Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver With Heart Rate Monitor
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver With Heart Rate Monitor
Customer Review: Best thing to ever happen to me. Literally.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Garmin 305 is an amazing product, hands down, all the way. I purchased mine during the summer just as a geeky thing that I thought I might use every once in a while. That was 20 pounds ago. This thing will MAKE you want to run. It almost makes me feel accountable, and has become a part of my daily life. My blood pressure has dropped, triglycerides are down, this thing has done wonders for me. I even had to buy different sized pants and shorts because I lost so much weight! I've only had this thing about a month, and I have gone about 162 miles either walking or running (mostly running). It really makes running fun and exciting.
Enough about the life changing stuff, you want to know why it's so amazing right? First off, it's easy to use. My sister actually got a Forerunner 110 because she was afraid this thing would be too complicated and she wouldn't be able to figure it out. Honestly, the features are there, but this thing won't make you use them if you don't want to. In the month I've had mine I can honestly say I haven't used mine to the fullest of its abilities. All I do is turn it on, it finds the satellites, and I run. There's a multitude of things you can do with the training program, but I like to just turn it on, press start, and run until I'm tired, or until my endorphine levels get me high as a kite.
The size of the watch may deter some people from buying it, and if you're one of those people don't worry about it. Yes, it is large, but the weight of it negates the whole aspect of it being huge. I really do forget it's there during my runs it's so light. Another reason you should not worry about the size is because I think you will get so much more enjoyment considering it has a larger screen, which means it's much easier to read. My sister's 110's screen is small. Really small. After having my 305, I would never go to a 110 for any reason due to the fact that reading the numbers is just a pain. I can comfortably look down as I'm running at mine and see the numbers great, whereas with the 110 I have to bring the watch within six inches of my face to get a steady picture of the data.
One of the things I like the best about the watch is the heart rate monitoring. This watch comes with the standard heart rate monitor Garmin makes, the plastic one. Don't be fooled, the cheap plastic one is actually a better deal in my opinion to their "premium" heart rate monitor. The standard heart rate monitor does exactly what it's supposed to do, measure heart rate. Accurately. The premium heart rate monitor has had issues with people who have what Garmin calls "abnormal physiology". This is their jargon for "you sweat too much". What happens with the premium heart rate monitor is the contacts are connected into the elastic band, and allow the two contacts to be bridged via sweat, causing inaccurate readings. Not the case with the regular (and cheaper) heart rate monitor. The contacts are in a one piece, flexible plastic band with an elastic backstrap. I have had no problems with comfort or control of the heart rate monitor, and wear it on every run.
This wouldn't be a review without discussing the watch's GPS capabilities. Simply put, they're amazing. Garmin says it has a "30 foot accuracy guarantee". I think it should be changed to "30 inch guarantee". The thing is absolutely bulletproof in this aspect. Tracking is spectacular, and I have never had a single hiccup. It does take some time to find satellites if it's been off the charger for a while, so I just put it on the charger about five minutes before I run and it will pick up satellites usually under thirty seconds. If I don't charge it a little it may take up to three or four minutes, still very acceptable. Granted, I do live in Southeastern Ohio, so we don't have too many tall trees, and skyscrapers are nonexistent, so that could be a factor for my great experience with the GPS.
Battery life has given me no issues. This past Monday I ran fourteen miles straight for 1:56:46, the longest I've done so far. If you're just a regular runner who might be out for anywhere from thirty minutes to four hours, this will do everything you want it to. It's rated at being able to function for eight hours, but I always go much shorter than that.
The watch comes with Garmin's software, but it's not even worth installing, at least for me it wasn't. I use their "Connect" web service to track and store all my data. It can be quirky at times, but overall it is a great thing. Easy to use, and it gives you so much data you won't know what to do with it! I'm still in awe every time I upload a run to see that it saw every time I went up a hill, stopped at a stoplight, anything you do, it shows you. Plus with the Connect service, you can see what other people in your area, or all over the world are running.
Just a couple of notes. The watch comes in great packaging, almost an ornate display (as ornate as colored-cardboard can get) in the box. Once you take it out of the box, there's a charging cradle, USB cable, heart rate monitor, manuals, and of course the watch. When you turn it on, you will be annoyed (or at least I was) to find that every single button press makes the watch emit a loud beep. You can change this within seconds, and it is so much less dorky without the beeps. You have to charge it right out of the box for around three hours. Then, it's off to the races!
