For the Outdoors Person (2. October 2008)

Garmin Forerunner 205 - GA52I have had mine for a week and have found it is fantastic. I have run 5 marathons, countless half-marathons and now, at the age of 78, I walk some 130 miles a month. How I wish I had had this when training for my marathons. Read the blurb and you will see only a small proportion of what it can do. Three screens, each of which can have a variable number of panels. The display is really clear, even to my aging eyes. My only complaint is that the manual could be clearer and fuller. But if you are computer literate, there should not be any difficulty.

Peter Williams October 2008

Fine piece of Kit (3. August 2008)

I have just got this from Amazon and I have to say its absolutely superb. I am quite new to running and with the warm summer months and the temptations of beer and bbqs my enthusiasm was starting to go South for the sport.
However I feel this gadget has salvaged matters. I think the key to the success of this is its simplicity, whilst like every piece of technology it has about a million functions, where this shines is that it does the basics very well.
Battery life is very good.
GPS is very good even in built up areas. (even got a signal walking around Tescos)
All seems very sturdy and water proof.

I think perhaps the best part of this however is the training log. I am using some software called "SportsTracks" and that is fantastic, it enables a 1 quick download straight from the 205 into the software and next thing you know you can look at your routes on Google Earth or just on the maps themselves, you can see where you were fast/ slow and compare routes.

Normally I buy gadgets get about 3 weeks use and then put it in a draw somewhere, however I sense this one will be different.
Bring on the The Great Eastern run!

I did toy with an adidas phone and the Nike plus thing and although I cannot comment on how good they are I am certainly more than happy with my Garmen! There are not many bad reviews for this devise and if you can hack not having a heart monitor and like the colour blue then you can save yourself about £50.
PS Amazon service was excellent as usual!

Brilliant !! (26. June 2008)

I am running 10k in October, and I bought this to help me train, I am extremely impressed with it! Brilliant! Recommended! Good value for the money!

Great for Skiing and Running (23. June 2008)

I'm not serious at doing any sport, but I really fancied this gadget because of its flexibility in use. When running it really does give consistent performance at tracking your progress, speed, etc, and the user-definability of the displays is great.

The product info doesn't say much about skiing, but I used it this winter in France and it was just fantastic. For skiing I displayed altitude, distance, time and maximum speed. Was astonished that we covered over 22miles on piste in a day and managed to hit 68kph on a long schuss!! The battery life is very good and it has good storage capabilities. Must admit haven't yet used any of the accompanying software or downloaded anything to PC so can't comment on that aspect of it, but I am very satisfied with this great and versatile piece of kit.

Forerunner 205 (27. May 2008)

I've only had the watch for a week but it's definately 5 star. You wont get a better unit for the money.

If you want a reliable, easy to use, running watch that tells you how far you've gone, how fast you're going and how long you've taken, you don't need anything else. The fact that it also has various training programmes, virtual training partner, calories burned and an elevation tracker is a bonus.

If you want to spend a lot more money, there are better watches. But for me (an experienced runner covering up to 40miles/week) I don't need anything else.