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Speed & distance monitors with heart rate reviews

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Garmin Forerunner 50

A nifty, easy-to-use package at a fantastic price.

by Welsh Alex The Forerunner 50 is available in two packages. The first consists of a watch, footpod, heart-rate strap and a plug-in data receiver for your PC but if you really don’t want the heart-rate strap you can save yourself around £20 by buying the watch, pod and receiver on ... Continue reading

40 user reviews of Garmin Forerunner 50 See all

Overall reader score

tigertwo

It's a good entry level running watch but unreliable and with an awful battery life. Continue reading...

Darren Dempsey

This became unusuable, I had it all setup at the start of a run or cycle, but by the end the time would've been changed, clock stopped. Useless. Continue reading...

Chris BK

I bought this after a week of running, so very green. It helped me a great deal and stopped me over exerting myself. I use it every run and it has built up a great record over the last 7 weeks. It's currently a Continue reading...

MaggieS

Good price, particularly as the replacement FR60 model costs well over one hundred pounds.
Excelent for HRM base training etc. Continue reading...

Rob Coward

Pretty good value even though I have to transfer my running data to my computer manually Continue reading...

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Alison Rivers 2

I've just read some of the reviews for this product and agree that the owners manual is too brief. One of the reviews mentions customizable screens - can anyone point me in the right direction for more infomation on how to get the device to show me what I want i.e current heart rate and calories burnt? (not that I'm vain, you understand... ) )

Posted: 27/10/2007 14:58

Lisa Fox 4

In "train" mode you can press the view button to change the top details of the screen, and keep pressing until the information you want to see is shown, and press and hold the view button to change the bottom details of the screen. Again keep holding view until the info. is shown.

Hope this helps.

Posted: 28/10/2007 15:09

The Beagle

Lisa, thanks so much! That's saved me sending it back. Do you know whether it will give you calorie information when you use it in the gym for cross training - with just the HRM and watch? Alison (aka The Beagle - in case you were wondering!)

Posted: 28/10/2007 15:20

The Beagle

Just for information - I spoke to Garmin today and they confirmed that the forerunner 50 will only give you calorie information by combining speed, heart rate and weight information. So it can't give you calorie information at all if the footpod isn't activated and it can't give you accurate calorie information if you're using a cross trainer etc. All in all, I decided to send mine back with a sorry heart - I really wanted this to be a perfect answer, but it isn't. Great tool for those that just want to run though.

Posted: 29/10/2007 11:36

Janner

Hey Guys

I just got the whole kit and kaboodle on this Forerunner 50 gadget including the GSC10 bike sensor. I have a query on the Garmin Training Centre software. Whilst I can recieve data from the watch, Ant stick usb thing and it will upload into the database, there appears to be a function for creating workouts on the software and exporting the workout to the watch. Is this correct? Has anyone ever got it to work or do you need something else?

Is the software a generic download for all the Garmin products or is it unique to the Forerunner. I've tried emailing Garmin but so far haven't had any reply.

Cheers for any comments.

Happy trails.

Posted: 03/01/2008 13:39

The Beagle

Hi Janner,

I found the people on the phone at Garmin really helpful - it was them I turned to as a last resort when I was trying to work out whether it was possible to use the Forerunner 50 as a simple HRM without speed/distance. They were really helpful and knew their stuff so maybe give them a call? Their number is on the Garmin website.

Good luck!

Posted: 03/01/2008 13:46

Janner

Cheers Beagle

I'll give them a try - their email contact system is a nightmare!

Posted: 03/01/2008 13:48

PSC

Not sure about the email thing - I emailed an question and got the answer back in a matter of hours. Was very impressed. I'm less impressed with the ANT stick thing as I still can't upload data - but that's probably my fault for not installing it properly.

Posted: 03/01/2008 14:29

Nick Evans 8

It isn't possible to export workouts to the Forerunner 50, I think I read this in the FAQs on Garmin's site. I believe that the workout functionality in Garmin Training Centre only applies to the 305 (and 205??).

Posted: 03/01/2008 19:41

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