One last note, this thing WILL get you addicted, it did for me at least, and I was a lazy college kid who was always in books. You have to be careful not to overtrain, or start out too fast. Just because the watch will tell you that you are on your 14th mile, doesn't mean you need to be running it. I started off going way too fast, way too far, and am now dealing with the repercussions. I have some shin splint issues, but that should be taken care of soon. This watch has changed me. I went from being a 6'2" 210 lb, 38 inch waist fatty, to a slim, 34 inch, 190 lb running machine.
Bottom line: this watch has more features than you know what to do with (in a good way), does exactly what it advertises, and is cheap compared to other models (which oddly have less features, and in my opinion are of lesser quality).
Buy the watch. Run. Be happy. End of story.
Customer Review: Very good overall, but some annoying issues
Summary: 4 Stars
I almost didn't bother writing this - the Forerunner 305 has so many reviews already and I figured no one would actually get to reading mine. But in the interest of providing some info I didn't see in other reviews (course I only read the first few pages), I figured I'd write something up.
I got the Forerunner as a Mother's Day present a couple weeks ago. I've since taken it on several runs. I'm just getting back into running after a 10 year hiatus so I'm by no means an expert -- I can't speak to how the Forerunner works for elite runners or people with serious training schedules. I mainly wanted it because I've been running through the woods on unmarked trails, and it's hard to judge the effectiveness of your workouts if you have no idea how far you're running.
Overall the Forerunner does what it says - it seems pretty accurate with distance (I've taken it on trails with milemarkers a few times and it seems pretty dead-on with the mileposts). The trails I run on are pretty-thickly tree-covered and it doesn't seem to bother the reception much. The pace sometimes gets wonky -- I run at a pretty consistent pace 9-10 minute mile pace) but I've seen it swing wildly within a minute from 11 min/mile down to 7 min/mile -- I can say for sure that if I was really running 7 minute miles, I'd probably keel over dead so I know that isn't right. Also, the elevation readings seem completely whacked. One of my trails is an old rails-to-trails and is completely flat along a creekbed -- there's maybe a total of 10 feet of elevation change. Every time I run it and download the results of my run, the Garmin tells me I ascended a total of 200+ feet and decended 170ish feet. Besides the logicaly impossibility of that (wouldn't I still be floating 30 feet in the air when I returned to my starting point), there's no way there's more than 10 feet of elevation change total over the whole trail. I'm not sure if elevation is so inaccurate because of the trees or what, but if you are looking for something that accurately reports your grade and elevation, this isn't going to do it in my experience.
Other things that bother me: the Forerunner does seem to take a ridiculously long time to find the satellites when you first turn it on (I have a regular Garmin Nuvi in my car that finds the satellites almost instantly every time -- not sure why the forerunner is any different, but it obviously is.) You also seem to have to stand still to get it to find the satellites - so I can turn it on, get in my car, drive to the trail, park, get out, and it still hasn't found them because I've been moving. I usually have to stand around (perfectly still!) in the parking lot for a while waiting for it to find the satellites, which is annoying. I think I might try the suggestion of another reviewer - turn it on and leave it outside while I get changed into running gear.
One other thing that's bothersome is that I find the watch very uncomfortable. It's not that big and out of the box, I didn't think it would be a problem. Maybe I have abnormally bony wrists or something, but when I strap the watch onto my wrist, it presses against the bony nub at on the outside of my wrist. That spot has been bruised and sore since my first run with the Forerunner. I've tried loosening the strap a bit, but then the watch just flops up and down repeatedly on that bone, making it hurt even more. I've tried moving the watch up my forearm a bit, higher than the wrist, but over time as I run and sweat, the watch ends up sliding back down over my wrist and banging up and down over the sore spot. I thoguht about turning it so the display is over the inside of my arm, but that points the GPS antenna toward the ground and I think that will mess with the accuracy (I suppose I could wear it towards the inside of my wrist, antenna pointed toward the sky, and just learn to read the display upside-down!). My wrist has gotten so sore that it's interfering with my ability to wear the watch. I'm thinking of either ordering some wrist sweatbands and wearing the watch over one to see if the extra cushioning provided by the sweatband helps or seeing if Garmin has a different strap that might be more comfortable -- I read somewhere that there are different wristbands available so I guess I'll have to call them to find out.
