Considering a garmin

Could you or rankler tell me more about any of these products? I've been looking at the Suunto and Garmin FT60 online and can't be sure if either features1) real time speed displayed during the run2) programmable zone for speed with an alarm that will sound when you either exceed or drop out of that zoneThanks

author name wrote:

What you are describing is one major advantage that accelerometers have over GPS. GPS is NOT good at providing real-time pace (I have many, many examples of this- I work at a run shop with a very heavy Garmin saturation among our customers and this is by far the most common complaint). Suunto t3c, Polar RS300SD, Garmin FR60 are much better at providing real time pace.

Accelerometers, on roads and other relatively flat surfaces, are just as accurate as GPS in my experience. Give or take .2 miles for a 15 mile run. On trails and on extremely hilly terrain (anything that will force you to change your stride), the accelerometers are not as accurate. Not terrible, just not as accurate. To be fair, GPS isn't exactly stellar under those conditions either.

A friend of mine had the suunto and hated it. I had a polar rs800 and it is sitting in a drawer collecting dust. I hated everything about the polar including customer service. Some tech told me that .3 per mile error was fine lol.

I decided to go with garmin and from the first day first run it has worked wonderful. It has altitude settings but I use the 3 screen pace, time, distance display. Mine is never off including when I'm on trails although I wouldn't consider myself an off road runner.

I have the 305. I love my garmin.

I got the Garmin Forerunner 50 back in Feb. (HR monitor+ foot pod, $94 on Amazon, cheaper now). I got this over the GPS models because of the price, smaller size, changeable battery, wanted to wear it as a regular watch, and so I could use it outdoors (trails) or on a treadmill. I had borrowed a friend's Garmin 205 for a while and didn't like it because of the size, fluctuating pace, and interference in trees.

I love(d) this watch.... until I had to change the battery in May, and then another 4 times between May-July. I finally sent it to Garmin last week, so I'm waiting for them to either send it back or send a new one. Apparently a lot of people are having problems with the battery on this watch (which you need the right tools to change it, kinda difficult the first time). I don't know if the newer FR60 is any better or easier with this aspect. Otherwise, the Forerunner 50 is amazing! I found the foot pod to be 100% accurate out of the box (no calibration). I did mile repeats with it (on a rolling road), and it was spot on. After a few months it seemed to be measuring long.... I don't know if it was an issue with the battery, or if it needs to be re-calibrated every so often. I found the HR monitor to be even more amazing- no problems at all with this, and feels comfortable. I've used the HR monitor more than the foot pod. There's 2 interval timers on this watch as well (but you can't get any pace/HR data when you use the interval timers, or I haven't figured this out). You wirelessly upload all the data to the ANT stick, and it graphs heart rate/pace and gives all the average stats. For <$100, it's amazing everything you can do. I guess besides the battery problem, my only beef with the watch is the buttons are kinda hard to push-- Timex has the best buttons IMO.

I was asking about the Garmin FR60 and the Suunto t3c.

1500 wrote:

A friend of mine had the suunto and hated it. I had a polar rs800 and it is sitting in a drawer collecting dust. I hated everything about the polar including customer service. Some tech told me that .3 per mile error was fine lol.

I decided to go with garmin and from the first day first run it has worked wonderful. It has altitude settings but I use the 3 screen pace, time, distance display. Mine is never off including when I'm on trails although I wouldn't consider myself an off road runner.

I have the 305. I love my garmin.

Awesome, thank you!

Ha, just got the Garmin back. Talk about quick customer service.... I think I mailed it last Thurs. (regular mail too).

Another vote for the Forerunner 50. I think it's around 50 bucks now on Amazon. I've had mine for 2 months and while I had to change the battery on the footpod immediately, everything else has been great. To answer an earlier question, it does have a pacing monitor w/alarm and it does show real-time speed. The speed does not bounce around as much as with a GPS device, but I still don't know how accurate it is if you're going to glance at your wrist every so often.

