I used to know what I wanted, a Forerunner 305 with HRM, but now there are bloody dozens of the things.

The 305 is now only £116 on Amazon. Can someone do my shopping research for me and tell me which one I want please?

305 is fine but relatively bulky – my wife has to wear a wrist band under hers to stop it hurting her wrist.

other than that as long as it functionally does what you want then go for it. Most of the extra money is buying you a smaller unit on the other things.

So it seems, just did the compare thing on their website. For doing interval workouts I am currently using my Edge 305 and holding it in my grubby palm 🙂

I like the idea of multi-sport – do these things work whilst swimming? There’s a 310XT which can link to a power meter (if I ever get an ANT compatible one) but that looks to be the only advantage and it’s twice the price. £116 is a steal for a 305…

do these things work whilst swimming?

wouldn’t say they were that waterproof.

gps would only work in an outdoor pool too 😉

if you just want something for intervals etc and not gps then a stopwatch/hrm woudl be cheaper?

The USE factory outlet online shop has ciclosport stuff cheap.

305 is still doing fine for me, for logging runs and rides plus following other people’s routes (or ones I plan out ahead of time). For that route-following stuff you don’t want anything much smaller (so not the 405 or 110).

310XT gets better battery and proper water resistance – although my 305 has been fine even with heavy downpours. A friend has a 310XT and although nice, I don’t think it’s worth twice what the 305 is.

Logging swims in triathlons is a nice idea but tricky to achieve – if it’s on your wrist then getting the wetsuit off is tricky, if it’s in your swim hat then lots of potential to lose the thing. I just keep mine on the bars, hit start when I get there and put it on my wrist before heading out for the run.

To be honest, I’ve never used the HRM features on mine – so the otherwise identical Forerunner 205 (£86 on amazon) would be an even better buy for me.

I’ve had a 405 for at least a couple of years now and it’s a great training tool for running. Being able to program pace based intervals is probably the feature I value the most. Not sure if the 305 can do all that though. The bezel navigation thing on the 405 is a bit rubbish but I think they’ve improved that. I’ve ran with the 305 and found it to be very bulk (I have quite small wrists.)

Also found the forerunners to be a bit of a faff to use for cycling. My 405 did work with a cadence sensor but not my power hub thing. Got an Edge 500 now that I use for cycling (very cheap from tesco direct.)

I have properly skinny wrists and the 305 is fine for me. I wouldn’t wear it down the pub like, but for running you want a pretty big screen to look at really. I thought it looked smaller on my wrist than it did on the web.

if you just want something for intervals etc and not gps then a stopwatch/hrm woudl be cheaper?

I want distance, distance intervals and also pace information. But then again what would I think about whilst running if I didn’t have to do the mental arithmetic to convert from km/h to mins/mile? 🙂

Cardiff pool has a very thin roof mind.. but are we saying 305 is not actually waterproof to swim in? I would hope that it could do stuff like tell when you have turned so it can time seconds/length, but somehow I suspect it won’t..

I doubt any of them would be very good at logging 25/50m lengths in indoor pools – GPS is only accurate to several feet under ideal conditions. It’s not great with back-and-forth stuff either – just run up and down a 100m track outside and have a look at the tracklog you get.

No probs using mine for cycling – cut an old grip into three, stuck them together and use that to fatten up the part of the bar I’m attaching it to. Else Garmin make a £10 “mount” that is basically the same thing.

Hmm the GPS is pretty accurate and the auto lap thing does work fairly well on a 400m track. Not sure it’d be quite good enough to accurately measure laps of a pool. Not big on the swimming so I’ve never tried it.

The ability to program your own pace based intervals thing really is great… though the beeping to tell me that I’m running too slow does get annoying!

An accelerometer would work well for length changes I reckon… Dear Garmin…

Hmm might be tricky to detect from the general flailing of arms in typical swimming action.

do these things work whilst swimming?

Absolutely they do, if you’re outdoors! They don’t work at all indoors!
If you’re in an indoor pool you just count the lengths don’t you?
Used my 405 for a triathlon last year, open water swim of course.
That’s what the multisport settings are all about.
I bought the garmin mount which replaces the strap with a velcro one and allows you to pop the actual unit off the strap and mount it on the handlebar mount. works well

I have a forerunner 305. £105 from Amazon a couple of months ago. Great for both running and biking (with clip in bike mount kit). As said its a bit bulky, but its a bargain for what it does. I wouldn’t swim with it

Great bit of kit (the 305)… love mine… very motivational.

Would love to use it in the pool/open water but really not sure it’ll work or in fact it might break… I hate to be without it.

Multisports is good if you can remember to hit the buttons at the right time.

Love my 305 – use for running and mtb’ing. Have had mine for around 3 years now, wouldn’t be without it.

Yes its big but very easy as a result to pace yourself as you can quickly see pace/time etc. Its as accurate as my polar computer on the road bike.

