As many of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with Garmin. I went through two of the Forerunner 410s and bought the new Forerunner 610 at the Boston Marathon Expo on faith and hope.

Garmin Forerunner 610 review

The design of the 610 seems more durable. The face of the watch is flat and does not have the raised bezel that the 410 had. I always scraped the paint on the bezel of my 410s, no matter how careful I was.

The wrist strap still seems to have design issues. One day while talking to my friend Jeff the wrist strap on his 610 came undone from the body of the watch.

They use a little wire pin to attach the strap to the watch and I guess it is easy to pop it out-of-place. I was shocked when I saw his watch dangling from his wrist, but it wasn’t the first time this has happened to him.

The wrist strap on my 410 broke off and could not be repaired, so I’m not sure why I was surprised when his broke right before my eyes.

The watch is easier to use once you get used to it and figure out how to access all of the features. The touch screen is not the same as a smart phone touch screen. It takes much more diligence to scroll to what you want, but it does work fairly well. I do like it much more than holding the bezel of the 410 until it went to the feature I wanted and then using the bezel to scroll through menus.

A few times the 610 watch has gone into “searching for satellites” mode while I’m at my desk at work. All by itself. It’s a multi-step process, but now I know how to locate the satellite feature quickly and shut it off so it wont drain the battery.

When the watch goes into “Power Save” mode the GPS is shut off automatically. A few times I have checked the GPS randomly and found that it was on. So I’m a little concerned, because having the GPS on when I don’t need it drains the battery unnecessarily.

I really like the chime and buzzer on this watch. If my heart rate gets too high or my speed goes above or below a target I set through the “Virtual Partner” feature, the watch chimes and vibrates. This is great because it helps me stay at the pace I want to run and not get carried away.

At the end of a run the watch will also show you how much your heart rate has dropped since you stopped running. I haven’t been able to verify how long after you stop running that the watch displays this information but it is probably five minutes.

There are still issues with the new watch but it is a much better product than the 410.

My second 410 is completely dead so I can’t do a side-by-side comparison, which is too bad.

The biggest reason that I say “Cheers to Garmin” is because of their website and software updates. They have been making changes since 2007 but many of those were adding new watches or allowing you to set goals and adding the map feature.

In 2012 they had five software updates. Some of the updates included adding profile pages, tracking PRs and additional calendar features. In 2013 they have had a software update each month!

In January 2013 they added training plans. You can select one of their training plans and add it to your Garmin calendar and send the plan to your watch! When you go out for your run, your watch knows what you need to do. How cool is that? And these plans are free!

In February they added groups. Members of the group can see each other’s activities and post announcements on things like upcoming training plans and races they have signed up for.

In March they added “OpenStreetMap” which is an open source map where members of the public can make changes and additions. Garmin all ready offered Google and Bing maps. Another cool feature is the “Heat Maps”. This allows you to see the most popular running courses in an area. Using a color-coded map overlay you can see the most travelled paths and then check them out for your self. If you travel a lot this could be helpful when trying to find a good course to run in a new city.

In April they enhanced the calendar again. You can drag and drop activities, see your events, training plans etc. right on the calendar. You should check it out. They also enhanced the “Groups” feature so the group admin can add activities and courses for the group.

In May they enhanced the training plans. One of the things I dislike most about Active.com’s training plans is the inflexibility. With Garmin you can now drag and drop activities. If you want to do your long run on Tuesday night instead of Sunday, you can move it. So you can start with one of Garmin’s plans and then make it your own.

HERE is the link to their page describing all of their software updates over the past few years. If you have a Garmin you might want to check it out and see if any of these new features could be useful for you. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at all of them.

Do you use a running watch? Do you track every run and all of the details or just keep track of the time?

Run well my friends!

©2013 anagelin