Tuesday, January 4, 2011

New Garmin Same as the Old Garmin. Only better.

Well, I bought myself the new Garmin 410 last fall.  I have used it several times, and have a rather succinct review: its the same as the 405, only improved.  (For my love/hate relationship with my old 405, read here.)  The undeniably biggest difference is that the touch bezel no longer goes psycho crazy when it gets wet or sweated upon.  I haven't run in summertime humidity with intense sweating yet, but I did run in the rain with it.  And so far it acts normally.  That is it rightfully reacts to a touch from a finger and not to wetness.  Also the fact that it is wet does not cause it to freeze or lock up.

So that is an improvement.  Other than that?  Seems to me to be the same watch.  Looks the same, same strap (although it does come with a soft strap).  Same interface and screens and software (although it is supposed to pick up satellites better, but I haven't noticed). I am a little frustrated in that I had all of my settings and screens set up on my old watch, and now I have to figure them all out again to get it to the way I like it.

Sort of an anti-climactic review I know, but it really doesn't feel any different from the 405, other than the fact that the 410 works when it is wet.  That is a big improvement, but worth dropping 360 bucks on?  If you have a 405, I wouldn't run out and buy the 410 unless you need a new Garmin; my old 405  was kind of getting long in the tooth; I bought it the first couple of weeks 405 was on the market in April 2008, so I bought the new 410 instead.  And honestly, the 410 feels like the watch the 405 should have been.  Fewer hardware meltdowns, brain freezes and general instability.  But still is that worth the upgrade?  Eh, probably not.

10 comments:

  1. I love, love the way the 4-hundred series looks but my poor eyesight prefers larger display of 310xt. It is clunky but works great.

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  2. Well at least it's better in the rain.

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  3. Glad that it's better. My 305 is still trucking along so I don't have any excuses to upgrade... yet!

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  4. We were just taking about new Garmins at track the other night. Thanks for the info. Welcome back, I was thinking about you while I was in NYC!

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  5. I still use the 305. But then I don't try to ask it for anything fancy - just PLEASE work! Sometimes it won't do that in the cold.
    Good to read about the 410 though since I was considering an upgrade.

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  6. Thanks for the review! I wondered about it. I have the 405 and lock the bezel whenever I run. That is fine for most runs, but a little bothersome for intervals where I have it on a pace screen and want to switch to stopwatch time for the rest portion. Not sure I'd buy it just for that tho. ;) Since I'm on my 4th upgrade since my first huge rectangle one, I'll stay with this one for now. :)

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  7. thats huge that it works when wet! My 305 has been serving me well....it's that dang ipod that's giving me problems!!!!

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  8. Is the hrm more accurate on that one? Ive had the 405 since it came out and other than the bezel issue u mentioned, it also annoys me that is has an inaccurate formula for cals burned.

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  9. I have an ancient 205, but I still love it. I'm scared to upgrade! I hope your new years' resolutions are going well1

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