine everyday smartwatch: it carries the full set of on-course golf features and then keeps earning its place on your wrist off the course as your daily watch. That reframes the value question. You are not buying a single-purpose golf gadget you take out a few dozen times a year — you are buying a watch you wear every day that also does golf superbly, which for some people justifies the step up on its own. The trade-offs are the ones you would expect: the color screen and smartwatch hardware cost more up front and draw more battery than the frugal S12, so you will charge it more often.
Which one for you
- Choose the S12 if you only want green numbers for the least money, prize the longest battery life, and have no interest in a color screen or smartwatch features. It is the value pick, full stop.
- Choose the S44 if you want a bright color display and a watch that doubles as your everyday smartwatch, and you do not mind paying more or charging more often for it.
There is no wrong answer here, because the golf underneath is the same Garmin either way — this is a decision about screen and lifestyle, not about accuracy or the quality of your yardages. Work out honestly whether you will wear the watch off the course: if yes, the S44's everyday use softens its higher price; if no, the S12 gives you the same golf for less and lasts longer between charges. If you want a third option focused on data rather than a color screen, the Shot Scope V5 adds free automatic shot tracking, and our rangefinder vs GPS watch guide covers whether a watch is the right tool at all.
