Saturday, May 30, 2009

Garmin 405-Product Review


I admit I'm a little late on getting a GPS/HR monitor to help in my training, but I didn't want to buy one and have it sit around like so many other things I have bought.

Price-$210 including $50 dollar rebate from Garmin during REI's Anniversary Sale.

Features
  • Wireless transfer to PC via USB dongle (RF signal)
  • Lithium Ion battery that has 8 hours of life in training mode and 2 weeks in power save mode.
  • GPS
  • HR monitor
Use of use
  • I only really needed to use to Quick Start guide to get it working with my computer/charged.
  • The user interface is pretty straight forward. Setting it up for auto pause (so the timer stops while I'm waiting at a traffic light) or auto lap.
Comfort
  • This watch is much smaller than it's predecessor which definately stood out. This looks and feels like a normal watch.
  • The chest strap took some getting used to, probably because I didn't use a heart rate monitor regularly in my training.
Things I'd change
  • Auto turn off for receivers on GPS/HR monitor- I left it on a couple of days and drained the battery.

Minor annoyances
  • Sometimes it's hard to use the touch bezel with sweaty hands.