The release of the Garmin Forerunner 610 is a milestone for the world’s premiere GPS device manufacturer. It’s a wearable “watch”-style” GPS unit with a touchscreen. Now instead of trying to remember which button does what on your tiny little GPS device all you have to do is follow the prompts on the screen and give it a tap with the tip of your finger. There is no other watch for runners, or cyclists, like this anywhere else in the world because it’s the world’s first touch screen navigation GPS watch and heart rate monitor. The excitement has reached fever pitch for the endurance athletic community and nanotechnology has finally brought us the Dick Tracy watch, and it’s for real and will be available in early-May.
This device may just be the perfect machine for runners simply because it cuts down on the time and frustration of trying to use a GPS while on the move. You won’t have to worry about dancing over any manholes while concentrating on your unit.
THE REAL ADVANTAGE TO TOUCH SCREEN
The speed with which you can navigate with touch screen is far faster than any watch that requires button navigation and the screen displays are the most highly customized displays available anywhere. When you combine these highly unique features with the new Training Effect, that helps optimize your training load, and the new Virtual Racer, that allows you to race previous bests, then you’ve got all the ingredients of a success story in the making.
Indeed, Garmin has released more fully-integrated GPS watches than any other manufacturer and many manufacturers are still using additional external sensors to provide their GPS navigation. Squire says, “The accuracy, sensitivity, and features of the Garmin GPS watches has done nothing but improve from generation to generation.” He adds, “We are now about eight years into the GPS phenomena and the technology is getting good – very good.” He pulls out a map created last summer by a runner in San Diego and you can see which sidewalk the runner is on and when he crosses the street.
STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU BUY A GPS WATCH
The funny thing is that once you start using this watch for one sport, you find yourself bringing it along for everything. A good case in point, the Heart Rate Watch Company’s bike team members brought their Garmin Edge 800 touch screen bike computers in their pockets for skiing, hunting, snowshoeing and a variety of other outdoor activities all winter long. As Squire says, “With the CityNav maps, my wife will take my bike computer so she gets turn-by-turn directions to her real estate appraisals, which makes me chuckle because I bought it for biking.” In fact, one member of their bike team used it to find his way back to the car in the wee morning hours from deep in the forest and said that without it they could have spent the night.
The Garmin Forerunner 610 will create highly detailed maps. Once your data is downloaded to Garmin Connect software you can see both detailed maps and elevation profiles. You can drag an icon to the top of a hill to see all of your data frozen at a particular moment in time. Better still, you can move the icon one-quarter mile past the peak of a summit to see how you recovered from the effort.
The Forerunner 610 will come in two versions, one with a Garmin soft chest strap and one without the strap, which is for previous owners of Garmin products. Both versions come with a charging clip and USB wall adapter for fast charging, as well as a USB data transfer stick that will move all of your data to Garmin Connect software. The price for the complete bundle is $399.99 and the price for the bundle without the chest strap is $349.99
Additional accessories for the Garmin Forerunner 610 include an optional cadence sensor for cycling and a carrying case.
FINAL CONCLUSIONS:
The new Garmin Forerunner 610 is likely going to be the biggest fitness product launch for outdoor athletes in all of 2011 and the timing could not be better because the weather is breaking and it is time to get outside.
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