Discussion: Best GPS unit

Just making up my Xmas wish list - how do different wrist GPS brands compare?

Well,

I first tried out the Timex wristband, with the upper arm GPS extension (in it's first edition) - this device was absolutely useless. As long as I was running in a straight line, on the level and no tree cover it was fairly acurate. The moment I started running corners or going under trees or running hills it lost up to 20% - returned it after just 1 month.

I next tried the Garmin Forerunner 101 - a bit better, but weak on the locating position thing. On a standard forest run of 21 km, it measured only 18km. Trees are always a problem.

Then I tried one of the new Garmin handhelds, which was difficult to run with and not really convienent.

So I switched to the Polar Foot accelerator on the S625X. On my standard forest run of 21 km, it measured 20,5 km including having the correct height of 600m. On the track over 5000m it measured 4994m. I'm very happy with it and would suggest such a device to anybody who runs corners, hills and in the forest :)

Hope that helps,
Richard.

I have a different opinions.

I like my Polar S625X watch and use it as a backup device, but foot unit is not precise in any kind O-runs when you go up and down, faster and slower, etc. Even on the track, try slow run, then fast run and you'll never get good readings ...

For last 9 month I use my new toy - Garmin 305. And I like it. The only problem is very dense forest, extremely steep reentrants, and on the top of that you can't use altitude readings. But you can get your track from O-race into Route Gadget. And in addition it's very easy to setup/use training exercises.

I agree with speedy, to the extent that I gave my Polar S625X to someone else when I got my Garmin Forerunner 305 - the difference was that big.

Actually Polar S625X is very good with altitude calculation.

I use the FR305 which is good for me and my personal needs - I´m not too dependent on altitude readings (and those are not very good). Pulse readings are OK as far as I can judge while calory readings don´t seem to be very correct (at least not for me).
For picking out where I´ve been and to put this on a map I presently use the functionality in Google Earth (free version) + Garmin software that comes with the watch (and/or the free SportTracks Software). Quite simple...

Yeah, the altitude/climb on the 305 is useless. That's the one area where the Polar is better, but any barometric altimeter will do, not to mention a map with contour lines. If you know exactly where you've been... should be easy enough to get climb.

I vote for Garmin Forerunner 305. I've been using it with SportTracks which corrects altitude and calories. Forerunner is a really cool toy. I've never used anything else though.

I use Forerunner 205 (like 305 but no HRM). If I like to have HR and altitude data, I take also my Polar 710i HRM with me (it has barometric altimeter).

FRWD W-series is also good alternative, you get everyting in one pagage: hrm (you can use almost any heart rate strap, for example Polars new superb ones) with EPOC readings, barometric altimeter, gps, PC software with a bit RG style animations etc, wrist display etc.

But I am think the gps of FRWD is not as sensitive as the one in Forerunner, but I am not sure is the difference significant. In Finland FRWD is the most popular one and used a lot by orienteers - a lot more than Garmin. RouteGadget can read FRWD data. But there is no extremely steep reentrants here.

I vote FRWD W or Garmin Forerunner 305. If you are after good gps and you don't care climb or EPOC, it's Forerunner 305. But if you like to have altitude data, EPOC, easy-to-use replay software etc - try to get your hands on FRWD.

There is some Aussie AP members who seem to use FRWD a lot, they might be able to tell more how good frwd devices are and where you can get one.

That's the one area where the Polar is better, but any barometric altimeter will do, not to mention a map with contour lines

The Polar is a lot more sensitive, and most times, at least as accurate, as contour lines. Its 1 m altitude resolution is equal to at least its differential accuracy, and on a windless day with no large temperature gradients you can get 1 m absolute accuracy. The Polar beats Buena Vista contours any day.

Actually, just to clarify - I never use my polar foot device while I orienteer (i.e. run in the forest directly) - I'm too scared of losing my foot pod :)

Here I just get out the old map, and follow my route with a map distance measurer, takes a bit longer but is fairly acurate.

How well does the Polar's footpod stand up in the woods? I've always assumed it'd get broken, so have never worn mine while orienteering

Personaly, I like my garmin geko 201. Its really small, light weight and 100% waterproof. Also, its small enough to attach to u and yet big enough that it wont get lost that easy (its also a hand held). It's also very accurate and works well in the forest. Over all I think its one of the best GPS' on the market and I recomend checking it out...but thats just my opinion.

