Customer Reviews

Garmin Forerunner 405, Black

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the first review, ever, I have written about a product but I am so happy with it that I want to encourage others to buy it.

I bought the Garmin Forerunner 405 package (watch, USB connector and Heart rate monitor (HRM)) in July 2009 and it is one of the best purchases I've ever made.

At the time, I had just committed to yet another attempt to get in better shape and thought being able to track my runs (distance, time and HRM) would be an effective way to keep myself motivated. I'm a nerd when it comes to gadgets and I love keeping track of everything (e.g. I love MS Money) so this watch was just perfect for me.

Here are some cools things about the watch that I am particularly happy about:
1) the HRM (which you snap around your chest): starting from the poor shape I was in, it really helped having something in addition to the time and distance of each workout: while I kept running at a slow pace and at the same speed, I could quickly see progress in terms of a lower HR.

2) the fact that my runs gets imported into Google earth. After each run, all I need to do is approach my desktop and the watch starts sending the details of the run (speed, GPS locations, time etc) to the computer. Thereafter, a neat little program shows me the run (speed, HR etc) in Google earth.

3) it allows you to "lock in" the GPS location of a particular spot and then use that as a guide to find your way back. I use this when I travel. Upon arriving at a new hotel (in a new city), I lock in the hotel's location. The watch then has a feature called "go to location" that will guide you back to a particular location you have stored (i.e. it brings up a little compass that will guide you back to the hotel from whereever you might end up later in the day).

4) the optional footpod is convenient to have if you run on treadmills (inside where the GPS won't work). I also attach it to my shoes when I play squash to see how much of a workout I'm getting (as I said, I am a nerd when it comes to measuring things).

Here are some things which are not superb about the watch:
a) the battery in the food pod had to be replaced within 6 months
b) sometimes it can take up to 5 minutes for the watch to locate satelites. This is frustrating! The problem is particularly severe if you have moved from one country to another. Usually, when I run the same routes (within a country), it "remembers" the satelites and it connects within a minute or two.

I hope this was useful. Best, Lars

I purchased this monitor while I was stationed at FOB Warhorse in Iraq. My intent for the watch as two-fold, 1) I wanted an easy way to keep track of where I had been during dismounted patrols and 2) to replace my aging and dying Polar RS200sd heart rate monitor.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 (with Foot Pod!) is very good at what it does, which is keep track of where you were, how fast you went, and roll all that up into a neat little software package that lets you do a virtual tour of it all. Very cool. Just not very practical. The GPS information (i.e. location and altitude) is not displayed on the monitor. You can get heart rate, speed, average speed, average HR, etc but no location information. You also can't easily get that once you've downloaded the data to your computer (you have to get pretty clever with Google maps to make that happen). It takes a bit for to get a decent satellite lock, but once it does it has no issues with tracking. As a GPS device, this monitor is rather lacking. Don't misunderstand it does keep track of where you are and what you are doing, it is just impossible to figure it out while you are doing it. Its not like a dedicated GPS that you glance at and know where you are and where you've been.

But wait! Its not a GPS device, its Heart Rate Monitor! It says so right in the title! And yes it does that! But it doesn't do anything with the information it tracks. Its programming is based upon your age, weight, height, and...distance traveled. Heart rate doesn't play into its calculations at all, or if it does it plays such a limited role that in my four months of using it I never once varied from burning 103 kCal per mile traveled. Not if it took me 7:30 with an average HR of 178, or if I dawdled along and did it in 18:00 minutes @ 107 BPM, it was 103 kCal. And if I didn't move? Let's say I was rolling on the mats, or lifting weights, or doing step-aerobics, no matter how high my heart rate got (188), my kCal expenditure was exactly 0. So it doesn't exactly give you the fitness information that other monitors do.

Now, where this system excels is in the bundled software. The Garmin software is outstanding and its integration with Google maps is impressive. The ability to compare heart rate with speed/effort is very nice. It is also easy to customize and tweak to generate reports that fit exactly what you are looking for (HR over time, speed, and elevation for example so you can see just how much that hill really sucked at the end of your run, compared with how easy it felt when you did it at the beginning of your run). The software isn't without its limitations, for one thing you can't edit the raw data, or even view it in any meaningful form. I know the data is there, buried among the software's xml files, but trying to sort it out was just about impossible and not worth the effort.

Another plus is just how robust this watch is. Where my Polar was scratched up, beaten up, and giving in slowly and painfully to the rigors of Iraq the Garmin kept right on going. It took four months of use and abuse with nary a complaint and as a watch there is a lot to be positive about, the display is easy to read, the back light is bright but subtle, the ability to synch its time with the satellites overhead was a real time saver for me.