Oh, one more tiny point - there's is virtually no instruction on how to wear the heartrate strap. I had never worn one before and had no idea how you were supposed to put one on. The manual tells you "just under the breastbone" but doesn't explain how to fit it when you're wearing a sportsbra, etc. There are no pictures or diagrams in the manual so I ended up googling and finding a few you-tube videos that demonstrated other brands of heart rate monitors and that's how I figured it out. I guess Garmin assumes that you're an expert runner who knows what you're doing and don't need a lot of handholding, but I think providing a diagram in the book (or even a simple sentence that says women should wear the strap directly underneath the bottom band of their sports bra) for heartrate monitor newbies like me would have been very helpful.
I know it seems like I'm complaining a lot, but overall, I really like the Forerunner -- it was easy to set up and is pretty intuitive to use. The heart rate monitor seems very accurate and it's comfortable to wear. The connection to my computer and installation of the software was fast and easy. It charges quickly and holds a charge for a long time. It tells me my current pace pretty accurately most of the time, total distance, total time, and current heart rate which is all I mainly care about during my run. Heck, just having the total distance is huge for me -- no more trying to guess how far I went based on how long I ran or driving my route with my car afterwards to see how many miles it was. The sofware is pretty cool and lets you make all kinds of fancy graphs and stuff, and it will keep your training history forever. The Forerunner does lots of stuff (making courses, mapping, setting training zones and having it alarm if you go out of them) that I haven't even tried yet. As soon as I find a way to make it stop hurting my wrist, I'm looking forward to many years of running with it.
Customer Review: The 305 has completely changed how I run
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently began training for a marathon. Due to the nature of the city I live in, it's very difficult to estimate distances and the first couple weeks of training were dominated by running on the treadmill; including a couple of my long runs (at that point 7 and 9 milers). I needed a change and it came in the form of the Garmin Forerunner 305. As it is right now, the Forerunner is an amazing tool that every SERIOUS (I'll come back to this) runner should look into.
So, what specifically do I like about it. Quite simply, I love the accuracy and effectiveness of the GPS. I run out and back courses, and always do my best to keep the 'back' as close as I can to the 'out'. When I get back to where I began, the Garmin is generally within a couple of feet of the end and I'm certain it's only behind because of small variations I have in my course. At this point, I should mention that I live in Vermont where high buildings and concrete canyons aren't too much of a problem. I'd imagine that some people who live in places like Boston or NYC may have more problems in an urban jungle setting. That being said, I do run through a lot of trees (more representative of Vermont) and I have no lost my satellite signal once.
Another point that really impresses me is the workout menu. It's very intuitive to set up distances, pace and interval workouts. It's basically as easy as it can be without hooking a keyboard directly up to the watch! I mainly use the interval and distance and pace functions. Inteval and distance work without a hitch; pacing gets a little muddy sometimes. That is to say, I find the alerts I set up for my pacing don't go off a lot of the time or that the options for the alerts are too limited. It's not a big deal, and all it entails is checking my watch more than I may like during a 15 mile run. In response to other reviewers who have said that the pacing is way off and not an accurate estimation of what they are actually running. I implore you to pay careful attention to how you are running, I have found it to be very accurate and very much in tune with the slight variations that we all have in our pacing: try very hard to focus on your pace next time you run and see how much variation there actually is.
What about aesthetic qualities? Well, it's big! But not out of hand. It fits comfortably on your wrist and is very easy to read during a run. How about functionality during a run? I find it very easy to change the screen when I'm running (quick press of one of the arrow buttons). However, the buttons are stiff and I can see some having an issue with how they feel and may have to get used to it. Another little gripe I have is the auto-pause function; a great idea but one that feels poorly executed. If I stop running completely it sometimes will not stop, If I hold my arm up to change the screen, sometimes not all the time, it will pause. Be aware that you may have to manually pause it to cut down on this minor, but noticeable, gripe; inconvenience; problem..etc, etc. Also, like I said before, I have never had an issue finding satellites or losing them and often keep reception inside very thick concrete buildings.
Who would I suggest this product to? This is where it gets a little foggy. Marathoners, triathletes or any sort of endurance athlete should give this watch a long, serious look. It has served as that extra push for me through some of my harder runs, like a friend telling me not to quit. It also saves us endurance athletes a lot of time by eliminating the need to measure a route, you'll discover things you never saw before running free of a confined route.
Who should think a little harder about this item before picking it up? Casual runners, those looking to lose weight/calorie burn or those looking for a stop watch that "does a little more." First things first, it's expensive and if you're not willing to take advantage of all or most of the features the price looks even steeper and you may end up being disappointed. Second, after awhile of using it, it becomes very clear that this is not a calorie burning tool. It does display the amount burned, but I think it's there to tell me how many more I need to put back in when you consider it's placed in tandem with mileage, pace, time, etc. It's there, but it is not the focus of the product. Third, like I said before, it's not just a stop watch that does a little extra. This is a full blown training tool that you need to use to train. This is a trainer's tool not a casual athlete tool.
Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to delve into the software yet. I use a mac, and it says it is compatible with macs; however, I have not seen the compatibility yet.
PROS:
- Excellent accuracy
- Great features -- easy to figure out workout options, etc.
- Good pace accuracy (see cons for the flipside)
- Great Endurance athlete training tool
- Reception is awesome, I'm getting perfect reception in big buildings and through forested areas
CONS:
- Large size may be a problem for some
- While pace is accurate, some of the tools that go along with it are not functional
- What the heck is up with auto-pause?
- Software issues for me
- Large price may be enough to shy some people away
- Not for casual athletes, be ready to commit to using this item
Don't let the number of Cons fool you, I consider them all relatively minor compared to the pros and what I use it for. This is a great tool and one that I never plan on running without again. If it weren't for a couple gripe-y things, it would have gotten five stars from me.
Thanks for reading.
Customer Review: Three-star device, one-star software
Summary: 2 Stars
First off, most of this review is at least implicitly in contrast to
the previous HRM I owned: the Polar s710i. That unit's display began
crapping out when I moved to Africa (more about this below) and I
replaced it with the Garmin Forerunner 305.
If you just want to talk about the capability to tell you your speed
and distance and heart rate, the 305 is a five-star device. Where it
drops the ball (and drops to a weak three star rating) is in the data
management department.
The unit is a bit bulky for a watch, but amazingly compact when you
consider what it's packing -- an actual GPS receiver, plus antenna,
plus all the processing that implies. The on-device configuration is
absurdly complex; much of the configuration really ought to be done on
a computer is done on the watch with menus and options. It's not all
THAT bad, but it could be improved vastly with a little design effort.
Battery life on the device is disappointing, to say the least. Fully
charge it, leave it in a drawer for a few days, and it dies 20 minutes
into your workout. This is a deal-killer for some people. Frankly,
if I'd known just how bad the battery situation is on this watch, I
might not have gotten it at all.
You do get a lot of options for designing and controlling workouts.
You can, for example, design a fartlek run where you warm up until you
hit the "lap" button and then the interval alerts begin -- 2 minutes
intense effort followed by 1 minute rest, repeated 5 times, or
whatever numbers you like instead of those -- then hit the lap button
again and the alerts stop and the warm-down begins. Interval effort
can be defined in terms of speed (dist./hr.), pace (min./dist.) or
heart rate. Heart rate zones can be customized, as can running paces.
The unit comes with a combination charger / USB data transfer unit.
It works pretty well, though I get a high error rate on transfers -- I
often get alerts to the effect that "There was a problem downloading
your courses" or similar errors. Usually, a simple retry is all it
takes to get a good transfer with no errors.
The user interface design leaves quite a lot to be desired. As an
example, setting the kind of workout you're doing (running, biking,
"other") requires you to go into the watch's "settings" menu. That's
not normally the kind of thing one thinks of when one thinks of
"settings."
Once you've done your workout and you've uploaded the data, things get
a little ugly. The software supporting the watch is, in a word,
appalling. The maps are a mess (kind of a surprise, considering
Garmin is a *navigation* company), the data management is inflexible,
and meaningful reporting is pretty well impossible. A few examples of
what I am talking about (I could write dozens of these, I have merely
chosen a few of the worst):
- Workouts are not editable. Did you forget to reset the watch
when you ran in Cairo, before you began your run in Nairobi?
You're stuck with one workout that started in Cairo and ended in
Nairobi. You can't even update the date and time.
- Graph scale is inflexible. If your run started out at a 20:00/
mile pace (because you go slowly when you start), the whole graph
scale will run from 0-20 min./mile, making it difficult or
impossible to see nuances of speed changes in the 9-11 min./mile
range, which may be what you want. There's no way to say, "Set
the graph scale to _______, even if it cuts off some high and low
data points." This is probably the #1 annoyance for me,
personally.
- Map data is utterly useless. I hear the maps are pretty good if
you are in the USA, but if you ever leave those shores to work
out, forget about it. My runs in Dar es Salaam have me actually
running on water in the Indian Ocean. Yes, really: the map data
is so bad it can't even get the land-sea interface right. It's
even worse on "Garmin Connect," since they've switched from the
excellent Google Maps database to the sad joke that is the Bing
map database. There's been a lot of hatred and discontent about
this expressed on the Garmin website forums, and with good reason.