Tim, I've only used it a few times in the woods and so far (touch wood) I've only lost it once - found it again about 100m from the start and after almost an hour of searching :)

I've found it to be remarkably acurate (around 97%) even while running across terrain and it's certainly robust enough. I've had it almost 2 years now, and besides changing the battery every month or so, it's given excellent service. Additionally it appears to be quite waterproof (and we have a lot of water / rain / snow around here).

I have used a polar foot pod in O races and it hasn't busted yet. On the road it has been accurate, and you can tweak the calibration if needed. For raod runs I have compared my polar reading to calculations from running ahead, and they are the same to within 1%.
I haven't done a comparison between the polar and a measuremetn on the map for an O course. The down side of the polar is that you can't get the info into route gadget or similar. Also plotting out with the polar relies on you remembering exactly where you went, not just where you think you went, whereas the 305 and like can tell you where you went.

I've been using the Garmin305 for a few months and love it. It has so many functions i haven't even learnt how to use most of them. Sportstracks program is great. And i agree the altitude is inaccurate.

Mindsweeper and I lost the Polar foot pods within a couple weeks of each other in 2005 while orienteering. I knew exactly where I lost mine, but it was impossible to find because there was a carpet of fallen trees underneath which we could not reach.

If you do wear yours in the woods, duct tape it to the shoe.

My 305 is due to arrive today. I have a 201 but it loses reception so often that I don't bother to use it much. You can get a pretty accurate distance out of it if you do a bit of editing in sportstracks but it is a bit of a pain. All reports I have heard suggest the 305 is much better in that regard. John's 305 was obviously much better than my 201 when we compared routes at Julimar. Shep seems to get a pretty good track out of his frwd most of the time and the altimeter is good but I don't think you can see the results from the frwd without downloading onto a computer or using a compatible mobile phone with bluetooth. I ordered my 305 from http://www.prosportwatches.com/ for just under AU$400.

Although I don't have a lot of experience with the other makes/models I have been quite happy with the 205. The elevation data is spotty as reported, however, the tracks have been quite accurate. And I have not experienced any problems with reception (once satellites are acquired) - even in some fairly dense woods here in the NE USA. I find it much better in analyzing routes than the paper and pencil method. If I make a mistake in the field, there is a good chance I will make it when tracing my route on paper.

Richi: ". I've had it almost 2 years now, and besides changing the battery every month or so"

Changing the batteries every month... ??

Admit it, you're using it with your workshoes during the day aren't you??

I don't think you can see the results from the frwd without downloading onto a computer or using a compatible mobile phone with bluetooth

You can see distance, pace etc. with FRWD W .

The secret of frwd accuracy is in post processing of the recorded data. But it may "clean" some little ziczac, so you might get more route details with Forerunner X05. This is why I selected Garmin.

Tim - I get about 45 hours per battery :) Which is quite good, so maybe every 6 to 7 weeks would have been more accurate :) Sorry for the confusion.

Simmo, I got my 305 today. I'll take it along to Woodvale tomorrow and you can give it a try if you like. We are organising so I won't be running.

I find [the GPS] much better in analyzing routes than the paper and pencil method. If I make a mistake in the field, there is a good chance I will make it when tracing my route on paper.

But the map and pen method exercises your brain in ways that are much more conducive to improving your navigation than staring at the zigzags downloading out of the GPS.

Agreed. I make it a point to draw my routes on my map before I look at the GPS zigzags. Any differences might help highlight what went wrong. Luckily they are usually pretty damn similar. I'd be worried if they weren't. ;-)

Both good points. Recently I have found myself getting away from tracing my route right after the event since I know I am going to come home and process the data. However, comparing what you trace to your digital route is a tool by itself.

Here is one example what you can do with these latest GPS toys (saturday).

Ok i may be bias since garmin SA sponsered the SA JWOC tem for training but i have been very happy with the FR301. As long as it is not in a forest it is cool, not a big problem in south africa but if you live in heavily wooded areas it can be a problem.
The FR305 has a more acurate gps reciver with greater acuracy in trees so thatmay be better to looka t if forests will be a big art of your training.