That DCRainmaker bloke does in depth reviews on them.
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2007/11/review-of-garmin-forerunner-305.html

Forerunner 305 is IPX7 – ie. 1m of water (static pressure, ie. not moving) for 30 minutes. So it’s fine in the rain, fine if you drop it in a puddle, OK in a swim hat, not OK to swim with it on your wrist.

I recently bought a 405CX and I was well chuffed with it until last night which was the first time I used it in rainy (cloudy) weather and it took forever to get a position fix – disappointed 🙁

Hmm mine does that too, can take a good few minutes (and that’s the less sensitive older non “X” version.) My Edge 500 is the same. Tend to turn it on and leave it on the garden table when I’m getting ready. By the time I’m good to go it’s usually got a fix.

It is an excellent gadget and I have had one for several years now and use it to monitor my performance.

I find it particulalrly useful for interval work, pacing very long runs (to ensure I dont run too hard in the early miles ruining the following days training)and generally monitoring effort against speed (I use the average speed function a lot to maintain speed over a set distance)during steady runs and intervals.

I use sporttracks as oppose to the Garmin software which I think is better.

Forerunner 305 is IPX7 – ie. 1m of water (static pressure, ie. not moving) for 30 minutes. So it’s fine in the rain, fine if you drop it in a puddle, OK in a swim hat, not OK to swim with it on your wrist

Right.. that definitely swings things in favour of the 310XT then or one of the others. Would not want to be restricted to not swimming.

It’s not just swimming that the issue with the 305.
Sweat can get in through the speaker holes, and damage/reduce the volume of the speaker.
I gave my 305 away because it was getting a bit quiet on beeps, and replaced it with a 310xt for it’s vibrate option.
It’s a pretty pricey vibrator upgrade though.

1m of water (static pressure, ie. not moving) for 30 minutes

That’s not how I swim
305 is fine for swimming
(Mine is actually a 305 not a 405- confused.com)
EDIT: Speakers? Mine doesn’t have speakers

Vibrate would be handy. Beeps often hard to hear when running in a noisy environment I think.

EDIT: Speakers? Mine doesn’t have speakers

How do you think it beeps?

Vibrate would be handy. Beeps often hard to hear when running in a noisy environment I think.

That’ll be the 310XT then.

never heard mine beep. why does it beep?

As default on any button press, battery getting low, pace alerts…that sort of thing.

It’s just a desperate plea for attention from it.
It beeps when you press buttons, start/stop the timer, finish intervals etc.

Assuming
A) you have sound enabled in the settings.
B) you haven’t used in in water and screwed up the beeper 🙂

Haha I’ll have to check when I get home.
I don’t see how it can withstand being immersed in 1m of water for 30 mins and yet allow a bit of surface sweat to get in though.
Anyway all I know is I did a 20 minute swim and it survived. 😆

I don’t see how it can withstand being immersed in 1m of water for 30 mins and yet allow a bit of surface sweat to get in though.

I agree with Ian and this appears to be a known fault. It may not be just moisture but the fact that sweat seeping into the little speaker bit day after day breaks it eventually.
I tend to do intervals over known distances so make marks on the ground at 1/2 and 1m intervals. A working speaker would be nice though for sounding the end of the interval rest period etc without looking at the screen.

Probably salt crystallising inside. Try leaving it in a bowl of water for 30 mins to dissolve it?

310 xt for waterproofness, but the new 610(?) has a touch sensitive screen like the edge 800 and is very nice – but you cannae swim in it

http://sites.garmin.com/forerunner610/index.php/forerunner610/mobile?lang=en&country=US

I’ve had sweat gum up waterproof things before. Lots of salts in there.

Touch sensitive screen – why? Gonna be great in mud with gloves on..!

I had this dilema recently after I lost my 305 😳
searched everywhere couldn’t find it after much searching
no idea how! I use it 4-5 times a week, very annoying!

310, 405 and new 6xx jobbies don’t do routes like the 305 does with a route outline.
I use routes all of the time like molgrips
310’s got a better battery but I can get 12 hours out of my 305 (-HR monitor) which isn’t bad

apparently the 310 6xx gps’s doesn’t work properly when your swimming btw (google for more info)

so for £105 ended up getting another 305
Very happy with it

Touch sensitive screen – why? Gonna be great in mud with gloves on..!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6jmGiqobJg[/video]

It’s possible he was meaning that within minutes a muddy glove will scratch hell out of the screen, rather than it not working. Resistive touch screens work fine with just about any kind of touch device but are obviously not scratchproof.

Resistive touch screens work fine with just about any kind of touch device but are obviously not scratchproof.

The 610 uses the same screen glass as the Edge 800, which is also touchscreen, so imagine it is similar to Gorilla Glass and has some super scratch resistance.

Personally I am pissed Garmin bought out another gimmicky runners watch, instead of using science to bring out a slimmer 310XT upgrade.

even if you don’t scratch it all you’ll do is smear the screen with muddy water. and then what, how do you wipe it clean on the go without changing the settings? 🙂

using science to bring out a slimmer 310XT upgrade

this would be a winner!