Tigy’s Blog

So what I really want for Christmas now is the Garmin Forerunner 305 (or 205, forget the old 301/201). I’ve had my little Navman sports tool for a few weeks now and really like it, I thought I should post a proper review of it. It’s not as cool as the Garmin product, but hey its less than half the price and designed in lil’ ole NZ.

For the newbies to the GPS Sports Tool worlds this is a device that uses GPS satellites to calculate your position as you "do your thing" and then tell you information, such as how far you’ve gone and how long it took you.

Sure you can do this with a watch and a map, but this is a bit of a hassle unless you run the same route every time. You cant get live updates while your running. Plus doing it with a gadget is always going to be more fun (that could be just a me thing though).

Now the review proper…

What does it do:

In a nutshell the R300 simply measures how far you’ve run and how long it took you. It tells you the distance, time and pace that your running at. It is a fairly simple device, but what it does it seems to do quite well.

The advantage of this is that you can set your self some training goals and track your progress against them. My first goal was to finish my usual run at a less than 5 minute per km pace. Using the R300 I could manage my pace during the full run and avoid blowing out too soon (i.e. running the first couple fo k’s at a blistering pace and then having to crawl my way back home gasping for breath). I also could really track the distance I was running each week while varying my route, which is critical if you want to avoid the dreaded "I’m bored and can’t be bothered going tonight" syndrome. I had tried to do this using the old map and piece of string technique (or more accurately Google Earth), but that was just way too hard…

What do you get in the box:

• R300 Unit
• User Manual: All the information you need
• Quick Start Guide: Gets you active in minutes
• 1 x AA Battery
• Arm Strap: Fastens securely to your upper arm

I found bugger all difference between the manual and quick start guide. The manual is concise and well written. I found I had a handle on all the features and was up and running after about a 5 minute read.

Big ups to Navman for including a battery (reported 16 hours of use from 1AA).

The R300:

Its an arm mounted unit, designed for the upper left arm. I like this mount although some people prefer to strap their MP3 player on there. A warning, dont try to put the R300 and MP3 player on the same arm, I did this and was told I was running faster than an olympic sprinter on steriods being chased by a dozen rabid and hungry cheeta’s…

Its comfortable and quite light, I haven’t really noticed it on my arm at all. The arm band is best worn over the top of your t-shirt but doesn’t irritate me when I wear it against my skin.

The unit feels well built and comes in a pretty waterproof looking housing. It only has 2 buttons, which is good in some respects but annoying in others. The plus side is that its easy to use. The negative side is that sometimes you need to scroll through every feature in order to get to the one you want, but thats not too bad as you should be concentrating on where you are going and not staring at your upper arm. The LCD is a little on the small size but I find I can read the main data OK, although I did have a close call with a bulldozer while trying to read the smaller details and change display modes when I first got it, which is why you should always look where you are going.

The features low down:

• Current speed / pace
• Average speed / pace
• Maximum speed / pace
• Pace / speed target zone (too fast or slow beeper)
• Distance run per lap
• Lap history
• Distance run
• Calories burned
• Current altitude (GPS)
• Automatic timer
• Time (ultra precise GPS satellite atomic time)
• Date
• Changeable cover

The target zone is a set and forget feature which is useful if your training for a specific time goal. The maximum pace is a waste of time as is the altometer, both are just too inaccurate to be of any use. The rest is all good and pretty self explanatory. I find I tend to just look at average or current speed and leave the rest alone until I get back, I use the lap feature to track my progress through certain stages of my run when I get home, I dont bother with calories because as long as I am burning more than I would watching TV then I am happy.

Battery life:

Seems to be good. I am still using the supplied AA battery and have got about 7-8 hours use out of it so far without a hitch. They claim "up to" 16 hours use out of 1 battery, I would be happy with 8-10 hours so we’ll see where it comes out. If the battery runs low the unit performs a controlled shut down so at least you get to save where you were up to. If going on a very long run, or a race, I think I would change the battery first to be safe.

Overall likes:

I love the basic functionallity of giving me time and distance no matter where I run. The unit is unobtrusive, comfortabe and seems to be fairly accurate to within about 20 meters or so over a 5.5km distance. The R300 does what it claims to do and does it well. At only about $100 or so its bloody good value. It was designed in New Zealand so you gotta like that.

Overall dislikes:

The buttons are a little fiddly to push and need to be "broken in". You need to scroll through all the features to get to the one you want, no ability to hop back and forward between a couple of favorites. Display is a little on the small side and is hard to read in low light or in the rain, but I guess that all saves battery life…

Anything else:

The GPS chip technology is a little old technology now, the newer generation chips have better sensitivity and accuracy. But the R300 seems to compensate for that with a larger antennae than competitive wrist units. I havent had any real problems with loss of satellite lock. I do notice on a couple of stages of my run that it can get a bit confused and either tell me I’m travelling at >100kph or <1kph, but thats a short blip and doesnt seem to affect the overall results too much.

Overall:

Well the R300 is a great entry level tool for anyone keen on excersize (running, walking, cycling, etc…). It lacks the features of the Garmin Forerunner and Edge products, but for the price its good value. Its certainly helped my training and until someone goes and buys be a Garmin Forerunner 305 I’ll keep using it.

A big ups to the person at Navman who allowed the speed display to go over 100kph. The Garmin product seems to think a jogger can never exceed 99kpm, but any real engineer will know that a decent user will jump in the car and take the unit for a drive to see how fast it can go…