Awesome product - BUY IT

By robertwlewis Ranked #786 - Trail Running Accessories June 20, 2006

This thing is the bomb! I've had mine for almost two months and I absolutely love it. I only have a few minor gripes about it but nothing major enough to reduce the ranking. Positives: 1) Overall good tracking, this depends a lot on the user and how patient he/she can be while waiting for a good satellite lock. The less you move around while it's searching, the better. 2) Options galore to track your training progress and evaluate your workout. I would recommend signing up with motionbased.com and using their free service; they have a more detailed workout summary than the software that comes in the box. For a fee you can get even more details, but I have not tried this. 3) Wireless HR monitor seems to be very accurate and is a great addition to help with training.
Negatives: Few and minor 1) As with any GPS unit, the 305 will not track as well in dense foliage, on cloudy days, or if you move around a lot while it's trying to get a satellite lock; this is to be expected. 2) It’s too bad the technology isn't developed enough yet so that they could make these things a little smaller. It would be great to wear it when not working out, but it is simply too huge. 3) The elevation tracking is not super accurate. I'm told that this is pretty much always the case when altitude is measured by GPS and not barometric pressure (like Suunto does). The readings I've seen are always in the ballpark, but I'll usually have spikes and drops of +/- 200ft even when I run on a level track. Again, I don't think this is unusual for a GPS of this size.
Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who wants to track their progress when training and analyze their workouts. It has yet to disappoint me.

View Details: Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS

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