The Bing maps are even worse than the Garmin software internal
ones, if that is possible.
- The Garmin Connect website. First off, it sure seems to be down
for "maintenance" a whole lot, compared to other sites with which
I am familiar. I think maybe they need to hire a webmaster who
knows how to design and run a site for reliability. There are
literally hundreds of thousands of such individuals out there
looking for work. And I already mentioned the Bing map thing,
about which it is impossible to say enough bad things.
So here's the bottom line: the watch itself is fairly impressive as
far as its capabilities go. User interface and customization leave
a lot to be desired. Supporting software is really, really bad. (I
still track everything in my old Polar ProTrainer software, manually
transferring HR zone data from Garmin Training Center.)
Decide what's important to you before getting this unit.
Customer Review: Fills niche but otherwise a pain
Summary: 3 Stars
I've used a polar HRM for well over a decade and one with a speed/distance monitor (SDM) for over 5 years. One key thing missing was the actual route and elevation information. You don't need this on city streets but it's extremely helpful when running on open space or trail running - a lot of these routes don't appear anywhere. So when my most recent Polar HRM/SDM started to die I decided to make the jump into a Forerunner. I looked at the Polar GPS units but it looks like they measure cumulative distance but not actual routes.
The Forerunner does give me position information. So I can't rate it too low.
But.
But... it's consistently taking 10 minutes to get a satellite fix even though I'm within the same 10-mile circle. Or maybe it's even longer - it's enough time to do the warmup, hang around a bit while getting really impatient, then get about a half-mile into my run. This is under open skies in mid-latitudes (Boulder), not under trees or in the mountains.
But... the "training center" software still doesn't have a way to print anything. A Google search shows complaints going back to 2007, at least, but Garmin has done nothing to fix it. There's no excuse to have to choose between doing a screen capture or trying to get usable results via Google Earth. Maybe my problems with GE are mostly due to my ignorance of how to use it, but even if so why should Garmin assume that everyone will have GE and know how to use it to best effect? What if I just want to print a quick copy of a route before meeting a friend for an afternoon run? It's silly to expect me to always have the time to launch MS Word or Gimp or some other tool, alt-print-screen, copy, crop and print instead of just hitting a 'print' button.
But... it thinks that everything is a single run between the times you hook it up to your computer. To be fair maybe there's some simple function that I've somehow missed but right now it treats everything between computer downloads as a single run with multiple laps. This is extremely annoying since I'm used to early morning runs and then immediately heading to work and am often surprised to find myself 7 miles into an easy 3 mile run. At least the Training Center does recognize these are separate 'laps' and they aren't mixed together... even though I can't find a way to have it actually separate each lap into a separate run.
Finally it's too specialized. I know it's a training device but it should also be fairly easy to find the time on it so I don't have to lug a watch with me if I'm meeting a friend. I think I did eventually find the clock... in a very small font that would be impossible to read while moving. I know it's a training device but it should also be fairly easy for me to find my actual lat/long if necessary. Again, I use this while trail running and hiking and if something comes up it's a lot better to have my exact location than just saying it's 2.71 miles from the trailhead. (Newer phones also have GPS functions but you may not have cell phone coverage.) I could always start a new lap there... and ask any emergency responders to bring a laptop with the Garmin software?!
Bottom line: if you want to literally know where you run and are able to kill some time while it finds a satellite, it's great. If you're used to Polar HRM/SDM you'll probably be very frustrated.
(P.S., ironically I haven't tried the HRM function yet - it's still early in the season and I haven't needed to track my HR closely enough to need it.)
ADDED 7/16/2010
I've used the HRM now. The data shows up in the training log but I haven't found it on the watch itself yet. A friend says I can add a custom display page for it. That doesn't excuse Garmin though - a watch sold "with Heart Rate Monitor" should make it brainless to use said HRM while exercising. Look at my Polar SDM - it's easy to configure it to show HR and distance, or HR and pace, and I can flip modes by just hitting the 'up' button a few times.
As to picking up the location... it worked great when I turned it on in Anchorage, and it worked great the first time I turned it on after returning to Boulder. But today, on the same suburban course I ran two days ago I didn't pick up the GPS functions until my workout was over halfway completed. That's inexcusable.
I can't modify my existing star rating but if I could I would drop it to one star. It's not sufficiently reliable (slow GPS pickup) and it's not sufficiently easy to use during it's intended purpose (people focused on their workout, not pushing a bunch of buttons on their watch).