Garmin Forerunner 205

The Garmin Foreunner 205 is another superb wrist mounted GPS. Its design and technological advances make it one of the most accurate, reliable wrist-mounted performance and GPS tracking tool on the market.

The Garmin Forerunner 205 is a compact devise that pushes the boundaries of what is possible from something strapped to 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) it’s a great way to get basic GPS location and performance data.

A nice feature of the Garmin 205’s design is that its curved casing allows the GPS antenna to always face the sky when you’re running or walking.

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Garmin Forerunner 205 Design

The 205′s design is a big departure from Garmin’s other wrist mounted GPS devices, In particular when you compare it to the original 301. While it delivered accurate heart rate monitoring, good performance tracking, and decent GPS reception, it was very big and bulky. Too big to have strapped to your wrist.

The 205 also has a nice wide screen for viewing and great resolution for enhanced clarity and crispness.

The Garmin 205 has a simple button layout feel with good pressure response. The right side shows the menu selection and enter buttons, while the left side has a power/backlight button and a mode button. This simplicity is a big improvement over the sometimes confusing button functionality of previous Forerunners.

The underside of the 205 has a row of contacts for interfacing with the charging and data cradle. The cradle is small and unobtrusive and has a  single mini-USB port which connects to either an AC adapter. By using a  USB cable it can also connect to your PC.

Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS Performance

The Garmin Forerunner 205 features an “integrated, high-sensitivity SiRFstar III GPS” receiver. What this means is that the 205 can easily and accurately track and maintain a lock on your position – something which is better than the competition and anything prior to it. After an initial battery charge, the unit should be tracking speed and distance with GPS satellites within 3 minutes. After the first use, the satellite acquisition should be nearly instantaneous.

While the Forerunner 205 isn’t marketed as a GPS navigation device, it does have some basic 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 205′s new “Courses” feature gives you new levels of control over how you define your favorite runs and rides.

Garmin Forerunner Map

The Garmin Forerunner 205 Training Functions

This watch is first and foremost a training tool. Its ability to organize a ton of data types into a user experience is intuitive and simple.

It also gives 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.

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 clearly 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.

Garmin’s Virtual Partner function is a cool feature that allows you to compete against a virtual opponent or companion. All you do is set it up and start competing against it.

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 205 has you covered.

Navigating to the Workouts menu on the device yields three options:

• Quick Workouts – 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
• Advanced Workouts – get fancy and 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 uses USB connectivity to get the data to and from your PC quickly.

In a first for the Forerunner series, the Training Center software also lets you to 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 205 is also fully compatible with Garmin’s Motion Based service, which takes your training to another level by connecting your data with the Internet.

If you’re a serious endurance athlete, you’ll be glad to know that the 205 is also compatible with TrainingPeaks.com, an easy-to-use web based training system designed to help athletes train for any event.

Bottom Line for the Garmin Forerunner 205

…. is that it is one of the best sport watch GPS on the market. For the huge amount of information it can collect, and the resulting benefits it can give you – it is very reasonably priced – especially for the athlete wanting to monitor and improve both his/her training, health and endurance.

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