405 Forerunner - some very good things and some badNovember 30, 2008 R. Campione(Heidelberg) 31 out of 31 found this review helpful
this sportwatch / GPS isn't perfect and depending on what you value, you'll either love it or hate it (as confirmed by the many reviews on the 405 and 305 and the comparisons between the two). I'll list some criteria of mine and rate this watch accordingly. (Note: I've had it for a week now, and used it several times, plus I have owned other Garmin handheld GPS devices in the past).
* Reliable GPS: my biggest complaint with prior GPS devices was that they lost the satelites under the trees which made their distance measurements fairly useless (as I run in a forest). This watch is amazing. it grabs onto the signal and holds it fast. Really cool!
* wearable sport watch: unlike the 305 which is a bit big and heavy for my tastes, this is really a wearable watch. Obviously this is vastly superior to the handheld gps devices (but of course no map either).
* Utility for running: when I run, I primarily care about the time (or lap time) and how far I have gone. Both of these pieces of information are visible on the training screen (but it is important to push both the buttons to lock the bezel so that odd things don't occur during the run). So for my main priorities, this watch is really excellent.
* Features: this is a full featured watch with all kinds of extras such as a virtual training partner to pace yourself against, etc. More than I will use, but it's pretty loaded.
* pc software: conceptually there are really cool pc software programs (like sporttracks freeware from zonefive software and the less good software that garmin distributes) which should make it fun to analyze all the data (including seeing your tracks in google earth). why I say conceptually should become clear in my next bullet.
now for the less good stuff:
* Ease of installation: Although getting the watch up and running was fairly easy, I still haven't gotten the thing to talk to the ANT PC USB stick nor have I gotten it to talk to the heart monitor! Even though the watch says it has pairing enabled, and teh PC says the ANT is searching for a watch. From googling around, apparently this problem can be solved, but at least based on what I read, no one has any good theories as to waht the problem is, or how to reliably address. Suffice it to say that many people, including me, found that the bluetooth wireless communication simply doesn't work well out of the box. Quite frustrating. I'm a computer scientist by training and have some experience with electronic devices...yet so far, to no avail.
* usability: although the bezel is a cool idea (ipod like), the instantiation of this idea isn't great. the bezel is way sensitive and the menu structure isn't intuitive. One frequently ends up in places one doesn't want to be. With some time, experimentation, and learning, it is usable...however these are not the hallmarks of an intuitive user interface design. I'm really glad they have the lock bezel feature.
OK, I'm probably over amazon's recommended word count, so I'll stop. bottomline, I like the watch, glad I bought it, and it serves my primary objectives well, but in many ways I consider it a "version 1" and so you have to be a patient tech friendly person to rate it the way I did.
A very good watchOctober 16, 2008 Mr. B. P. Hocking(UK) 30 out of 31 found this review helpful
I have just got my Forerunner today and have given it a good go. This is my first GPS watch and I think its amazing. I don't like the heart rate monitors which I have had with other watches so I bought my 405 without it. I have found the watch very easy to use and it connects quickly to my computer. It also charges very quickly to. When I uploaded the data and looked at the google earth map it did show a slight error. It showed that I was running in a hedge and in the middle of the road at points but I was actually running on the path a couple of feet away. I have checked the route and it is pretty much the same distance, so this really doesn't make much difference. I found it accurate and worth buying. However I have read reviews on the watch being poor compared to the cheaper 305 but I haven't tried the 305. Also I have not had problems with the touch bezel but make sure you wipe your hand of sweat if you want to mess with it on the fly. Hope this review helps you.
