New Balance Fresh Foam 680 V8 vs Under Armour Men's Charged Surge 4 Sneakers for All: A Real Comparison

The New Balance 680 V8 gives you actual, squishy running shoe foam meant for pounding pavement, while the Under Armour Surge 4 feels like a firm cross-trainer that just happens to be shaped like a running shoe.

Quick specs

Spec	New Balance Fresh Foam 680 V8	Under Armour Charged Surge 4
Price	$59.95	$39.98
Midsole tech	Fresh Foam (soft, high compression)	Charged Cushioning (firm, rigid)
Best environment	Asphalt, long walks, easy miles	Gym floors, treadmills, errands
Upper material	Engineered mesh with structure	Lightweight, highly porous mesh
Outsole durability	Generous rubber coverage	Exposed foam with minimal rubber pods

Where the New Balance Fresh Foam 680 V8 wins

I took the 680 V8 out for a sluggish six-mile loop around my neighborhood on a cold Sunday morning. My legs were already tired from a heavy leg day earlier in the week, and the cracked asphalt on my route felt particularly unforgiving. This is exactly the environment where the New Balance shoe justifies its slightly higher price tag. The Fresh Foam midsole actually compresses under your body weight. You can feel the material absorbing the impact of a heavy heel strike before it rolls you forward into your next stride. I have a bad habit of scuffing my heels when I get tired, and the thick slab of foam in the rear of the 680 V8 completely masked my sloppy form. It is a highly forgiving shoe that protects your joints from the harsh reality of concrete. The upper also holds its shape remarkably well. I didn't have to strangle my foot with the laces to keep my heel locked in place. The padded collar grabs your ankle securely without digging into your Achilles tendon. If you are logging actual outdoor miles on hard surfaces, or if you work a job where you stand on concrete floors for eight hours a day, the 680 V8 provides the necessary underfoot protection to keep your knees from screaming at you by dinner time. It behaves like a premium daily trainer that somehow snuck into the budget category.

Where the Under Armour Charged Surge 4 wins

The Surge 4 shines when you treat it as a budget-friendly utility sneaker rather than a dedicated distance runner. I wore these to a commercial gym for a workout that involved twenty minutes on the treadmill followed by a bunch of kettlebell swings and dumbbell lunges. The firmer Charged Cushioning midsole is a massive advantage in this specific scenario. Because the foam doesn't compress very much under load, you get a much more stable base for lifting weights. Doing heavy lunges in the New Balance shoes feels slightly wobbly because the soft foam squishes from side to side. The Under Armour shoe stays firmly planted on the rubber gym floor. The upper is also incredibly thin and breathable. My feet run hot, and the Surge 4 lets a noticeable breeze through the toe box if you are walking outside on a windy afternoon. Plus, at under forty bucks, I simply do not care what happens to these shoes. I will wear them to mow the lawn, walk the dog through a muddy park, or drag them through a dirty gym locker room. They are cheap enough to be entirely disposable, and they look decent enough with a pair of dark athletic shorts. You buy these when you need a shoe to abuse.

The honest differences

• Underfoot softness vs stability: The New Balance is significantly softer. You sink into the Fresh Foam with every step. The Under Armour is rigid and slappy on the pavement. I prefer the New Balance for running outside because my shins ache after three miles in the Surge 4. But that same rigidity makes the Under Armour much better for gym workouts where you need to push off a solid floor.
• Outsole rubber coverage: Turn the shoes over and look at the bottom. The 680 V8 has thick, durable rubber covering almost the entire wear path from the heel to the toe. The Surge 4 uses a lot of exposed foam with just a few thin rubber pods in high-wear areas. I wore down the outer heel of the Under Armour shoe in less than a month of walking on sidewalks. The New Balance outsole easily lasts three times as long before showing serious degradation.
• Toe box roominess: New Balance historically builds shoes with a bit more volume up front, and the 680 V8 follows that trend. My toes have room to splay out naturally as my foot swells during a long run. The Under Armour Surge 4 tapers aggressively at the toe. I had to wear very thin socks to keep my pinky toe from rubbing against the side mesh, which caused a blister during my first week of wearing them.
• The tongue design: The tongue on the Surge 4 is a thin piece of flimsy material that tends to slide down the side of my foot unless I lace the shoe uncomfortably tight. The New Balance tongue is plush, heavily padded, and stays exactly where you put it. It sounds like a minor detail until you have to stop a run twice to fish the tongue out from the side of your ankle.
• Aesthetic and daily wear: The Under Armour Surge 4 looks like a generic athletic shoe. It blends in perfectly at a grocery store or a casual office environment. The New Balance 680 V8 has a chunkier, more technical running shoe look. The thick midsole screams "I am going for a run," which makes it slightly harder to pair with casual jeans if you care about that sort of thing.

Which one I'd buy

I would spend the extra twenty dollars and buy the New Balance Fresh Foam 680 V8. The difference in foam quality is too massive to ignore. The 680 V8 feels like a proper running shoe designed by a company that understands foot mechanics and impact absorption. I can run five miles in them, wear them to run errands, and keep them on my feet all day without a second thought. The Under Armour Surge 4 is just too firm for my joints on pavement, and the rapid wear on the outsole means the cheaper price tag is a bit of an illusion. You will end up replacing the Under Armour shoes much sooner once that exposed foam bottom grinds down to nothing.

Someone who strictly wants a cheap gym shoe for lifting weights and doing short warm-up jogs on a treadmill might disagree. The firm base of the Surge 4 is genuinely better for squats and deadlifts. If your budget is strictly capped at forty dollars and you just need something to wear to Planet Fitness a few times a week, the Under Armour gets the job done. But for actual running and walking on concrete, the New Balance is the only real option here.