Garmin Forerunner 405 Wireless GPS-Enabled Sport Watch with USB ANT Stick and Heart Rate Monitor (Black)

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $282.61

Amazon Price: $166.98

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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Polar RS800CX Multi Sport Heart Rate Monitor Watch with G3 GPS Sensor W.I.N.D.

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $499.95

Amazon Price: $366.42

Sometimes a single kind of training is not enough for your body to reach its ultimate fitness level. That’s why there are many people who undertake cross training exercise to be able to give their body the burn it needs. For this kind of training, the Polar RS800CX Multi Sport Heart Rate Monitor Watch with G3 GPS Sensor W I N D is a perfect companion.

The Polar RS800 CX heart rate monitor watch with G3 GPS Sensor allows people to accurately gather data about their speed and distance as well as monitor and analyze their body’s response to various kinds of training.

It even has preset data for people who would want to participate in cross-terrain sports such as running, cycling, skiing, or skating. This makes it easier to shift disciplines on the fly. No more fiddling around with your gadget when you decided to stop biking and start running!

Aside from just showing these data, the Polar RS800 CX can even show the training route on a map after the run.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Hard to use, expensive, frustrating
This is my 5th Polar product in 10 years and it is the worst. I’m replacing a S720i which got into flakey modes that started and stopped lap times constantly, overflowing the memory. For some reason, I decided to stay with Polar over the other brands and figured I’d go high-end with the speed and GPS sensors. First, deciphering the complexities of the RS800 licensing caused me to have to order and reorder units making it about 3-4 weeks turnaround to get what I thought I ordered the first time. The Polar Software, the watch interface and loading sensors is a cryptic mess. I’m not bad with technology, but getting the watch to recognize a bike speed sensor so far is impossible. You will go back and forth syncing your watch to your desktop and clicking hard to press buttons and listening to incessant beeping instead of training. I seriously have spend more time trying to make this thing work than setting up a new computer. This thing is really NOT worth the very high price. You are not getting a higher quality product, you’re just getting more of the same complicated 90′s technology for a lot more money.

3 Stars A top product with serious flaws
As the top model of Polar’s product range, I am somewhat disheartened by what I consider serious downsides:

- the external GPS sensor is very bulky and comparably heavy – bigger and heavier than the whole unit of the Garmin Forerunner 405. It’s also slower to get a fix on satellites than the Garmin.

- the low battery warning gets on far too late, often when you are in the middle of the run – too late to change batteries then.

- even though I follow religiously Polar’s cleaning instructions, the chest belts lose their conductivity after a few months’ time, which is frustrating

- while the Polar software allows you to export the GPS data into Google Earth or as a GPX file into a GPX viewer, there should be an option to save directly into a GPX file. The Google Earth export does not work well on my system and the GPX export mixes up the time of the day

- the Polar ProTrainer 5 training software is still not available for Mac, which I think is unacceptable. It is also incompatible with Windows 7 (64bit) (the syncing doesn’t work), and if history is anything to go by, it will be months if not longer before Polar manages to make a fix available.

For the occasional runner, I think the Forerunner 405 is by far the better option, with much cleverer software (also available for Mac), easier syncing (Win 7 compatible of course), coming in a smaller package at a much better price.

Polar need to get their act together if they want to continue charging these sort of prices for their “top” products.

1 Star Lousy Product
Purchased this new and it functioned well for about 60 days. Used the PPT software as well as the Weblink. Watch stopped transfering data on a Friday, the following day it stopped communicating with the heart sensor. I took it to the jeweler to have the battery replaced and they were unable to open the watch. Polar told me to send it back, so I did. 3 weeks later the watch was returned supposedly repaired under warranty and STILL HAS THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM. No fix.. no communication with either the sensor or the computer. Make sure you read the Polar forums before buying ANY Polar product. You’ll have an eye opening experience as to what to expect from your $500 purchase.

3 Stars some things good, some bad
Well, I wanted to upgrade from my old Polar unit that I used for swimming as well as trail running. On the Polar website under “Product Search” I ticked the box that said I wanted a training unit for swimming and the RS800CX, among others, was suggested. I shut my eyes about the cost and ordered a unit. However, when I unpacked it and read the manual I was shocked to discover you can’t read heart rate in the water. Not that it isn’t waterproof, you can wear it to swim, but the signal can’t be transmitted, no heart rate values. So no training in the swimming pool then. Why is it recommended for triathletes? I don’t know. It would have been nice to know up front about the lack of swimming training capability. Anyhow I’ve been using it for hikes and runs and am well pleased with the GPS function. I can see how far my routes go, how many vertical feet, how much effort I’m putting into those hills, and see my routes on Google Earth. Pretty cool. But, the AA battery needed for the GPS runs out fast. Today, the stop button stopped working on the main wrist unit. So now I shall find out how good Polar customer service is. Many good points to this watch but too many not so good points for the price tag.

1 Star RS800CX run
I bought this product and realised that it does not work with a mac and there is currently no other software available to use its training functions. Only good if you are a windows athelete.

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