Manufacturers Description

Just when you thought Garmin had cornered the market on powerful, affordable, and effective wrist-mounted GPS devices, here comes the Forerunner 305. The release of this device is a major achievement from a design and technology perspective. This isn’t just marketing-speak; the Forerunner 305 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 305 pushes the boundaries of what is possible from something strapped around your wrist. The 305 model includes wireless heart rate monitoring and it can also be connected to Garmin’s wireless bicycle speed and cadence sensor. If you don’t need these features, consider the lower-priced Forerunner 205.

Design

The 305′s design is a radical departure from Garmin’s previous generation of wrist mounted GPS devices, which reached a pinnacle with the Garmin Forerunner 301. While the 301 delivered accurate heart rate monitoring, good performance tracking, and decent GPS reception, it didn’t quite deliver in the design department. The form factor was bulky and wearing it wasn’t much different than duct taping a full-sized GPS device to your wrist.

Not so with the 305. Garmin’s engineers obviously burned the midnight oil and have come up with a waterproof design that, while certainly not as small as a sports watch, feels just as comfortable. The curved casing allows the unit’s antenna to face the sky when you’re running, while the widescreen display is perfectly positioned for viewing when you need it. And the display certainly deserves a few kudos. While it’s smaller than the display found on previous Forerunners, its resolution is far higher, offering incredible clarity and crispness.

Garmin has smartly given the 305 a simple button layout and the buttons have a nice tactile feel with good pressure response. The right side houses the menu selection and enter buttons, while the left houses a power/backlight button and a mode button. This simple and elegant solution is a big improvement over the sometimes confusing button functionality of previous Forerunners. View button layout.

The underside of the 305 is pretty nondescript, except for a row of contacts that interface with the included charging and data cradle. The cradle is small and unobtrusive and its single mini-USB port connects to either an included AC adapter, or a USB cable that connects to your PC. In addition to data transfer with the USB cable, you can also charge the 305′s embedded lithium-ion battery via a powered USB connection from your computer.

GPS Performance

The big news about the Forerunner 305 is that it features an integrated, high-sensitivity SiRFstar III GPS receiver. What does this mean? It means that the 305′s ability to both track, and maintain a lock on, your position is better than anything before it. After an initial battery charge, the tester had the 305 on his wrist and was tracking speed and distance with GPS satellites within 3 minutes. The next time we used the 305, satellite acquisition was nearly instantaneous. A run through dense trees didn’t faze the unit either; tracking remained true and steady. Performance on a bike was equally impressive. Whatever witchcraft has been cooked up by the designers of the SiRF technology, we like it!

While the Forerunner 305 isn’t billed as a GPS navigation device, it does have some rudimentary mapping, waypoint marking, and routing capabilities. In addition to marking locations along your journey, you can zoom in or out of a simple map that displays your current direction and path. There’s also a “go to location” feature that routes you back to your starting location, or to any location you have defined. Once you have defined several locations, you can save this information as a route, allowing you to travel the same path in the future. As you’ll see below, the 305′s new “Courses” feature gives you new levels of control over how you define your favorite runs and rides.

Training Functions

The 305 is first and foremost a training tool, and its ability to organize a ton of data types into a user experience that is intuitive and simple is no small feat. Whiz-bang technology aside, if you can’t use it and make it a natural part of your exercise routine, it’s worthless. When it comes to these factors — and here’s the take home message on the 305 — this device is successful where many other devices fail.

The heart and soul of the 305 can be found on the data screens, which give you real-time information about all aspects of your workout. In fact, the 305 can display a dizzying array of data, such as calories burned, distance, elevation, grade, and heading, as well as multiple lap and pace modes. The 305 adds the ability to track heart rate, lap heart rate, average heart rate, and heart rate zones via the included coded heart rate chest strap. With the purchase of a separate wireless cadence and speed meter, you can also track bike performance data.