Anyway, FRWD seems to have financial problems (in Fnnish). Too bad, they had nice products.

Got a FR305 this week and am not as impressed as I expected to be. Some of that may be user error, but it's not clear what I should be doing differently.

The instantaneous pace is quite off. It seems to fluctuate as much as a minute/mile with no change in effort on my part. I'm a pretty good pacer (regularly run intervals within 1 second of target), so I know I'm not bouncing around that much. There's something in the manual about "pace smoothing" that I might try. The total distance appears to be pretty close, so you'd think the rate would be easy to calculate.

Bigger problem is I can't get the software to install on Windows XP (SP2). Anybody else have this? It starts and then hangs when the bar is about 90% done.

Someone asked for Australian comment. The Canberra based elites have been using FRWD GPS units. I can't comment on these.
Down here in Victoria there are a lot of us with Garmin Forerunner units. These are quite compatible with the software the Canberrans have been using for their analyses (OTrack) and I can produce the same output for my own runs, although I've had a report the RouteGadget works better with the FRWD output.
I use the Forerunner 301 - that was the latest available when I bought it, now superceded by the 305 if you want the smaller wrist unit and SIRF technology which is reported to be very accurate GPS.
I can't complain about the 301. I've found its altitude to be accurate on Mt Fuji, but probably not when considering 20 -30 m climbs. I've observed changes in speed for no apparent reason other than that there may have been a change in satellite coverage. It is also not good in deep gullies (re-entrants) with limited satellite coverage, and in tall tree cover. The 305 with its SIRF technology is reported to be much better.

"The instantaneous pace is quite off. It seems to fluctuate as much as a minute/mile with no change in effort on my part."

Use an average pace settings. Allow longer time (at least 10-15 min.) for synchronization with satellites before exercise.

"Bigger problem is I can't get the software to install on Windows XP (SP2). Anybody else have this? It starts and then hangs when the bar is about 90% done."

I didn't have any problems installing software on WinXP. But at some point during installation you have to connect your FR-305 to PC (don't recall when).

Hey Eric, I've been using a FR305 for about 3 weeks and have been quite happy with it. I've been skiing with mine. On one occasion was doing loops around a field and the distance estimates seemed to be good to about 10 m over a 580 m loop. I notice that it takes about 30 seconds to respond to pace changes (i.e., when going down a hill), but there is are settings that allow you to change the "Pace smoothing". As usual, I presume less smoothing means more noise, so there is a trade-off. Merry Xmas!

I hope you're all right; I'll certainly give it more of a shot. I did get the software to install on my desktop system (WinXP w/o SP2), but still not dice on the laptop.

As long as I'm asking potentially stupid questions, how do y'all get the tracks to download? I downloaded to the training software that comes with it, but that wasn't particularly interesting (although it was enough to confirm that the SIRF track is quite accurate - measured my HS track to be 406 meters). From there I don't see any way to export the track data to a format that anybody else wants to use. I tried to read the unit directly from my USGS software and it didn't get anything of value.

This is the easiest utility to convert the FR Training Center files to GPX files.

Installing TC - if I remember right, you need to be administrative user privileges to istall TC. But istead of TC you might like to try SportTracks. Its far better. http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/
Most tools are a bit hidden - just try clicking and dragging everything.

Instantaneous pace - it is said it was improved a bit at the latest firmware version 2.50, try upgrading if you don't already have it.

Pace is more correct if you have good gps accuracy (+-4 meters). I may be wrong, but I am afraid GPS just isn't accurate enought in forested aeras to get the instantaneous pace right. If you smooth/average it a lot, it will not fluctuate so much but it in the other hand it will not react well on speed changes. I am used to use lap's average pace instead.

I have tried viewing pace in RG animation:
http://www.routegadget.net/run/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?...
(click names on, you should see min/km value). You can see how routes wander about +- 10 meters, and pace wanders together with the route. Gps routes are not corrected anyhow here, these are read straight from gpx files without any manual editing.

Thanks for the pointer to SportTracks, Jagge. It seems to be quite a bit better than TC.