Mine seemed very accurate out of the box; I took it to a track and discovered it measuring 0.08 miles long. I calibrated it but can live with that.

I have a hard time making myself keep a log, but with this all I have to do is put the watch in the same room with the computer and it downloads it automatically. I use the web-based software and find it motivational to get out even after a long day of family, work, and grad school.

automaticslim wrote:

Mine seemed very accurate out of the box; I took it to a track and discovered it measuring 0.08 miles long. I calibrated it but can live with that.

Are you saying it was 0.08 miles off in a 1 mile run?

buy the 205. you can find it refurbished online for 100 bucks.. i love it.. SO ACCURATE

Try looking around online for coupons and discounts. I once found this ridiculous deal off of Costco.com. The Forerunner 305 was knocked down to just about half the price, and then I found a coupon for a $50 dollar rebate! I ended up spending only $120 to get it... not to mention, this is the Forerunner 305 that came with the heart rate monitor. I have had it for 2 years now and it's been as consistent as I could've ever hoped for. It was a worthy investment.

I kid you not, if you look closely you can see Anthony Edwards and Robert Carradine wearing Garmins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3njjD41f48

Obviously a troll who knows nothing about course certification and claims PR's from courses that are "only" 1-3% short.

The 305 is great, especially for the money.

As for accuracy, the 305 can be changed to a High Accuracy setting that plots a point every second. (the course certifiction is pretty far fetched but I hit the mile marks on a Certified Course pretty routiney) This limits the amount of memory to about 8 hours. Battery life can be a little bit of an issue, but Garmins Customer Service is great.

I hear that the battery life of the 310XT is much improved.

If I had the money I would get all my runners the Garmin 405.

I have heard Garmin's are more accurate when certifying trails because the Jones Wheel isn't accurate on rough terrain.

I held out on Garmin until the 405 - really glad I did. Great watch!

[quote]Alben W. Barkley wrote:

Could you or rankler tell me more about any of these products? I've been looking at the Suunto and Garmin FT60 online and can't be sure if either features

1) real time speed displayed during the run

2) programmable zone for speed with an alarm that will sound when you either exceed or drop out of that zone

Thanks

[quote]

Both the Suunto t3c and Garmin FR60 have both of those features. I agree with what others have said about the degree of accuracy on trails. Both lose accuracy there, GPS due to turns and tree cover (though the latter is not a huge issue). The foot pod, I suspect, loses accuracy there due to slight elevation changes stride-to-stride. I spent a month running with a Garmin 405 on one wrist and a t6c (higher end Suunto, but same foot pod) on the other to test accuracy and usability. They always came out incredibly close to each other, and were both very close for measured courses. I will say that the 405 was a pain to operate while running.

The benefits/trade-offs between FR60 and t3c:

1. Price: FR60 is cheaper - t3c is $270, FR60 $200 (but it will be easier to find t3c on sale for less)

2. User-replaceable battery: the t3c is the only one on the market to have a user-replaceable battery in the watch itself

3. HR Strap: t3c has a comfort strap, which is nice and soft and can easily be washed. FR60 has a traditional plastic strap

4. Usability: much easier for a new user to set-up and use FR60, although t3c is just as useable once you get used to the menu system

5. PC Connectivity: Garmin has it, t3c doesn't.

6. Foot Pod: technology is the same, but the new FR60 foot pod is shaped to fit inside a Nike shoe as well as go on the laces, if that matters. It does look to me just on external inspection that it might be less water-resistant, but I could be wrong.

I bought a 405 last year. The first one didn't work - at all. Garmin sent me a new one and quickly, too. That's worked great. I do quite a bit of running on trails, and I've only lost the gps signal twice in all that time.

I think whether a gps/hrm appeals to you or not largely depends on whether you like the statistical side of the sport. I, myself, love numbers. I love having this data, even if at my age it isn't too impressive.

Wow, amazing, thanks a million for taking the time to answer so thoroughly and knowledgeably! One last thing, do you happen to know much about the Tech4o Accelerator watches from Silva?