Any happy or unhappy owners out there?

My 310xt is getting a bit long in the tooth, battery is dying and randomly shuts down on occasion.

I’m tempted by the Optical HRM and phone syncing.

Any happy or unhappy owners out there?

My 310xt is getting a bit long in the tooth, battery is dying and randomly shuts down on occasion.

I’m tempted by the Optical HRM and phone syncing.

+1 to all this for me too (and also sick of standing around outside pretending to do diligent pre-run stretches, whereas in reality, I’m waiting for the bloody 310XT to find satellites 😡 ) Seems like a nice piece of kit and priced favourably – vs similar from Garmin, Polar, etc., so just contributing in hope of someone with experience posting.

I tried a TomTom multisport watch, similar but without the HRM bit, so will just comment on my experience with the rest. It was bought primarily for running and occasional bike rides.

Pluses are that it was very fast at getting a satellite lock, much faster than the Garmin 15 I’ve since settled on. Good clear screen that you can set what metrics you want to see, big easy button to scroll through any others you may be curious about. It was really good having bike or run options rather than just running. And it was really good that you can race your previous runs/rides.

But the minuses are that it didn’t seem to track my position as well as the Garmin. After I upload to Strava it always showed me as being a few metres to the left of the roads/paths I was on. Weird. And it didn’t sync with my phone – gen 1 Moto G running lollipop – so check your phone first if that’s an important/cool thing for you.

You can tell it the pace/speed you want to run at. It then beeps to tell you if you are faster, slower, or at the set pace. You might find this useful. With me this meant it was beeping every few seconds which was bloody irritating so I had to turn it off after two minutes.

And if you’re a Stravaist, be aware you cannot “upload file” from the watch direct to Strava, you need to either sync it through a phone or through the TomTom software on a computer. the TomTom sports website that it uploads your activities to is utterly pointless, but thankfully you can easily sync this to other sites Strava, Runkeeper, etc.

For me, it was the TomTom’s mis-tracking that made me choose the Garmin. Maybe the one I tried was dodgy. Other than that issue I would have been very happy with it.

Thanks for that dude.

If you like your Garmin, but want optical heart rate, how about the Forerunner 225?

Garmin Link

I have a Forerunner 220 without the optical HR, and it’s used almost every day. It’s not perfect – the first one failed within a month. Second one has lasted over a year now.

Edit: My 220 syncs via my phone if I want it to, I assume the 225 will as well.

Thanks for the replies.

It’s a birthday week next week, might chance my arm with a “look at this lovely watch” nudge nudge wink wink. I’ll just leave this web page on it at a preselected retail outlet and leave the room. ***cough*** manoeuvre.

I’ve got one and have been happy with it. There’s the odd blip in the HR but considering the convenience of not having a chest strap it’s never bothered me.

Get a gps fix quick and when I bother looking seems to have tracked me where I’ve been. I’ve not had any others to compare it to though . . .

Forerunner 225 in the end, and very very happy with it.

Is the forerunner 225 run only or multisport (ie cycling as well)

Such a first world problem, but changing the workout from run to ride is a pain…

It’s run only unfortunately. But I’d long since decided to have a bike specific compooter anyway, so wasn’t really a concern.