Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS with HRM Review

The Garmin Forerunner 405 Wireless GPS-Enabled Sports Watch with heart rate monitor has been on the market for a while now and what I have heard from my adult children and others at sporting events, this watch is without a doubt the best training tool on the market. The Garmin Forerunner 405 may not be perfect but from what I can tell it seems pretty close. The ANT stick and the tracking software that you download to sync to the Forerunner is another great feature especially if you are working with a personal trainer.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 could replace your training coach.

As with any new tool, the Forerunner does have a learning curve to it. Out of the box it works great, but when you learn how to use all the features that the watch has you will almost be able to save on paying for a training coach. The 405 is a regular sports watch that you could wear all the time. It is not big and ugly like some of the training watches available.

The Garmin has everything in one device. You are able to track heart rate, pace, distance, elevation, and laps.

The GPS device saves you from mapping out your course. With the GPS city running is a lot easier. All you need to do is do your workout until you have completed your distance or time and then the Garmin Connect site will show you your map of the route you have taken. From the Garmin Connect site you can also transfer courses from other runner and run their course. You have the ability to compare your run to the same run of others. This really helps to push you to the next level.

The Forerunner will track all kinds of runs, with warm-ups, intervals, tempo intervals, pace segments, biking intervals. All the while it is also keeping track of your time, HR, pace.

The accuracy of this watch seems to be pretty good. We live on the shores of Lake Michigan and sometimes signals can skip over the water but so far this hasn't been an issue. It does take a few seconds sometimes to pick up the signal, but during that time you can do your warm ups.

The virtual partner is great when you do not have a companion to train with. The virtual partner also gets you into the habit of correctly pacing yourself to go the distant with less injury. This is really a very positive feature with this watch.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 is not for everyone.

The Garmin Forerunner 405 is a pretty intensive training tool and a little costly as well. This watch was more designed for the serious ultra competition enthusiast in mind. With all the functions available with this watch, casual runners, bikers or hikers may be really dissatisfied. Unless you are someone who is using a coach or thinking of using a coach to participate in some really big competitions, this watch may not be for you.

If you do triathlons and need something to record your time and laps in the water, the Forerunner is not for you. The Forerunner 405 is not waterproof. There have been a few complaints from users of this GPS watch that when the bezel gets wet it will freeze up or quit working all together. It appears that moisture is not friendly to the watch. Some extremely heavy sweaters had complained that the watch as stop working all together because of their sweating. My son-in-law sweats a lot during his work outs and has never had an issue with this. He does wear gloves however and tries to keep his hands dry when touching the bezel.

The battery life on the Garmin Forerunner 405 is only good for about 6 hours. If you are doing a triathlon or a 100 mile bike race the battery will go dead. You need to turn off the watch when not in use or you will burn up battery time. The watch does go into sleep mode but if it gets bumped, it will activate the watch and use battery time. During normal training, the watch needs to be recharged every two days. It would be nice to be able to use the watch for a twelve or twenty-four hour race. Maybe this is something Garmin will consider in the future.

The watch and watch band is not that appealing for most women. It is not something they would were on a daily bases. The watch band is a plastic and not very attractive. The plastic watch band has the antenna built into it. If you have a larger than normal sized wrist, for a man, the watch band is too tight. Some people have complained that the watch bands keep falling apart because of it being too tight. My son-in-law is a tall slender man with small bones so the watchband has never been an issue this far.

If you look at all the features that the Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS with HRM has you will be amazed at how well this watch handles most of your training needs. There is also great support at Garmin to assist you to get the most performance out of the watch. They have a large manual on their site that you can download to aid you in your understanding of the Forerunner and how to set the watch for your individual operating schedule. Remember the Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS is just a tool. It is up to the individual to use the tool correctly.