I walked 5,000 steps with the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Garmin Forerunner 570 — here’s which watch came out on top

(Image credit: Future) Hang around the Tom’s Guide fitness desk long enough, and we’ll strap a tracker to your wrist and ask you to start counting your steps. Sure, most gadgets on the market these days do more than track steps, but we think if a watch does the basics right, it’s probably doing the bigger things well too.Next on our list of watches to test is the new Apple Watch Series 12 (starting at $399) and the Garmin Forerunner 570 ($549). Both devices are designed to be worn 24/7 and track your sleep, readiness, activity, and heart rate, not just your steps. Apple says it made its pedometer more accurate in the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, so I was keen to put the two watches head to head to find out more. The Apple Watch Series 12 is Apple's latest flagship smartwatch, with an upgraded heart rate sensor on board. The Forerunner 570 is Garmin's mid-tier Forerunner, packed with Garmin's best training and recovery tools. Like all of these walk tests, I strapped one watch to each wrist, and used a $5 clicker tool from Amazon to count my steps as I walked manually. Both trackers count your steps using an internal accelerometer, which measures the swing of your arms. Each swing counts for two steps, and it doesn’t matter whether you wear your watch on your dominant or non-dominant hand. It doesn’t matter if you walk with your hands in your pockets or holding a cup of coffee; the accelerometer should still measure your body’s movement.Read on to find which watch came out on top, and read our Apple Watch Series 12 review and our Garmin Forerunner 570 review here on Tom’s Guide to take a deeper dive into both watches.I walked 5,000 steps with the Apple Watch 12 vs Garmin Forerunner 570As with all of the best Apple Watches, the Apple Watch Series 12 still doesn’t tell you the number of steps you’ve taken during a specific workout; instead, you see an overall number of steps throughout the day, which you can now pin to your home screen. This is probably because steps aren’t actually that useful a metric beyond a certain point, but annoying for me when writing these articles. For this comparison, I downloaded a third-party Pedometer+ app onto my Apple Watch.Here’s the results: Swipe to scroll horizontally Manual 5,440 steps Apple Watch Series 12 5,490 steps Garmin Forerunner 570 5,512 steps As you can see from the results, the Apple Watch Series 12 won in this walk test, only counting an extra 50 steps. That’s not to say that the Garmin Forerunner 570 was inaccurate, however, only overcounting by 72 steps, but the Apple Watch got closer to my manual step count.Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.It’s worth noting that 50-70 steps is pretty much spot on. The average person takes 2,000 steps a mile, so an extra 50 steps is nothing.To really put these two watches head-to-head, you’d need to look at a lot more than just how well they count steps. Both are designed to be worn 24/7 and help you track more than just walking workouts. There are some big differences, however: the Garmin Forerunner 570 has a far superior battery life, at 10 days in smartwatch mode for the 42mm version, and 11 days for the 47mm watch.That said, the Apple Watch Series 12 is like having an extension of your iPhone on your wrist, and with the new heart rate sensor, it’s definitely the best Apple Watch on the market for most people. We’ll continue to compare the two watches head-to-head, so stay tuned for more testing. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. More from Tom's GuideI’m a smartwatch reviewer: This is the new Apple Watch 12 feature I’m most excited forApple just killed one of my favorite Apple Watch features with the launch of watchOS 27I’ve tested over 100 fitness trackers head-to-head — 3 workout stats I trust the least Jane McGuire is Tom's Guide's Fitness Managing Editor, which means she looks after everything fitness-related - from running gear to yoga mats. An avid runner, Jane has tested and reviewed fitness products for the past ten years, so knows what to look for when finding a good running watch or a pair of shorts with pockets big enough for your smartphone.