I'm beginning to get really fed up with my Forerunner 205. I have used it for a couple of years now, and before that had a 301. I have also used older heart rate monitoring devices, though without GPS. My training now depends on the Garmin, and I cannot imagine training successfully without something like it. But it is very unsatisfactory.
Here are the features I want in a runners' GPS device.
- It needs to pick up a GPS signal quickly. I do not live in a heavily wooded or highly urbanised area, but yesterday morning I had to wait three and a half minutes for it to pick up a signal. This is not unusual. When I bought the 205, I did so because it was advertised as being quicker to find a signal than the 301 I owned before. The reverse is the case.
- When I plug it into my Mac, I want it to be instantly recognised by the computer and Training Center launched automatically, just as, when I attach my camera or iPhone, iPhoto or iTunes are automatically started.
- It needs far better battery life. It is advertised as having. ten hours. This might have been true of my 301 but the 205 has been much worse, ever since i bought it. I'm lucky to get five or six hours before it needs recharging. The only advice Garmin support could offer was to do a reset, which I have done many times, but to no noticeable effect.
- I want something far more sophisticated than Training Center to manage my runs. Apart from the clunky look and feel of the application, I want to be able to manipulate data within the application, for example to sort runs by distance, date or any other factor simply by clicking on the arrow at the top of a column, as one does in any other application.
- I want it to import and export data much more easily, to and from a wider choice of file formats. In particular, it's crazy that every year Runners World publish allegedly Garmin-ready schedules, but in a file format that Training Center for the Mac doesn't recognise.
- Scheduling runs needs to work. The other week I constructed a whole sixteen week programme as preparation for London. When I transferred it tot he Garmin only the runs scheduled for Tuesdays went across. Why not integrate it with iCal, so I can schedule my runs in iCal and transfer them to the device?
- For the older runner like me, the screen, if one has more than one data element displayed, is very hard to read. And the buttons are not easy for arthritic fingers. Similarly, I am by no means deaf, but I find the alert sounds very hard to hear, yet there is no way to adjust the volume.
