Best GPS Watch?

You get what you pay for.

If running is something you see yourself doing for a long period of time, spend a little more and get a Garmin. My 220 has been going strong for nearly 5 years and still functions perfectly. TomTom is pretty good, too, but IMO nothing beats a good ol' Garmin.

Garmin 305.

/thread

Awesome, sounds like everyone is pretty gung ho for Garmin, defiantly taking your advice to heart. Will most likely choose Garmin, thanks again :). Will keep updating this post to see if any more respond.

Polar M400/430

I love my Garmin Forerunner 25. I bought a certified refurb for like $67 and it has been great. You can get a new one for like $90 right now. Added a $15 HR strap and I have a great setup.

Get an entry level Garmin. You can probably get a Forerunner 25/35 in good shape for under $100. Garmin does a much better job with updating the software of their older units than any other company. You'll be using it for years, which ups the value significantly.

Deciding to go with the Garmin vívoactive 3 Music. It's a Garmin, which is the brand everyone seams to really enjoy overall. I've owned Garmin products in the past, the GPS seams to always be reliable. The thing I love about this watch is that you can download music onto the watch itself. Then play it off your bluetooth headphones. You can't beat that... Specially for the price. $237.00 at my local Best Buy. About to hop in my car and pick it up! Thanks again for all your help and advice! Much appreciated

JasonCo wrote:

.The thing I love about this watch is that you can download music onto the watch itself. Then play it off your bluetooth headphones. You can't beat that... Specially for the price. $237.00 at my local Best Buy.

Except you can :-

$120. Plus:-

$68.

$188 total. Job done.

I'd vote Garmin as well. I've had my Forerunner 230 for several years now and it is still great. I have no inclination to upgrade whatsoever. I did try the Forerunner 35 for a few days before buying the 230. Even though I took the 35 back, it seemed like a great watch (especially around your price point). I wasn't very impressed with the optical heart rate, but I think it'd be fine as a health tracker. That's the direction I would go. It is currently $120 on Amazon. A used 220 might be worth checking out if you are not set on a new one and you can find one.

Also... sundial + gas station map + old belt + duct tape?

I looked into the Forerunner watches but you can't store music in the watch itself. You can only use bluetooth and stream music off your smartphone. So you'd have to run with your phone along with the watch and headphones. With the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music watch, you can download up to 4MB of music directly onto the watch itself, which is an overkill amount of storage for music. I'll never fill it up. So I can enjoy runs with the watch and headphones and that's it! I can finally leave the phone in the car, which is a big plus for me personally.

JasonCo wrote:

I looked into the Forerunner watches but you can't store music in the watch itself. You can only use bluetooth and stream music off your smartphone. So you'd have to run with your phone along with the watch and headphones. With the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music watch, you can download up to 4MB of music directly onto the watch itself, which is an overkill amount of storage for music. I'll never fill it up. So I can enjoy runs with the watch and headphones and that's it! I can finally leave the phone in the car, which is a big plus for me personally.

4gb hopefully rather than 4mb but that's the same set up I have with those headphones above - just upload all your music on to the headphones themselves and use that with the watch, no phone required, plus no mucking around with the watch to change volume, album, whatever...

Either way though it is good to run without carrying a phone about.

Oh yes my bad on that! Meant to say 4GB. Wait I didn't even catch that in the first post, didn't realize those headphones had storage in them! Never even crossed my mind to even think of that haha. I guess that does beat the $250.00 (after tax) price tag I spent on the watch, + my headphones I bought awhile back which were around $60. So $310 setup vs $200 setup. Both setups have their benefits I'd say.

Well so far I'm one day into buying the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music, must say the watch looks slick. Really good size and looks great on the wrist, feels good and surprisingly light. Downloaded all my songs onto it, and it works like a charm with my headphones. It tracked my sleep last night which I found to be super interesting, wasn't expecting that lol. Just got done putting a screen protector on the watch so it's good to go! Was really psyched to go run today to test out the GPS but it's been poring and lightning all day. Tomorrow is a rain free day, going to give it a go and post back here with my thoughts!

Little update on the run. GPS works like a charm (so I think...)! Plugged my GPS into my computer afterwards to look at a more detailed overview of my pace and heart rate and etc... It's very detailed, shows a map of my run and shows the elevations and basically gives you information on just about anything and everything. Heck it even has a database of every other runner that uses a GPS and shows you their paces and compares you to them if you want lol. It's pretty sick!

