Garmin 010-00679-05 Forerunner 50 Sports Watch with Heart Rate Monitor and USB ANT Stick by Garmin
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Digital camera reviews of Garmin 010-00679-05 Forerunner 50 Sports Watch with Heart Rate Monitor and USB ANT Stick
Digital camera Review: Multiple options for losing your workout data
Summary: 3 Stars
First, some good things. I like Garmin in general. I use their GPS products and they're up to par. But let me describe several incidents with this particular product to give you an idea whether you should get it for yourself.
* It took me multiple attempts to pair the watch with the foot pod. Only after I swapped the batteries between the heart rate monitor and the foot pod did I find out that it came with a dead battery. Not a good out-of-box experience, Garmin.
* The software comes with warnings to NOT insert the USB stick prior to installation. Unfortunately, that is exactly what I did, and it later took me several reboots, and an uninstall-reinstall cycle to get it to work.
* The program for monitoring the USB stick runs continuously after you install it. It eats a good portion of your CPU (I watched it using a special tool and it continuously polls for USB stick data instead). When you exit it, the option "run when Windows starts" is always pre-selected for you. It's as if a web site offered to subscribe you to unwanted e-mails every time you logged out. Is it proper etiquette?
* After a 1.5 hour run, I pressed the Stop button on the watch, which printed the word "stop" on the screen. I didn't exactly have their manual stuffed in my pocket. But with this watch, "stop" is not the right button to press. Instead, I you should hold down the Lap/Reset button for 3 seconds, then press View. If you don't, you will lose your workout data.
* At another time, I ran the Garmin training manager software prior to uploading data. Unfortunately, if you do that, an error message comes up "Since the training manager software is running, your data cannot be imported". And you'll never see your workout again, since it's been deleted from the watch during the download.
After this, ahem, miserable experience, I put the Forerunner 50 away and bought a Suunto T3C. It cost me 3 times as much (they charge $99 just for the PC pod, sold separately), and it only keeps average workout data (it doesn't have a detailed log). And yet, I'm happy with it. Their software is a pleasure to use. It worked straight out of the box, and it doesn't come with a separate "ant monitor". You start up Suunto Training Manager lite, press a button on your watch, and your data is downloaded and displayed.
Digital camera Review: Nice technology ...poor durability
Summary: 2 Stars
I have owned this watch for about a year and half. The function of the watch is fairly nice and I had no issues with software (pc), pairing, accuracy etc. My main dissapointement has been with maintenance. I am a person who wears their sports watch all the time, for general day to day use as well. After about 9 months, the battery was gone. I believe Garmin recommends having it replaced by a watch shop. I was able to do it myself but it was tedious and a bit nerve racking. Then after about a year the band started to fall apart. Again you have to send it in to get it replaced taking probably a week or two with shipping. So I taped up the break with some electrical tape and kept using it. After a few more weeks it broke again. So now I guess I will have to send it in.
My first sports watch was Casio basic chronograph. I think it lasted 10 years. I had to replace the battery once and the band a couple of times (from Walmart). Technology advances are great but companies like Garmin need to spend more time on the basic durability and maintenenace.
Digital camera Review: Poor watch battery design
Summary: 2 Stars
Originally bought this from Amazon. When low battery displayed, I attempted to replace on my own without success. The manual should say MUST have watch specialist replace watch battery. I struggled getting the battery hold down on, and I stripped a screw. Garmin was nice enough to send me a refurb replacement. Soon after, this battery was low too. I replaced it today although not perfectly, and I'll hope that the watch keeps working. I would recommend trying a different watch of this type.Digital camera Review: Slick, but flawed
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a slick device, if you don't need GPS. However, the software is flawed, and don't bother if you're using a Mac. They've been promising a Mac version of the software forever.
(Update: 2009-06-18 the I've been using the Mac version of Training Center for a few months now, it works well, though the features are limited. It's a big improvement over switching to the PC or Parallels every time I want to download a workout.)
Lately, my workouts have been getting lost by the software, which is pretty frustrating. Frequent backups are a good idea, I was able to restore some of my workouts from an earlier software problem where the program got stuck in a loop.
The hrm works pretty well most of the time. I've found that it helps to put it on a bit before a workout. I've had to replace the hrm battery twice in about a year, and the watch battery once. The watch battery is a bit tricky, support suggests having a watch repair place handle it, for good reason.
I wouldn't buy it again, in fact, I'm planning on researching to see what other brands are available. Garmin has not impressed me at all.
Digital camera Review: So so, not dependable. No GPS.
Summary: 2 Stars
I got this to replace an old Polar Heart rate mon.
POLAR was much more dependable for heart rate. This thing tended to lose the signal. The heart rate would read steadily for a while and then start jumping around. Since the EMTs never had to scrape me off the ground, I'm going to say the monitor was off (by 50 bps).
My unit came with the pedometer accessory and the battery was dead in that, so maybe it's nearly dead in the heart rate strap and that's the problem? Very frustrating to try to "mate" the watch to the sensors when the batteries are weak or dead.
It's easy to get lost in the maze of "Views" and "Modes". Since a lot of them just display zeroes it's difficult to know what mode or view you're in just at a glance (and who wants to stop?).
True, most of the time you will leave it on one view for one exercise, but what if you'd like to know your speed and heart rate? So far as I can tell, that doesn't show on any single screen.
Which sucks.
Maybe if the thing worked out of the box I would have been more tolerant of the scattershot instruction manual and not so friendly display.
On the plus side: IF you need the multi-sport, multi-sensor features, it's cheap. If you really just want a heart monitor or a pedometer or a bicycle cadence/speed display, you can do a lot better for less money.