What is your favorite garmin forerunner?

The x30/35's are the newest ones. The 230 and 235 now offer many of the features that you could only get in the old 610/620.

I spent a lot of time researching and ended up getting the 630 with the new HRM (and a footpod). I'm pretty sure I would have been happy with the 230/235 but the price of the 630 bundle wasn't much more than getting the new HRM with the lower end models. So far I really like the 630.

BTW - My limited experience with wrist HRM is horrible. I've never had one that worked reliably. The new HRM-RUNv2 from Garmin is very comfortable. I had been taping my Polar H7 and using Body Glide to prevent chafing. So far after 30+ miles I have had no issues with the Garmin.

230. The 630 has features I'd use once. I don't want a optical hr.
I had a 220 and it was great.

No idea if the 235 wrist HR is accurate but I would be surprised if it is. It is very difficult to measure your HR from the top of your wrist. The sensor has to be placed perfectly and once you start sweating it will move no matter what you do.

If you use a HRM for pace maintenance, like keeping your easy runs easy... it'll do the job.

If you are using HRM to target Jack Daniels Repetition intervals like 6x200m... It's horrible for this. Also it's bad for hill repeats.

Cruise intervals aren't so bad, you just have to know your pace. While that kind of defeats the point of the HRM, reviewing the data after the fact might help you figure out what pace to start out at next time.

I hope the successor to the 235 does a better job, I don't expect firmware updates to fix this. That said, simply having the numbers even if there is a delay in fast heart rate changes is nice, the all day activity/sleep/resting heart rate aspect is nice, the 4 data fields in a 2xx model is nice, smart notification are nice...

All in all its a good upgrade, but not the end all be all.

EatWholeFoods wrote: »

So maybe I get a 630 then not 610. Someone said one of the 600 series had trouble syncing with garmin connect. I currently don't use garmin connect with my forerunner 110 lol.

225, 230, 235 all seem cool when a shop showed me. Is the wrist hrm accurate?

There is a LOT of discussion on the Garmin forums about the optical HRM not being accurate, especially for intense and short interval work. However, I have one and have been using it for about a week and a half (daily) and have not had any issues with the optical HRM. I've never had unexpected spikes or dips. A lot of the "issues" reported may be attributable to not wearing the watch above your wrist bone and not wearing it tightly enough. For the typical user, i think the HRM is accurate enough. A chest strap (at least a good one) will be more accurate, but for most people, the accuracy gained is not significant. My biggest things I want to see for my runs is the average HR and the max HR. I run 8 minutes, walk 1 minute. When I review my HR graph, it is very consistent and shows big dips in HR when I'm taking my walk break, as expected, and goes back up when I start running again (something I've heard others complain about). I used to run with a Polar H7 so I know about where my HR should be given my effort and it's right on where it should be. In fact, when I first started using it, I had been sick and hadn't run for a couple of weeks and my average and max HR were a bit higher, which corresponded to how I felt and what I would have expected.

That said, I am still on the fence about keeping it. The Garmin Connect software is absolutely awful. My watch frequently doesn't auto-sync so I have to force sync (not a big deal once I found the option on the menus). It does NOT connect well with RunKeeper where I'm a premium member and this could be the downfall for me personally. I am currently using Tapiriik to get my data to RunKeeper and that is highly annoying. There isn't an option to modify the distance for a treadmill run on the watch or the app - you can do it through the website though. And finally, setting up intervals only works if you run in interval mode, whereas with my TomTom, you set up intervals but still use the run function (basically, it's more button pushes to get going than it was with my TomTom).

All in all, the reason I looked for an alternative to my TomTom (which I really love) is that the current pace on TomTom is very erratic and very wrong. Garmin seems much more consistent with that.

dewd2 wrote: »

No idea if the 235 wrist HR is accurate but I would be surprised if it is. It is very difficult to measure your HR from the top of your wrist. The sensor has to be placed perfectly and once you start sweating it will move no matter what you do.

A lot of people that had issues (significantly more men than women in the threads I've been reading) have had much better luck wearing it on the underside of their wrist rather than the top. The theory is that arm hair is interfering. I haven't really had my watch slide around too much while running (it did while lifting but I wasn't wearing it as tightly as I do while running) but if I put it back where it was, I've never had it not pick right back up.

YeaYeaPueblo wrote: »

Great thread! I'm upgrading my polar H4 to a Garmin for my birthday and I'm going back and forth on ditching the chest strap. The chafing and slipping of the chest strap is a distraction. I'm leaning toward the forerunner 235 if I can convince my husband its worth the price tag vs other forerunners (225, specifically)!

FWIW, I recently switched from the H7 to the new Garmin HRM4-Run chest strap and I no longer have chafing issues. I used to tape the H7 and put body glide on to keep my chest from being rubbed raw. The new Garmin chest strap has been comfortable from day one. I've had it now for a couple months and I don't even think about it any more.

Of course YMMV.