One thing that is super alarming to me though, is that my average heart rate during the run was 190.... It topped out at 203 o_0... Umm that seams pretty excessive. Like it's actually freaking me out. I'm 28, ran 3 miles today with no break, i feel like it shouldn't be that high. I've been running off and on for years, and have always kept in relatively good shape. For the last 3 months I've been running every other day and doing body workouts at the end of my runs. Either the watch is horrible at tracking heart rate during runs and workouts or I have a serious problem lol. I don't know what to think. I always push myself pretty hard when I run, but 203 can't be healthy for my heart.

So next time I go running and my heart rate gets up to 200, I'm going to instantly stop and do a manual check on my heart rate using my fingers and a timer. If it's 200 then I have a serious problem... If it's like 160 or so, then I'm returning the watch. Taking tomorrow off from running I think, maybe I'll run not sure. If I don't, no doubt about it I'm running Tuesday. Will update this after the run. To be honest, I REALLY hope the watch is messed up haha, the thought of 203 is blowing my mind.

Jason,

My experiences with watches/fitness trackers is that they guess high on heart rate. Manually checking it sounds like a good idea though, interested to see how that turns our. My guess is your heart rate is more in the 170-180 range.

With the music, where are you downloading the music from? I stream all my music via spotify or apple music, and if I have to buy the music before downloading it that may be a dealbreaker for me on this watch.

You need to get a chest strap. The wrist HR is crap. Make sure you wet the chest strap before each run. It'll read the first mile better. I squirt contact solution on the back side of the strap just before I head out the door. Works great.

Well I'll be honest. Most of my music is just a bunch of remixes and stuff you can't find besides on Youtube and Sound Cloud. They can't be sold because no one has them up for sale. I just download the .mp3 file straight off Youtube or Sound Cloud by using free websites that'll download the mp3 onto your computer. Then I just plug in my watch to the computer and drag the mp3 files into my watch. This watch has 4GB of storage, so I can store up to like roughly 600-700 songs. Way more space than I'll ever use lol. That's what I do. I'm all for supporting artists and buying music, it's just most of my stuff is from Youtube DJ's who just upload free stuff for people to listen to. I mean you could basically "illegally" download any song you want using this method, but yeah I think supporting artists and buying it is about as healthy of a decision as you can make. To each his own I guess

I'm very much enjoying this watch, I really don't want to return it! I talked to my brother and he's going to lend me his fitbit and I'm going to run with both the Garmin and the fitbit at the same time and see how accurate one is from the other. If both are inaccurate then I'm probably going to just keep the watch. He does run with his fitbit and he tops out at around 160 BPM. So with that I'm also going to do the good ole finger trick, which is very accurate! So we'll see what happens. Stay tuned for an update!

There is Garmin Forerunner that goes under $100 and Garmin Instinct, an ABC watch in an under $200 price range.

wildproofgear.com/best-compass-watch

The Instinct is obviously the better option with lots of features but the price will be fair for you only if you need those trackback, barometer altimeter, compass and some workout stuff like heart monitor and stress.

My Instinct is also smartphone compatible but I guess that the Forerunner as well?

If you want a GPS / HRM watch your options are Garmin, Suunto, Corus and if you don't mind a brand that is slowly dying away Polar. I don't think Suunto really has lower end models - their niche is sort of adventure sports like ultra trail racing and mountain climbing. Corus is basically an alternative to Garmin if you want a top end unit but don't want to spend $600. I've not looked at their full product line but I do know they have some nice units that compete with the Garmin Fenix line. There is nothing inherently wrong with Polar units if you can still find them.

If you want a good, entry level to top end HRM /GPS Garmin is the way to go." Garminconnect" is their application you can use for tracking workouts and your overall health - went down last summer for a few days, never really heard why. Garmin sells Bike computers bathroom scales and a full suite of related kit that you can use for other sports. Personally, I don't want to use multiple software applications to track running/cycling/swimming workouts

I'm sure others in answering your post have good suggestions for an entry level unit. I've owned a Fenix 6X sapphire for about a year and it's been rock solid with wicked long battery life but its well above your desired price point. One thing you would want to do is buy a unit that has been released recently to make sure you get all the most current bells and whistles and the newest sensor technology. DC Rainmaker has the most through YouTube product reviews and he's pretty objective