Dec 11, 2015 11:45 PM
2440 Views
(Updated May 22, 2016 09:37 PM)
I always thought buying a GPS watch is a waste of money, when there are lots of free apps in play store and everyone is having a smart phone. I was using Sports tracker for quite some years, and recently Strava. Both are excellent apps but carrying my smartphone required a waist pouch and it was more problematic in monsoon. Also real-time tracking was also a problem. So finally decided to try my hand on a GPS watch. I searched for some entry level watches, mainly because of financial constraints, and there weren't many. Tomtom runner was finalized when functionality, economy and aesthetics were considered together.
Tomtom runner is a very basic runner watch, and it doesn't support any other activity except running - both indoor and out door - not even cycling. But what it does, it does best. The idle screen is a basic clock with hour, minute date and month. No seconds, no day. Not even seconds blinker. At 3'o' clock position in dial there is a touch switch which backlit the screen for a few seconds. So no problem with early morning or late evening runs.
Though they advertise it as single key operation, it's actually a four way key designed around the GPS receiver which controls the watch. Menu is quite intuitive. One stroke of right key kicks in Run/ treadmill/ stopwatch mode. You can scroll up and down, select Run and it pause for a while to hook into the GPS. Once done, a'Go' screen appear and you can press once again and start run. Run screen display three parameters, clock, run time and distance, two in small fonts and one large. Each can be highlighted with up and down keys.
GPS hookup is extremely quick, takes around 5-6 seconds only. Thanks to the Quick GPS fix technology.( The review I read before buying said it took around 30 secs) Tracking appears to be precise. Once the run is over nothing can be retrieved with the watch display. Connect to PC or sync with smartphone(takes ages to transfer the data) and the entire data is at your disposal. Shows, Time, distance, pace, cadence, calories, altitude gain, route and other graphic details.
One excellent feature is Race function, which allows you to improve on yourself by comparing an earlier performance with the present in real time. This single function justifies buying this watch.
Battery life is worth mentioning. The earlier review I mentioned said their lasted two days and two half hour(total one hr) GPS sessions with single charging. But my watch endured five full days with a total of 4:30 hrs GPS on a single charge. Company claim 10 GPS hrs. Anyway, do not worry about your watch going blank amidst a FM. Charging time around one hr.
The Watch band appear very cheep and I seriously doubt its durability. Spare bands are available, but at hell of a price. For that matter, I feel even the watch itself is unreasonably priced considering the technology involved in present day realities. But it's better than the comparable rest.
You need to take out the watch from the band every time to charge. Charging and PC connectivity through a custom cradle and no micro USB. This too is a disadvantage.
Update: I don't know if my exploration was incomplete or if it happened after a software update, the details of our workouts can be retrieved. It will show distance, time, pace and calories of previous activities. Very good indeed. Another thing, the Tomtom android app won't work properly on every phone with Marshmellow. So if you are serious about using it, don't upgrade to Android 6 for the time being.
