Garmin Forerunner 405

Mars bar kid
Reviewed: 21 May 2012

For daytime fair Weather Runners Only!!!!. Sent mine back and got a 305 instead.

Comfortable to wear
Good backlight

Touch Bevel Fails in rain.
Wi-fi connectivity initially requires a lot of persistance to get to work
No Map screen.

Very dissapointed.

Have used the 305 in the past (Garmin rep at VLM 2012 expo said it was a direct replacement -its not)
Touch Bevel does not work in the rain. During a race it just continually beeped and flickered through the screens.
You can lock the bevel to stop it doing this but be warned:-
If like me you do not have 20:20 vision its very difficult to tell which screen is been shown during autoscroll.
While locked you cannot use the backlight making training on rainy a night a no-no.

Another problem was at the start of a race moments after i had established satellites it decided to go into power save mode at the same time the race started. I pressed the start button but it still continued to go into powersave mode. I had to press stop and start again and then it started to look for satellites again. Because I was now running it coundn't find them until I was 1 mile into the race!! The data from the watch was useless.
I know that you can switch off powersave but surely the defualt should be OFF

Wifi -Poor idea
With the 305 you connect by the usb/cradle this means that you can download your data at the same time as charge your watch seems sensible.
With the 405 it took a couple of install attempts before I got it to talk to my PC. Then I have to plug it in the charger.

I have serious questions about this watch in terms of design and would stay clear of it if you are serious about running/training.

Henning Tegner
Reviewed: 16 April 2012

GOOD FUNCTIONALITY, POOR DESIGN

- good, accurate, detailed data capture
- feature rich software (like the little lap beep, vs, take me home)
- easy upload to garmin connect via ant

- poor build quality
- in two years I've had the strap break twice (I bought an extra strap pack @ £25 I think)
- now at the end of the two years I've managed to break the fitting that holds the strap to the watch, which means there is no way to fix it
- hate the bezel, has become quite difficult to get it to react to the touches

Good software and data capture, but poor build quality. I've treated mine with care, but still had the strap break twice. Also, I hate the bezel. I feel quite sore about this one, because it means Garmin doesn't understand sports people. Having non-functional bezels or touch screens is not what you want when you're out running. You want a nice hard wearing physical button that you can bash at speed if you need to. In the beginning the bezel had a tendency to pick up touches when my t-shirt came into contact with it.

David N 173
Reviewed: 07 April 2012

Does the job well for the money.

Easy to use.
Lots of functionality.
Customisable displays.

Accuracy after acquiring satellite often >250m for several minutes.
Bezel annoying to use at time.
Uncomfortable strap - either too tight or too loose.

andrew gibson 4
Reviewed: 14 January 2012

Buy the 305!

It is smaller than the 305.

I hate the touch bezel, it would be a far better product if it just had buttons.
The battery life is very poor, you have to check it before every run to ensure that there is sufficient battery left to complete your run.
To be honest I already own a 305 and only bought this as I thought it would be better as its smaller during my marathon training. I now almost always use the 305! At least it is easy to use and the battery lasts!!

Buy a 305!

wayne.allen
Reviewed: 10 January 2012

Works well but not in the rain!!!!

accurate, east to use, lots of gizmos for monitoring as well as an easy to use web system for tracking run distance afterwards etc.

the touch benzel doesn't always work, and goes gaga when it is raining or even very sweaty.

The only thing I don't like is the flash touch benzel control. give me more buttons and it would be prefect!!!