Thankfully, the device makes it easy to define how much or how little data you want to view during a workout. You can arrange the data that’s most important to you and then make that data appear front and center on the device. Indeed, within a few minutes of skimming the manual and fiddling with the device setup, you’ll have your most important data displaying just the way you like it. The ability to display heart rate is a big plus, too, as it’s a fairly good indicator of exercise output, fatigue, and fitness level. The 305 has all the heart rate functions you’d expect from a full-function monitor, including the ability to set target zones and alerts to maximize the effectiveness of your workouts.

Garmin’s Virtual Partner function was cool feature of previous Forerunners and they’ve decided to keep a good thing going with the 305. If you’re the type that performs best when you’ve got a competitor egging you on, you’ll love this function, as it allows you to set up virtual running or biking companions that compete against you.

If you’re looking for a complicated workout with a variety of intervals and intensity levels, or just a quick three-mile jog against your best time last week, the 305 has you covered. Navigating to the Workouts menu on the device yields three options: Quick Workouts, Interval, and Advanced Workout. A quick workout is just that; set the distance and time, distance and pace, or time and pace of your planned workout and off you go. Interval workouts are just the same, but they allow you to add repetitions and rest between them. When you really want to get fancy with your exercise, you can step up to advanced workouts, which include goals for each workout step, as well as varied distances, times, and rest periods. You can use the Garmin Training Center software to set up these workouts and then upload them to the device.

PC Connectivity and Software

Garmin has been outfitting their devices with USB connectivity for some time now — a welcome move for those who struggled with serial port connections in the days of yore. Thanks to USB, the 305 integrates seamlessly with the Training Center software and we quickly had workout history uploaded and stored on the PC (Sadly, Training Center is not Mac-compatible). Not only does Training Center make it easy to track your performance, you can graph data such as heart rate alongside your speed and distance. Over time, this is a great way to view your fitness levels increase, and it also helps you see what types of workouts are necessary to strengthen your weaknesses. For instance, if you see your heartrate begin to spike after a certain distance, you know you need to increase your endurance workouts to train that area of fitness.

In a first for the Forerunner series, the Training Center software also lets you define courses on your PC that you can upload to the device. When course information is combined with uploaded workout information, the Forerunner becomes a complete guide, telling you where to go, when to make a turn, and what kind of workout to do when you’re on the road or path. Back on the PC, the software’s ability to overlay workout data on maps of the course makes it easy to see where the course offers up the tough hills and the easy recovery spots. Plus, the ability to track historical performance on a given course is a great way to measure your improvement.

The 305 is also fully compatible with Garmin’s Motion Based service, which takes your training to another level by connecting your data with the Internet. While we weren’t able to use the service, the promise of sharing courses, maps, workouts, and performance data with other users is intriguing. And if you’re a serious endurance athlete, you’ll be glad to know that the 305 is also compatible with TrainingPeaks.com, an easy-to-use web based training system designed to help athletes train for any event.

R. Cross – Brussels, Belgium – posted on Amazon

OK, first looks – you are thinking to yourself “But what if someone tries to land a helicopter on it’s enormous surface while I am out running?!”

Well, don’t worry about it. Yes it looks bulky but when you are out running you never notice the size and it’s easy to appreciate the highly configurable and easy to read display. This device is all about options. I choose to run with the four following items all simultaneously displayed:
Heart Rate, Elapsed running time, Average pace in km/h and Total Distance

I can of course choose to see other bits of information and have the screens changing at intervals I determine but part of the joy of running is getting away from it all and looking where you are going! The device just works, capturing all that lovely information about your heart, what kinds of slopes you are running on, how far you are travelling.

I once got lost in some big woods near where I live, then I simply turned the watch into navigation mode and was able to trace my way back through the forest to where I started from – absolutely brilliant gadget.

The real fun with the Forerunner comes when you get to analyze the data. The software provided with the watch is very basic. Most people I know download the excellent Sport Tracks software which is freeware from Zone 5 Software. To use this software you also need to have installed on your Windows PC a version of .NET from Microsoft (this is just some extra software for the Operating System to allow programs written in a certain way to run – again, it’s a free download from Microsoft).

