Garmin 405 vs. Polar HRM

Why not save a couple hundred bucks and buy a 205?

well normally id say garmin but based on wat u want id have 2 say u should go with the heart rate monitor

go with the Garmin 305. Yes it is bulkier but the face is so big and easy to see 3 different types of data at one time.

The 205 and 305 were on last week at REI (for $125 and $165, respectively), so I tried one of them one. It was actually NOT easy to see the data at all because the watch naturally sits in an orientation so that the face of the watch is angled away from view. I had to awkwardly over rotate my forearm to see the display. It seemed more usable with the watch face on the underside of the arm, but I wonder if that would affect the reception. I don't think it's just my wrist because I've seen other comments on this in reviews.

I was just looking, but if I were buying today, that would be reason enough for me to get the 405 over the 205/305. I generally don't use gadgets that annoy me, so the 205/305 would probably end up not getting any use. That would be a bigger waste of money than spending more for the 405 to start with. I tried that on too, but I'll wait for more reviews...

With any watch, the face is angled away from view. Just look at a normal watch and position your arm as if you are running. The face of the watch if pointing away from you. You need to turn your forearm inwards to see the face of the watch...

Yeah I agree wearing any watch you still need to turn your arm a bit. It is not an akward motion at all.

I like my 305 a lot.

Whatever one you go with def get sports tracks software.

Polar lets you track distance very very well. With the small easy to wear pod you can track: pace & dist. The 625 also works with your bike if you want to get the simple bike ad ons. It will work on the trails (NO Satellites). I've never owned a Garmin but my Polar 625 is the great. Running with a Garmin wearer once on the roads, we were very close in distance tracked. Hit the trails or in blind spots and the GPS won't work. The Polar is, and I believe tests prove?, that it is the most accurate for dist of the watches. Also the heart rate engine is superior to any as it is historically the company's core business. They have cool Windows based software too that interfaces with the watch: graphs, zones, workouts, HR, dist, pace, calendar.......

I'm always surprised that more runners here don't brag about their Polars.

DistanceDude wrote:

Yeah I agree wearing any watch you still need to turn your arm a bit. It is not an akward motion at all.

I like my 305 a lot.

Yes, you need to rotate your forearm with any watch, but the 305 wanted to sit so the interior angle of the L shaped body of the watch(looking from the side) sat on the flat my my arm/wrist rather than the big flat part of the watch. It needed to be rotated substantially more (to the point of awkwardness) than the 405 that I tried on for comparison, as well as my Timex.

I didn't check for the usable viewing angles in the 305 and 405, but may affect the amount you need to rotate a watch. In my older Timex, you the LCD is readable only within a narrow range of angles near orthogonal to the face. In my more recent Timexes (sleek, and sleek hrm) the LCD is viewable at much greater angles, so you don't need to rotate the face all the way over.