Thanks to everybody who responded. It's very helpful to know that people have used these cheaper watches for orienteering and they perform well enough. I was specifically concerned because of the
fellrnr.com data, but it is hard to know from that just how bad the worst watches are and also, as mentioned, it's a bit dated, so I was not sure if newer watches were better or worse. DC Rainmaker reviews are certainly very useful, but the accuracy tests are done in urban conditions and even those are for normal running, not, say, sprint orienteering with frequent direction changes.
Thanks in particular to WR for drawing my attention to TomTom Runner - I have seen it mentioned but somehow ignored it, I guess because the price is roughly the same and the Garmin brand is more familiar to me :) I really like the fact that TomTom Runner has a 1-sec recording interval, rather than FR25's "smart recording" - not sure how "smart" it is and I once ran a sprint with a logger set to a 5-sec interval and the track was almost useless. I like Garmin's design better though :)
@gruver, why did you choose a more expensive 235 in the end? Was it because of the more accurate distance, or additional features, or something else? I don't care about most features related to training, as I don't train seriously, just run and orienteer for fun when I feel like it, I just wonder if there is anything else I would be missing that I have not thought about.