Garmin Review

If we're being one hundred percent honest here, I am a complete and total Garmin snob.  I got one of their earlier models of the Forerunner my sophomore year after one of my coaches made a joke about getting me standing outside with my wrist in the air waiting for it to load with the rest of the varsity girls if I wanted to get faster, and I've loved them ever since.  The watch I used had seen a fair amount of wear and tear before it came to be in my possession, being previously owned by my mom and dad.  It was also unfortunately clunky, and my sister used to refer to it as my prison shackle.  For those reasons, when I went to the Nike Cross Nationals in the winter of my junior year, I leaped at the chance to train with the new Nike sport watch they gave all of the athletes there. 

Though there's no denying that Nike watches are pretty good, it wasn't quite on the same level as my Garmin had been.  It only displays two things at a time, and one of them always has to be distance.  As someone who doesn't like to have the pressure of constantly seeing how far you have left to go on easy days, I missed the Garmin's ability to display only time elapsed (or something else) until paused if that's what you needed.  I also found that the Nike watch wasn't quite as accurate sometimes.  It would stop measuring distance when it got too overcast outside, and often wouldn't load at all if it hadn't been plugged into a computer and updated recently.

So, this summer, I saved up for one of the new Forerunners.  I originally planned to just go with the 220, since it seemed like the best option for my budget and my training needs.  After working for several weeks, I found that I actually had more than enough for the 620, so I decided to splurge.  And it was so worth it.

It features a color display and touchscreen, and it loads faster than any GPS I've had before.  It only takes a few seconds after switching to the sport mode to be completely ready to run.  As long as you connect to the satellites every once in awhile, the time and date stay accurate.  Not only that, but it's much lighter and sleeker than any of the previous models.  

The 620 comes with a few additional bells and whistles.  It has a VO2 max estimator that uses the paces and distances you've recorded with it to tell you what times you should be capable of for other distances or for races.  Obviously it isn't as accurate as a VO2 max test in a lab would be, but paired with a heartrate monitor and after a few runs with it, it seems like it's pretty decent.  Along with that, it can advise you on how long you need to recover before your next run and how efficient your form is. 

So far, this has definitely been the best GPS I've owned.  I would recommend it to anyone who is looking into getting a new watch.  The only downside I've seen to it would be that it has a white band, but I'm pretty sure that would only be a downside to me because I have a bad habit of making messes.

Rate 10/10 would buy.