Home > Consumer Reviews > Garmin Forerunner 405 Sports Watch with USB ANT stick - Black

this sportwatch / GPS isn't perfect and depending on what you value, you'll either love it or hate it (as confirmed by the many reviews on the 405 and 305 and the comparisons between the two). I'll list some criteria of mine and rate this watch accordingly. (Note: I've had it for a week now, and used it several times, plus I have owned other Garmin handheld GPS devices in the past).

* Reliable GPS: my biggest complaint with prior GPS devices was that they lost the satelites under the trees which made their distance measurements fairly useless (as I run in a forest). This watch is amazing. it grabs onto the signal and holds it fast. Really cool!

* wearable sport watch: unlike the 305 which is a bit big and heavy for my tastes, this is really a wearable watch. Obviously this is vastly superior to the handheld gps devices (but of course no map either).

* Utility for running: when I run, I primarily care about the time (or lap time) and how far I have gone. Both of these pieces of information are visible on the training screen (but it is important to push both the buttons to lock the bezel so that odd things don't occur during the run). So for my main priorities, this watch is really excellent.

* Features: this is a full featured watch with all kinds of extras such as a virtual training partner to pace yourself against, etc. More than I will use, but it's pretty loaded.

* pc software: conceptually there are really cool pc software programs (like sporttracks freeware from zonefive software and the less good software that garmin distributes) which should make it fun to analyze all the data (including seeing your tracks in google earth). why I say conceptually should become clear in my next bullet.

now for the less good stuff:

* Ease of installation: Although getting the watch up and running was fairly easy, I still haven't gotten the thing to talk to the ANT PC USB stick nor have I gotten it to talk to the heart monitor! Even though the watch says it has pairing enabled, and teh PC says the ANT is searching for a watch. From googling around, apparently this problem can be solved, but at least based on what I read, no one has any good theories as to waht the problem is, or how to reliably address. Suffice it to say that many people, including me, found that the bluetooth wireless communication simply doesn't work well out of the box. Quite frustrating. I'm a computer scientist by training and have some experience with electronic devices...yet so far, to no avail.

* usability: although the bezel is a cool idea (ipod like), the instantiation of this idea isn't great. the bezel is way sensitive and the menu structure isn't intuitive. One frequently ends up in places one doesn't want to be. With some time, experimentation, and learning, it is usable...however these are not the hallmarks of an intuitive user interface design. I'm really glad they have the lock bezel feature.

OK, I'm probably over amazon's recommended word count, so I'll stop. bottomline, I like the watch, glad I bought it, and it serves my primary objectives well, but in many ways I consider it a "version 1" and so you have to be a patient tech friendly person to rate it the way I did.

I have just got my Forerunner today and have given it a good go. This is my first GPS watch and I think its amazing. I don't like the heart rate monitors which I have had with other watches so I bought my 405 without it. I have found the watch very easy to use and it connects quickly to my computer. It also charges very quickly to. When I uploaded the data and looked at the google earth map it did show a slight error. It showed that I was running in a hedge and in the middle of the road at points but I was actually running on the path a couple of feet away. I have checked the route and it is pretty much the same distance, so this really doesn't make much difference. I found it accurate and worth buying. However I have read reviews on the watch being poor compared to the cheaper 305 but I haven't tried the 305.
Also I have not had problems with the touch bezel but make sure you wipe your hand of sweat if you want to mess with it on the fly.
Hope this review helps you.

I upgraded from a 205 which had an excellent user interface, good battery life, rich set of features and was very easy to use. My main reason for upgrading is that I wanted a heart rate monitor built in and liked the idea of a smaller unit with better GPS receiver. On balance I made an expensive mistake and wish I'd just bought a cheap HRM to go with my 205. While the addition of the HRM is nice and the device is smaller, everything else about it is worse than before. The battery runs flat about twice as fast as before (you can't switch the unit off - so it continually drains). The user interface (bevel) is appalling - it's difficult to use when standing still, very difficult to use when running and almost impossible to use once you get sweaty hands. The features are poor (less of them and less options) compared to the 205, far less intuitive driven menus and clumbsy in operation. It doesn't connect to MapSource (unlike the 205) because the USB link is purely for charging - and don't get me started on that useless ANT USB device - very little navigation software recognises it. I work in the software industry as a developer and I would be too embarrassed to put out something as bad as this to my customers. If you've already got a 205/305 please please please keep it and don't upgrade just yet. This product has a lot of maturing to do to get anywhere near acceptable. If you are looking to buy your first GPS, and you don't know any better, this product might impress you a little more than it did me, but I would suggest for now that you buy an older 205/305 which you can get for a steal.

Pros
Map of where you've run on Garmin website
Distance calculations are pretty accurate (More so than Nike+ accelerometer)
Customisable displays - pace, distance and a neat virtual training partner showing time ahead/behind

Cons
Erratic satelite connection
Current pace varies from 3 min/mile to 12 min/mile
Buttons/Bezel unresponsive/over responsive
Had trouble downloading software initially and have lost data during transfers.
Elevation figures seem to be way off.

I bought this watch after a couple of friends had used one for running for a while. I now use it for my regular training runs, along with a Garmin heart monitor (bought separately).
The watch is fairly easy to set up, as is the software on your PC.
Before setting out, you have to ensure that the watch is charged up, and then set it to training mode. At that point the watch searches for satellite signals. If you're indoors, you need to get near a window! It can take several minutes, albeit sometimes it just takes a few seconds.
Once the signal is picked up, you're away.
To download the data after your run, you just take your watch to your PC, where you will have permanently plugged in the supplied dongle. The PC will recognise the fact that the watch is nearby and automaically start to download the data.
Once complete, the PC will display your route. By clicking a tab, you can also see a vast array of data such as half mile lap times, run speed (min max avg), heart rate, elevation etc etc. This data is stored in weekly folders and you can also export it for backup.
My only issue with the Garmin is that the downloaded data is in some sort of proprietary format and cannot readily be exported in Excel/Access. If this were available, one could then perform unlimited statistical analysis!!
All in all, a superb piece of technology !