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Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver With Heart Rate MonitorUser Review: - Great product Great serviceI ordered this product for my adult son for his birthday. I had done research on the company before ordering and found that they looked very legitimate. Everything I saw showed they provide great service and Better Business Bureau showed them as a satisfactory company. I was very impressed...I received the product very quickly and it was at a great discount. My son really enjoys the product. User Review: - Excellent QualityI have been a GPS addict for about 10 years now and I have owned about 6 Garmin GPS's. This is another great adition to my collection and an excellent training tool. The ability to set up work outs and schedule them ahead of time is great. If motivation is low, it is great to be able to race an old run or just set a pace to stick with! Secondly, the heart rate strap is the best I have seen, and works well with other indoor machines. It's quality far surpasses that of the polar strap my Dad uses. I highly recomend this product! User Review:  - Good product, worst possible software!The only reason to buy this product is if you have a hear condition and need to carefully monitor your heart rate. The software makes no use of the data at all. For example, the way calories are calculated, it says you burn more on a miles long cost down a mountain than you'll burn working hard on the way up. It only uses SPEED to calculate effort! How silly is that? Buy the cheaper unit and you'll be happier. If you really want to measure your efforts forget the value of the GPS and get something like a Timex or Polar. They use the heart stress measurements correctly. User Review:  - 305 vs. 201 - Gotchas that will cost you in $$$ or frustrationMy advices is go with more stable/robust 4XX series if you can afford it but a good alternative is the 3XX series. The 4XX touch screen capacity will likely be a big benefit in colder climates where you need to were gloves and fumbling with buttons is tough. I started out with the Garmin Forerunner 201 Wrist-Mounted GPS Fitness Computer and upgraded to the 305. I have had the 201 for about 4 years and the 305 2 years. My wife uses my 201 for measuring her walking. So it is still ticking and never needed repair like the 305. I run about 20 miles a week so they get used alot. Here are the improvements on the 305 over the 201: 1. The software has greater stability. This is really important because unstable is frustrating. Even with updates the 201 would totally lock up every once in a while randomly but mostly during satellite acquisition on start up. I also travel throughout North America so I am not sure if the location changes was confusing the software. 2. The satellite electronics is significantly more sensitive to signals so you can start your run sooner. With the 201 I often had to wait for the 3 required satellites to lock in before running. When its cold out that seems like forever. 3. The heart rate monitor feature is a good addition if it works. Right now it doesn't and it will cost me to get it repaired - min charge is $99. So I will likely just get the new generation 4XX. Maybe the wife is getting it for me for christmas. 4. The 305 just quite on me after the 1st year and I had to send it back for the $99 repair. It took 2 weeks. Luckily I could steal back my 201 from my wife. 5. All the features are similiar between the two watches - uploading run data to the computer (USB vs. serial port), workouts including long runs or intervals, pace buddy, setting a customized screen (mine is run time, pace and distance) and many others. 6. While the 201 and 305 are button oriented the latest generation 4XX series all have touch screen capability. This is likely a key consideration for someone like me who runs outdoors in 20 F and snow up here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada - or if your thick fingered. User Review: - This is perfect for outdoor runs!This is the perfect "watch" for my outdoor runs, hikes, etc. With my polar, I had no idea how fast I was going. Pros: able to tell speed, distance, calorie count, heart rate, elevation, time of day, laps, heading, sunrise and sunset, map and on and on. USB linked to PC. User friendly software. Can also use with motionbased for even more training options. Locates satellites quickly and keeps the connection... even under trees! Cons: Truly, there are only two I can think of and that is the charge only lasts for 10 hrs. So, you can't really use this as a watch. Oh, and it didn't come with a wall jack charger, only the USB charger, so if you're traveling you need to remember to BRING the charger to hook it up to your laptop. The second is you won't get a calorie count if your not moving/ traveling, even though your HR is still monitored. So you can't use it for cardio classes or the treadmill. |
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