Garmin Forerunner 405 Review

Overall Rating

I've always used treadmills to exercise. At first, I thought treadmills were a godsend - they're indoors so you can use them whatever the weather, you can watch a TV whilst running and you can accurately track your speed, distance, calorie expenditure etc. Recently though, I've lost interest in running indoors. Mainly because it's mind numbingly boring - there's only so much music channel watching and mirror facing that a person can take. So I started road running and it's great to be out in the fresh air rather than in a stinking gym. There was something missing though - no way to monitor my distances, speed etc. Suddenly I was longing for the treadmill again until I discovered the Garmin Forerunner 405. Basically, it's a GPS enabled watch that tracks your vitals whilst you go off running. So, you can keep an eye on you speed, distance, calories burned everything that a treadmill does but with the added bonus of being outside! It's a brilliant, feature-packed little device. Firstly, the 405 features a touch sensitive bezel around the screen so navigating through the menus is comparable to using an iPod. It's a strange sounding system but it works really well - you scroll through menus by moving your finger around the bezel and enter details by tapping. The illuminator works by touching the bezel at two points.

Other features on the 405 include the ability to create a virtual training partner and this is displayed on the screen as a little runner and the onscreen text tells you how far behind/ahead you are of your 'partner.' You can set the 405 up to beep at you if you drop below a certain speed and you can design workouts that last for certain distances, amounts of calories burned or time. Like I said, it's literally like using a treadmill but outdoors.

If you also like to cycle (which I do), the 405 can be attached to your bike's handlebars with a mount and then used as a bicycle computer.

Another nice thing about the 405 is that you can connect it to your PC via the wireless dongle that comes in the box. This is so that you can upload your times/distances etc and then view the route that you've just run on Google maps. The accuracy is incredible - you can even see where you crossed the road or moved have had to avoid slow walkers etc.

The 405 isn't cheap - its RRP is about £270, but for me it's an incredible little device that I use every day. The only issue I have with the 405 is that it's ever-so-slightly bulky, but that can be forgiven when you consider the sheer number of functions are crammed into the unit. I simply can't recommend it highly enough to keen runners.