Amazon.com: Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS Receiver and Sports Watch: Garmin: Electronics: "Just when you thought Garmin had cornered the market on powerful, affordable, and effective wrist-mounted GPS devices, here comes the Forerunner 205. The release of this device is a major achievement from a design and technology perspective. This isn't just marketing-speak; the Forerunner 205 is the most accurate, most reliable wrist-mounted performance and GPS tracking tool we've ever tested. Yes, it's that good. While no device this compact can do everything (yet), the 205 pushes the boundaries of what is possible from something strapped around your wrist. While the 205 doesn't offer heart rate monitoring, or connectivity with Garmin's wireless speed and cadence sensor -- for that, you'll need to step up to the Forerunner 305 -- but it's a great way to get basic GPS location and performance data."
Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS Receiver and Sports Watch review: Well worth the extra cost!!!, By J. Sun "Mobile Analyst" (SF Bay Area, CA):
Buy This Product and Related ItemsI wrote an extensive six-part review comparing the Garmin Forerunner 205 with my older Garmin Forerunner 201. Here is the URL to the first part and you can find links at the bottom to the other parts:[...]If you don't want to read the full reviews then here is a summary of my likes and dislikes:
Likes* Comfort and Form factor: Usage model is very important and while the 205 is big, it feels and wears like a wrist watch. The plastic strap is more comfortable than the 201's velco strap, and the unit also comes with an extension strap if you need to bundle up and wear it outside your clothing. Personally, I want to look at my watch for instant data (i.e. time, pace, distance, etc) and feedback so I'm unwilling to place a device on my upper arm even if I have to sacrifice accuracy. In terms of form factor, the lap and start/stop buttons are well placed and sized on the face of the watch.* GPS Accuracy: The Garmin Forerunner 205's GPS receiver seemed much stronger. I can lock onto a signal inside my house next to a window, I haven't received one weak signal in a week over routes that caused my 201 trouble. And on my one run over a tree-covered, GPS signal-challenging course, the 205 came out a star, finally allowing me to measure a route that I was unable to with my 201. The GPS accuracy data field and the satellite acquisition screen are also cool bonuses.* Customization: The 205 allows you to customize 2 main screens and a third activity specific (i.e. run, bike or other) one with 1 to 4 data fields per screen. This is very cool, especially for data-driven geeks like myself. Another great thing about all the Forerunners is you can customize screens and settings on the fly without interrupting your current activity.* Real-Time Pacing: I'm not that interested in knowing how fast I'm going at a specific moment in time so never was a big fan of the "real-time" pacing feature of the 201. With that said, the 205 seemed to be more consistent and showed a tighter range of paces. It also seemed closer to how fast I felt I was going relevant to the current conditions (i.e. uphill, downhill, flat) than the 201, which showed a lot of variation and lag.* USB Cradle: Charging and uploading via USB is a nice. Much faster than the 201's serial port.
Dislikes* Display: The display of the 205 seems smaller and the history screens are dark and hard to read. I wish they didn't use the shading and just had the plain background.* Real-time elevation: For me this isn't a big deal, but the "real-time" elevation reading lags on the 205. It seems to tie closely with GPS accuracy. For example, after I finish my runs I'll usually walk a little in my backyard to cool down. The real-time elevation reading will then "catch up" to the correct elevation.* Buttons: My broken power button seems to be an anomaly so far since I haven't read of others with the same problem. With that said, the side buttons seems a bit stiff to me.* Battery indicator: It just shows 4 vertical bars. I liked the feature on the 201 where it told you how many hours of charge were left when you powered it on.
Cool Stuff* Tons of features: There are a lot of things the 205 can do such as import courses, advanced workouts, virtual partner and a bunch of other features that I need to explore
Wishlist* Reduce form factor* Color screen* Increase battery life* Improve waterproofing/water resistance* Add wireless connectivity for uploading and downloading data and information over the air to PC or mobile service
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