Although this watch is physically more appealing I enjoyed my previous Garmins much more. The bezel is way to sensitive and the owners manual is useless. I wish Garmin would keep the same style but get rid of the Bezel.

Overall I love my 405. It does everything I expected it to and is much smaller than the other versions my friends use on their bikes or for running. I don't care for the sensitive dial though, especially if it gets wet (even sweat), but it is possible to lock the dial so it doesn't get changed, so that helps. The syncing with my computer works great. I have the foot pod and heart rate monitor as well, and they are great. Also have a mount for my bike and that is very handy to have visible while I'm riding. I have had to do a system reset a couple of times when it seemed to just "die" or freeze up, but everything was fine afterwards. If Garmin addresses (or redesigns) the over-sensitive dial, this would be the ultimate gps/sport watch.

The watch functions very well overall, is easy to use, good battery life while in GPS mode (easy 24 hours) and about 4-5 days without GPS use. Logs workouts per session, and gives an overall total of miles/time. The touch bezel is a bit sensitive, the light contantly goes on and off in the shower. No issues with bezel during use, all functions (other than light) go into a standby mode after a few minutes requiring user to push a button to unlock bezel. Im using in harsh area (afghanistan) on daily basis and am very pleased with the performance so far.

I bought this and noticed that the mail in rebate coupon was not included. Contacted the seller, who never replied. Quite disappointed about that.

The Garmin Forerunner is great for running & biking - unfortunately cannot be used while swimming unlike the Suunto and Polar. It takes some getting used to - it took me two weeks to finally get the hang of it - but it really does improve your training in terms of monitoring pace and distance. Was on the fence about order the bundle (foot pod and HR monitor) but am very glad I did - very useful for the gym for spinning and treadmill workouts.

One downside - the battery lasts only about 8 hours. Sometimes the ANT agent takes a while to connect to the forerunner to upload data to the computer.

Overall am happy with it.

The watch is an excellent all-around training device that can be used across many sports. I found more use for it than I intended. I like the web facilities and how it let's me analyze every second of my runs.

Too bad the Footpods and the HR Monitors seem to come with battery problems. I had to send mine back to Garmin for replacement as the accessories just wouldn't pair. They sent me a replacement and this time the HR Monitor paired in a second and the footpod is yet another bad one even from the box. I hope replacement #3 works. But the watch itself is awesome.

The retailer I bought the product from HRM were very prompt in their delivery and are willing to support; but Garmin kind of undermines their efforts with the browning HR monitors and footpod.

Hi, before buying it I did read some of this reviews, some good other bad, as usual. I must say it is a good gadget in general; good size, good gps performance (when it is not cloudy), footpod and HRM work as good as other brands. I see two operational issues; one is to use the bezzel when you run and your hands are wet; but I think I can live with that, secondly, battery only lasts 8 hours when you have GPS ON, this might be a problem. Garmin webpage does have a lot of problems, but they are improving it also the training centre (a local application) is not very nice. I think Garmin will do the improvements soon, hopefully. By the way, you can change the battery of the footpod, that is good for garmin, other brands (like Nike) make you buy a new footpod when its battery is off.
Also, you can select many fields to see in the screen when you run, and even I am not a pro-user yet, I believe it can help a lot for training, like virtual partner option.

At first I thought the price was high for what I was looking for. But after finding out all this things it can do I purchased a bundle with the foot pod and heart rate monitor. What can't it do is the question??
1) Logs your run (automatically loads it when your near your pc) - you can watch it back over a google map, it shows your pace/speed, heart rate, elevation, mileage at any given point.
2) I have asthma, it constantly reports my heart rate so I can feel more comfortable.
3) You know your exact mileage, at times before the GPS I thought I was running further than I was. When I used this gps I found out I wasnt. Helps with goals.
4) You can set mileage, calorie goals for a week, month etc. and it will keep track for you.
5) I could go futher but by now you get the point
NO RUNNER, JOGGER or biker should be without.

I am a geek, a gadget person. I love all kind of gadget's, and this was to me one of the perfect combination's of technology on my way to get fit. After review the other option's I end up selecting this one just because of the support for MacOSX. Anyway, personally I had a really hard time to get used to the Bezel technology, way too complex and too sensible, that sometimes it's not fun. I really don't want to struggle with their way to access functionality using their ultra sensible Bezel, and their super complex menu's to get the information that I want in meantime I am running or biking. Also it drove me nut's the fact that in order to set up the time I had to be in a area where I had an excellent reception of the Satellite signals.
Look's cool, some really nice features, great set of information and support. But way to complex to use when it suppos to be used.

I have some mix feeling's to recomend this.