Hasta La Gadget!

The Garmin Forerunner 610 will bring GPS to the masses in a way like never before, because it will be with you all the time even if you don’t have your phone with you.

That is, if you remember to put your watch back on after you take a shower. The Forerunner 610 is an increasingly prospective market for GPS giant Garmin. Designed mainly for runners, it will make its first mass market debut at the Boston Marathon on April 18.

The watch will go up for general sale in the middle of May.

“This is indeed an exciting moment in GPS fitness watches because the first touch screen bike computer, the Garmin Edge 800, already has proven how superior this type of navigation can be. Adding new features like cumulative Training Effect, Virtual Racer, and then a touch screen display, which quickly navigates to more data faster than ever before, is going to be outstanding for runners and cyclists,” said Heart Rate Watch Company president Rusty Squire in a Garmin press release.

We’re still watching reports of the massive human toll from last week’s earthquake off the coast of northern Japan. The  quake also appears to have affected the planet itself, shifted the coastline of Japan nearly 13 feet to the east, according to the county’s 1,2000 GPS stations.

Garmin has more or less had a monopoly on the GPS watch market for years now. But since September’s launch of the Timex Global Trainer GPS ($250 street), Garmin has a new competitor. While the Global Trainer is a valiant effort from Timex, it’s going to have a hard time challenging the breadth of Garmin’s line, especially the Garmin Forerunner 110, as well as its range of price points.

The first thing that strikes you when you first lay eyes on the Global Trainer is the sheer size of it. This behemoth of a sports watch has a huge face — wider even than my wrist. On the plus side, this means that it can show a lot of data on the screen while you’re running, but this also makes it a bit cumbersome. Luckily it’s still on the light side, so the watch won’t weigh you down when you hit the road.

Otherwise, the design is unremarkable; it’s a plain black watch with a main button for starts and splits on the face, and power and menu buttons on the side. One gripe is that the start button does not also function as the stop button. While having a start/split button is intuitive if you’re keeping track of splits, you have to train yourself to press the smaller stop button on the right-hand side instead when you’re done with your workout. If you’re concerned with exact timekeeping, this will be a bit of a pain for your first few runs. I do appreciate that the Indiglo button is easy to find. Other GPS watches, like the Suunto X10, make it harder to activate the light, which makes tracking your progress tricky on night runs.

The biggest gripe I’ve heard about GPS watches is how difficult it is to sync them with satellites. While testing in New York City, I’ve found that the tall buildings and general lack of open space can make it particularly difficult to find a signal. This is one area where the Garmin watches have the advantage. While the Garmin I tested quickly synced most times I used it, the Timex was a bit more finicky. The trick, I discovered, was to start it, let it try to sync for a minute or two, then restart it. Usually the second go-round would go a lot smoother, with the watch syncing within seconds, or a minute at most. Without a restart, the watch could fail to sync for 10 minutes or more. I never had the patience to see if it would ever eventually find the satellite signal. Of course, the syncing occurred faster in wide-open spaces like parks.

I’m pretty clearly not the target audience for the feature-rich Suunto X10 GPS watch ($699 list). This “outdoor sports instrument” from military-grade watchmaker Suunto offers an altimeter, barometer, compass, and everything else a Boy (or Girl) Scout might want in a heavy-duty watch. 

It’s certainly overkill for a city dweller like me, but if you’re planning to do some hard-core trail running –or just want a good watch for backpacking, hiking, and other outdoorsy activities– the X10 will have you covered. Unfortunately, as I was testing the Suunto in New York City, it was hard to test a lot of the more advanced functions–even the GPS was spotty with all the interference that comes from navigating the urban jungle.

The X10 is not quite as chunky as the Timex Global Trainer GPS, but its face still easily covered my entire wrist. Despite its size, the Suunto is as light as any of the watches I tested. Its military heritage is echoed in the X10’s spare design. It’s all black, except for a yellow ring around the face.

Like the Timex, the Suunto offers a number of views. While there are fewer ways to view the data about your run, the various menus reflect the plethora of gauges within the watch. Beyond Time, you can check the altimeter and barometer (including a temperature gauge), utilize the compass, monitor your distance in Navigate mode, and track your speed. Within Navigate you can access pre-programmed routes (which you can set up using Suunto’s included software), or select the TrackBack option, which will help you find your way back to your starting point.

Garmin is not a fan of 4G. The company stated that using 4G would clog up the signals, which are needed to use for GPS tracking systems. Garmin also said that 911, air traffic control, and the military would also suffer over slow network signals.

The company is basing this on a 4G trial that the company ran. According to Garmin, the GPS lagged, even losing the signal, which took 90 seconds to regain. Garmin took the research to the FCC in regard to LightSquareds request.

Via TG Daliy