Garmins I like

I’ve been a little negative about some Garmin devices recently. And I think understandably negative in all cases.

For a bit of balance here are “The Garmins I Like”. Not necessarily ‘Use’ but rather ‘Like’

• Garmin Forerunner 935 – review here, and I re-bought one today from a normal source just like you can for the same price! It’s tri benefits outweigh its flaws.
• Garmin Forerunner 920XT – normally worked well, a bit ugly. Would have stuck with a prettier version.
• Garmin Forerunner 910XT – loved it on the whole. Would have stuck with it if they upgraded the functionality akin to the 920XT.
• Garmin Forerunner 235 and 630 – nicey nice. It’s a running watch. Not too many other pretensions
• Garmin Edge 520 – nice. I’ve not used the 1000/1030 in anger.
• Garmin HRM-TRI/HRM-RUN – awesome
• Garmin Vector 2 (pod) or 3 (non pods and 1% stated accuracy) – nice but expensive. So I use ASSIOMA pedals despite the lower stated accuracy.
• Probably also the Vivoactive HR and 735XT if I thought about it.

I reckon they are all good enough to spend your hard-earned money on.

Garmins that are not in that list are not there for a reason (or two…or three)

Specifically the ONE thing that I really like about Garmin devices is this: I have to manually upload workout files for my own usage, otherwise all the data gets confused and messes up my stuff. So I can attach newer Garmins as a MASS STORAGE device and import/export/copy the evenings away…really easily. That’s the one Garmin thing that tickles my fancy.

The other thing that Garmin shares with some other enlightened vendors is that they realise that continually re-pairing Bluetooth devices that don’t always pair first time is a BIG PITA. It’s just C((*%P (I don’t swear on this blog but the Bluetooth issue drives me VERY, VERY close to swearing). Well, it is a PITA for me – it’s OK enough for most people if you pair a Bluetooth device once and forget about it (assume the pairing holds and you don’t want to use it paired to other devices as well). So ANT+ is great for me and I can also store power meter data (or other data) on a backup device really easily too with ANT+ transmission.