Garmin Forerunner 405 Wireless GPS-Enabled Sports Watch with Heart Rate Monitor

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Retail Price: $373.32

Amazon Price: $272.85

The Garmin Forerunner 405, while admittedly a high end product, is a feature rich and sleek looking training gadget that can surely catch anyone’s fancy.

But questions arise as to how does the design help your training and if you can actually use these features.

Out of the box, the most noticeable Garmin Forerunner 405 features are the:

• Sport watch
• Auto Lap®
• Time/distance alerts

At its core, the Garmin Forerunner 405 is a sports watch. It can give you the features that you need when running from block to block or at your local park. The Garmin Forerunner 405 would provide you with the necessary tools to track the usual data.

The auto lap feature automatically starts a new lap as your run, and the time/distance alert provides you with an alarm whenever you reach your goals. Used in conjunction with each other, these features of the Garmin Forerunner 405 gives you your time, lap splits, lap times, distance and overall pace that would help in determining whether you had a good training or not.

Of course if you are happy with those features then you can simply select lower end models. The Garmin Forerunner 405 shines when you delve into its more advanced functions.

More advanced features of the Garmin Forerunner 405 include:

• Faster satellite uplink time
• Intuitive Controls
• A host of compatible accessories
• Easy connectivity between devices and computers

The quick satellite uplink of the Garmin Forerunner 405 truly stands out. Now you don’t have to wait long hours when using satellite guidance for its data. With it faster tracking of waypoints, routes, or even measuring just how you are doing at a specific area or place in your usual training route becomes much easier. The improved GPS system can truly help you analyze your data more precisely.

Another thing that’s good with the Garmin Forerunner 405 is its host of wide ranging compatible accessories. There is the Foot Pod for tracking speed distance and cadence when indoors, or even bike speed or cadence sensors if you fancy yourself as an indoor cyclist.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 is also proud of having:

• Intuitive interface to set watch while training
• Compact and lightweight construction
• Easy connectivity with computers

What makes the Forerunner 405 more amazing is that it is quite easy to use. Aside from its lightweight and compact design, Garmin has also made the Forerunner 405 much more intuitive.

They have included 2 buttons on the side of the Forerunner 405 that users can easily press to adjust the necessary settings. Users would not have to fiddle around much when trying to customize their training.

After all the training that you do, the Garmin Forerunner 405 also shines in synchronizing data to your computer. As long as it recognizes a connected “USB ANT stick “  to a PC it would automatically transmit your workout data to the PC.

This makes it much easier to store, share, and analyze your training data to find out your areas of improvement.

Conclusion:

Given all the functionality of the Garmin Forerunner 405, you would be able to see how it is a great fit for runners who truly take their training seriously and are not too shy about spending for the additional benefits.

While a bit higher in price compared to the other Garmin models, the added features, improved capability, and more lightweight and compact build that can truly advance your training makes spending that additional money worth it.

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Related posts:

1. Garmin Forerunner 110
2. Garmin Forerunner 405 Black GPS Enabled Sports Watch HRM Factory Refurbished
3. Garmin Forerunner 205/305/405 – Top Running Watch 2009

Polar RS800 Heart Rate Monitor Watch

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $389.95

Amazon Price: $321.38

The Polar RS800 Heart Rate Monitor Watch is an elite level watch that can match the intensity of people who undergo elite level training. It is a complete training solution that encompasses planning, monitoring and even analyzing the training that you are doing.

The Polar RS800 Heart Rate Monitor watch is capable of tracking maximum heart rate (fitness test-based and age-based), maximum/average of total exercise and of each lap (up to 99 laps), three target zones, and even gives auditory signals when you reach your targets.

All these data can then be tracked and analyzed in your computer. The Polar RS800 Heart Rate Monitor watch comes with the Polar’s ProTrainer 5 software, which is an advanced training analyzer for your computers. Simply transfer the data from your watch to your computer through the Polar WearLink W.I.N.D. transmitter and you are ready to go.

Aside from these features, the Polar RS800 Heart Rate Watch is also highly adaptable. It can be used in conjunction with a variety of training accessories and even shoes, to ensure that it can be utilized no matter the type of training that you are doing.

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User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars This watch delivers as promised
This watch is perfect!! You can create your own program either with the software or in the watch directly. I did extensive research and this is the best value I found. The watch is well made and I have had no glitch or funny readings as with some of the cheaper watches I have tried like the Mio or Polar’s lower brands without coded belt. Speaking of which, the coded belt is comfortable and I have gotten zero interference from all the equipment in the gym or anyone else’s hrm. My friends have had this problem with other brands. I spent about 1 1/2 hours reading the manual and playing around and I pretty much can navigate around in the menu with my eyes closed. Best deal I found was from a company which had free shipping and free IRD device..which you need if you want to view your session in the software. I paid $369.

5 Stars RS800
My husband enjoyed his RS800 so much, he purchased two more for friends this Christmas.

3 Stars great features but limited life
I had to work through three of these before I got one that functioned for any period of time. First one quit second time in pool, second one band fell off. Then, after a year, moisture got inside the cover on the third just as I started to like it. I sold it after that. Three was enough.

2 Stars Polar dropped the ball with the IR interface
I have used Polar Heart rate monitors for years and, having become interested in tracking heart rate variability choose to purchase the RS800 so that I could do the analysis.

I’d note that I had the same problem as the other reviewer with Watchsavings, who did not include the IR interface (they claim that Amazon mis-listed the product).

While the watch has excellent features and an easy interface, there’s a major problem: the infrared transmission system (used to transfer the data into the computer software) crapped out after 3 weeks and completely stopped working.

Looking over the web, this is not an isolated incident. People are reporting that they get data off the watch for a day or two, a week or two, one friend I have who bought one never go a single piece of data off his watch. I contacted a local running store and their employee told me that she had an identical problem, the watch stopped transferring data after 2 weeks. Polar kept telling her that the problem was on her end until she returned it for a refund.

Polar refuses to address this, they ignore it in their forums and will not answer emails.

This is unacceptable, the features of the watch (namely the heart rate variability) are contingent on getting the data transferred to the computer. That Polar refuses to admit or deal with the problem only makes it worse.

Given that other products can readily make a physical USB interface work, there’s no reason for Polar to have gone this route and used a technology that is clearly faulty. This is one top of the fact that Polar decided to use a non-standard USB driver for Windows.

I have since replaced the Polar with the SuuntoT6 which went with a physical (clip) USB interface. While their software is not as good as Polar’s at least I can get the data off of the watch.

I will NEVER purchase another Polar product.

Lyle

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Related posts:

1. Polar RS800sd Heart Rate Monitor
2. Polar RS400 Heart Rate Monitor Watch
3. Polar S625X Heart Rate Monitor Watch