I have an old forerunner edge Garmin. The wrist watch type and has served me well for many years. Recently it has had difficulty uploading to Strava and Connect and my head has been turned by potential new GPS upgrades.

Any recommendations?

Depends on what you want from the new one. Couple of options – Garmin tend to do an excellent replacement service so for something like £80 they may well replace your 305 for a new (or refurb one). Very hard to beat for that money.

Alternatively the Forerunner 610 or, if you like the squarer form of the 305 (I do, don’t like the look of the 610) the XT 310 can be had for around £160 on Amazon at the moment.

If you only use it on your bike then the Edge 500 is hard to look past. Personally avoided the Edge 200 as you can’t customise the data fields.

What sports do you go? 910XT if triathlon??????

have you cleared the history off the 305? sometimes that speeds up downloads.

Get a 310XT cheap*, or jump straight to the 910XT.

I have had the 310XT for about 2-3 years now, and the only thing I wish was it was a slimmer.

*relatively speaking.

If its a wrist one its not an edge , just a forerunner.
I “upgraded” from a Forerunner 305 to an Edge 305 which fits really nicely on the stem with a a chunk more screen size but still really dinky size overall.
Beyond that I would go to an edge 500 as I am not really convinced about the maps.

my mates wife washed his 305 so he “upgraded” to a 310 and hated it couple of odd bugs\behaviour so returned and bought a 305 referb unit direct

main one for him was when following a route if your zoomed in and there are less than 2 points on the screen at that moment the trail line disappears. We use the this feature a lot for our runs, always trying to explore new routes. 305 is brilliant at it and also hold more routes than some of the newer watches too so always got a selection of routes at your finger tips.

Garmins fix was to run an app over your route files to add extra points every x meters, an extra faff and filling up your watch which was never an issue with the 305

main one for him was when following a route if your zoomed in and there are less than 2 points on the screen at that moment the trail line disappears. We use the this feature a lot for our runs, always trying to explore new routes. 305 is brilliant at it and also hold more routes than some of the newer watches too so always got a selection of routes at your finger tips.

It is amazing that they have not fixed that issue in over a year. I had several phone conversations with the head of C/S at Garmin UK over this, and was promised something would get done. Last time I checked, the latest firmware is dated July 2012…and that was to fix something else.

Garmin hardware is so often let down by the poor software/firmware that comes with it.

…and as they don’t really have any competition, they just don’t give a shit.

i have been looking at this. i fancy a 910 or 610, but looking at the past product cycles, am sort of expecting something new to be announced this autumn.

Also can’t really justify it as i dont seem to be able to break my 305. Managed to lose it from my car roof at 60mph a few years ago and all it got was a couple of scratches…

agreed Jamie my mate only contacted them in the last month and got the feeling they really weren’t bothered.

I looked a while ago for an upgrade but all the new ones seemed to miss something that I want\had on my 305. Not many at the time I looked last did routes or if they do it’s 1 route not the dozens I can have on my 305, battery on some not as good and smaller screens.

My 305 is pretty damn good and almost indestructible too

305 FTW imo, op might have different requirements to me though

Garmins fix was to run an app over your route files to add extra points every x meters, an extra faff and filling up your watch which was never an issue with the 305

Second this. Although I found a quick workaround. I use the following site

GPSies – Convert

Then select the following option. This adds additional waypoints automatically.

I use the site to convert GPX files to CRS file for uploading to the Garmin so it doesn’t take any extra time.

My experience with the 310XT is that it is a good unit for cycling and running but can be buggy. I had to send a unit back as the time was being reset which caused the local time to be lost. A common problem with the 310. I received a refurbished unit as a warranty replacement this also had the same bug. The third replacement was ok which is the one I am currently using. Below is a link to the time issue.

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?27306-310XT-loses-date-time-when-turned-off

Edit: losing time may not seem a big issue, but it caused the TCX files to become corrupt. So I had to “fix” the file using a text editor and set the header time to be same as the trackpoints. Otherwise sites such as Garmin Connect and Strava would not accept the TCX file.