Forums >Gears and Wears>GPS Watches (Garmin 205 Bites the Dust)
It looks like my Garmin 205 has bitten the dust.........I have a couple of questions...
FIRST - How long should a Garmin 205/305 last? I've had mine for just over 4 years...
SECOND - Does anyone have any experience with the TIMEX Marathon GPS Watch (it looks good to me).
THIRD - Does anyone have suggestions for a good GPS watch (around the $100/$125 range). I don't want any bells and whistles (time, distance, pace and average pace is all I care about). Anything else for me is overkill and I'll NEVER use additional features outside of what was mentioned above..
Thks
John
Champions are made when no one is watching
an amazing likeness
I'd stay away from the Timex, John, if only because of the whole Garmin infrastructure is much more developed across the broad spectrum of sites and services.
Have you checked out the Forerunner 110? Looks like a good replacement for the Forerunner 205 in terms of recording time/distance simply and without tons of complex features.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
Feeling the growl again
John, I have no experience with that particular Timex product but I would also recommend staying away from them. I have worn their Ironman watches for 20+ years because I am used to the function but their products are really low quality. I've yet to replace a battery in a watch and have them go more than another month...I quit trying. I had the very first Timex GPS unit....where you had to strap the box to your upper arm like a pack of cigs...and it didn't last a year before the watch part of the unit died.
Conversely, I have a Garmin 201 that while the Mode button has stopped working, is still functional after 7 years and has seen a ton of use.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
How about the Garmin Forerunner 10? If I waned a no frills running watch that's gonna work with RA this is where I'd put my $100.
I believe the Timex Marathon GPS watch to be actually manufactured by a third party called NEWCO out of Hong Kong, which is the same ODM that manufactures all the Soleus GPS watches and a couple of New Balance watches and a bunch of other little players.
I tested it quite a bit and found it completely unusable for my 40+ year old eyes. To me that was the #1 drawback of the product, although there were others as well. But I confess that in my experience it reasonably faithfully gave time and distance. I'm not sure it actually has average pace, but I honestly don't remember now.
Forerunner 10 meets your requirements perfectly (except it is $4 over your specified range), and it is much much more user friendly and readable than the Timex Marathon GPS.
- Joe
We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day.
It looks like my Garmin 205 has bitten the dust.........I have a couple of questions... FIRST - How long should a Garmin 205/305 last? I've had mine for just over 4 years...
What bit the dust on your Garmin?
My 205 is just over 3 years old. The speaker doesn't work and the battery life is down to about 5 hours. Other than that, it's still seems fine.
It won't turn on and it won't charge....
Did you try a soft reset?
NO - but thanks for the instructions......I'll give it a shot this evening and see what happens...........
Hope it works out for you. It did the trick for me when I had the same issue with my 305 last year.
I've got a fever...
If you like the functionality of the 205 but need to replace it, get the 310XT. It's the same, but better.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
OK - this is a little weird (but good). I got my Garmin to do the reset - plugged in into the PC and it started charging..... So I turned it on,took it out and it connected up just fine.......so i shut it off and its now charging up..
I guess over the past 2 days setting in the drawer it seem to have healed............ I didn't do the reset as I didn't have to but for the past 2 days it wouldn't charge or turn on.....
Thanks for all the advice everyone.....
OK - this is a little weird (but good). I got my Garmin to do the reset - plugged in into the PC and it started charging..... So I turned it on,took it out and it connected up just fine.......so i shut it off and its now charging up.. I guess over the past 2 days setting in the drawer it seem to have healed............ I didn't do the reset as I didn't have to but for the past 2 days it wouldn't charge or turn on..... Thanks for all the advice everyone.....
My 201 has "bitten the dust" half a dozen times. Somehow I always manage to resurrect it. Good for you!