Now you can amaze your friends and family about how far you run, how fast you go, how big the hills are you are running up, amaze them with how many calories you’ve burnt off. All in lovely printed graphical format. But whatever you do, don’t wear your watch out when you go down to the pub – for one, the battery (rechargeable from your PC) only lasts for 10 hours, but you might just have someone trying to land a helicopter on it!! This watch is cool for running, but nothing else.

These sorts of gadgets used to sell in Europe for about 400 but now that Garmin have brought out a new model with a fancy iPod wannabee interface (who cares – I never really touch the thing when I am out running, apart from the start/stop button), the price has dropped dramatically. For those of you like me who live in mainland Europe, the power supply has got switchable components so you can use the plug in different sockets. These days, I consider it to be essential training eqpt and I never run or cycle without it.

UPDATE – had the product for a year now, in fact I have bought a second one for my wife to use with her training. I’ve started to use the Workout function for my marathon training. You can design your whole training programme, upload it into the watch and then it tells you how fast you have to run and for how long. This is really useful if you are doing interval training for example, run 2Kms fast then ½km slow to recover, repeat 4 times. You get audible alerts if you are too fast or too slow or if your heart rate goes outside of the desired training zone. I’ve downloaded an entire marathon training schedule from the Runners World website and I just do what the watch tells me. So yes, I’m a raving fan of the Forerunner 305. The only negative point I would make is that the elevation data is not highly accurate but it does give a good impression of the kind of slopes you are running on.

M. J. Horsfield – UK – Posted on Amazon

This is an amazing device. I thought I would add the following to previous reviews.

Answers to the questions I couldn’t sort out before purchase (as a triathlete):
1. Can you swim with it? Sadly not. Although certified as waterproof it is not sufficiently watertight to swim with.

2. Can you download routes FROM memory map TO the device i.e. brand new runs/bikes planned at home on the map? YES – but you need to upgrade memory map 2004 software to the USB supporting version via their website. The device will then guide you around the planned course.

Added suggestions:

Everyone should check out SportTracks software (shareware – zonefive) which is vastly superior to the Garmin packaged applet. SportTracks integrates with google earth and automatically generates satellite images of your route.

The pre-loaded advanced training packages are good for turbo sessions. Obviously the GPS is useless but the watch will monitor your heart rate & cadence (with attachment) and instruct you through a pre-set or custom pre-programmed workout e.g. Cycle in zone 3 for 5 mins; Cycle in zone 4 for 2 mins etc.

Other bonuses over my old GPS and heart rate monitors:
It charges via USB while connected to the computer.
It has a coded heart rate belt – no cross-talk in the gym.
It has excellent GPS reception in the woods (much superior to my Geko 301).

All in all: For £150 a bargain. It has virtually replaced my old HRM and my GPS.

Downsides? £150 is still a lot. The large unit might put you off. It looks a bit retro. Can’t swim in it. I now *know* that I run as slowly as I thought!

Mr A. D. Parnell – UK – Posten on Amazon

I’ve recently taken up running and thought I was being extravagant when I bought this (top of the range and all that) but its been a fantastic investment, even for a relative beginner. Not being someone who like to run a set route, it has until now been difficult to know exactly how far I’ve run each day, or to know if I’m getting better/fitter.

The 305 helps with all of that, and more. Setting the ‘quick workout’ to a set distance/speed and using the virtual trainer to see if you’re ahead/behind schedule is very useful, and unlike a real partner who would demoralise you if they got too far ahead, you can just switch him off! Seriously though, being able to record each run is really motivatiing, especially when you can measure your increasing fitness (faster speed, slower heart rate etc).

Not used the online facilities because my Mac doesn’t run Tiger, but the screen shots look good. Its a bit bulky on your wrist, the writing is small if you try to display everything at once, but overall its great and I thoroughly recommend it.

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