Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS Running Watch Review
Cheapest Retailer -
405: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com 405 CX: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Although running watches with GPS functionality have been available on the market for some time now, the Garmin Forerunner 405 is the latest model in Garmin’s industry leading Forerunner series and has quickly become the GPS watch of fchoice for amateurs and professional athletes alike.
Garmin Forerunner 405 Overview
The Garmin Forerunner 405 combines best best in class and best practice technology that enables the wearer to control a whole host of functions designed to compliment and drive their training schedule. The GPS functionality allows the user to accurately record
Forerunner 405
aspects of their running such as distance, speed and pace along with the usual time and calorie calculations. Using the online Garmin Connect portal, the user can record and log their GPS recorded runs on the Garmin 405 and see them plotted automatically into a map and chart view. Combining the 405 watch unit with a heart rate monitor yields even greater functionality, as users can record their heart rate over the entire run and can therefore target a specific heart rate zone or track their fitness over a longer period of time.
Garmin Forerunner 405 look and feel
The Gamin 405 is slightly chunkier than your average wrist watch, but still falls below the weight and size of alternative GPS watches from both other manufacturers and previous GarminForerunner models.
The Garmin 405 is made of a durable black plastic with what feels like a rubber wrist strap for added comfort. This has the advantage of keeping the watch watertight for the purposes of running in the rain and also makes the watch easy to wipe down after a heavy training session.
The 405 has a silver bezel surrounding the watch face which is silver in colour and allows the user control of the watches various functions via its touch controlled capabilities. Simply tapping the touch bezel in one of four places brings up the various menus and taping two places on the bezel at once turns the screen backlight on and off.
Along with the touch bezel, the Garmin 405 watch also has the conventional start/stop and lap/reset buttons on the right hand size of the unit.
Garmin Forerunner 405 Functionality
The GPS functionality is the main selling point of the Forerunner 405. Tapping the ‘training’ button on the bezel brings up a temporary screen which indicates that the unit is searching for a GPS signal. 99% of the time the watch finds a signal within 30seconds, even when in built up or hilly areas. This is considerably less than other GPS watches the team at RunTheLine.com have used previously and what differentiates the Forerunner 405 as a useful training aid as opposed to a stylish toy.
Before starting a run, it is possible to customise the various fields that are displayed when the watch is in action. There are up to three screens to customise, with each screen allowing three fields of live training data to be displayed. You can change between each screen with a simple tap of the bezel when you are out on your run. Fields you can select from include things like pace, speed, time, heart rate and averages of all the previous.
Garmin also has added nifty little feature to the 405 that consists of a virtual training partner. Once the pace of the partner is set, the watch displays how far behind or in front of the partner a runner is, providing details of both time and distance. This is a highly recommended and powerfull feature as the runner can see how far or behind their target race pace they are and can adjust their speed accordingly.
The watch GPS function can also be turned off which conserves battery power and extends the life of the unit as a simple wrist watch. Using the watch in training mode without the GPS functionality is also possible, in which case the distance and pace functionality is unavailable
Garmin Connect Portal
The Garmin Forerunner 405 is complemented by Garmin’s patented Garmin Connect portal and software which extends the functionality of the watch considerably and lets you view your training data in various useful ways.
You can use the Garmin Connect software online or it is possible to download a more slim line version to your computer if you prefer, but the online version is highly recommended due to the additional functionality is provides.
Data is transferred from the watch to firstly your computer via the wireless USB adaptor provided in the box, and then either to your Garmin Connect online account or to the software on your PC.
The Garmin Connect portal is informative and easy to use with a selection of useful displays to aid your training. You are able to create and tack goals, view past runs with associated mapping and search for other runners runs in a kind of online community. Here you are also able to update your watch software and find support for any technical queries you may have.
Garmin MyConnect Dashboard for Forerunner 405
Opinions of the Forerunner 405
Overall all the contributors to RunTheLine.com who have used the watch over the past 12 months were very pleased with both the ease of use and the functionality the watch provided. One frequent Forerunner enthusiast mentioned that the only problem he had experienced was that the touch bezel could sometimes take a while to get used to and could be unresponsive when quick changes to the watch display need to be made during a race or run. He found that the easiest way to fix this was to change the sensitivity of the bezel in the user menu and reported that this seemed to fix the problem.
Garmin Forerunner 405 Cheapest Price
As the Garmin ForeRunner 405 is the industry leader in GPS sports watches expect to pay around the £190 mark for a brand new unit without a heart rate monitor. The RunTheLine.com team feel this is a fair price to pay for the unit, especially considering the fact that Garmin are constantly improving their Garmin Connect online portal.
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Cheapest Retailer Links:
The cheapest retailer for the Garmin Forerunner 405 is Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Or for the 405CX (heart rate dependent calorie computations and a velcro wrist strap) is 405 CX: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
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Read the Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Running Watch Review or the Garmin 305 Cycling Watch on this blog
Hi, I’ve been distance training for 16 months. I’m looking for a GPS nav. watch that:
(a) supports uploading maps (from whatever source and format–is not critical)
(b) provides turn indications for the uploaded course.
I have a previous gen. device that tracks waypoints–once you get there, which is really not helpful (for new places).
I’m not looking for map visuals or voice instructions on the device. Rather, something like sounds and arrow indicators for turns.
Any insight or guidence re: a device that provides these functions would be most helpful.
Thanks!
I’ve been personally using Garmin watches for 2-3 years now and I’m fairly satisfied with all of them.
Of course, new models cost more but they have been also constantly improving and getting much more reliable.
You should always consider precisely what features of a training watch do you need. I found Garmin to be offering all that a person needs to improve their training workouts.
Don’t buy a 405! Stick to an old 305 or a Timex Triathalon. The 405 has many problems with battery life, random memory loss and crashing and moisture problems affecting the buttons and bezel. It is extremely slow to upload information to your computer and they simply don’t last. Most people get just over a year out of them before they break down completely. For the money, the folks at Garmin should be making a superior product.
Steve, what on earth are you talking about??
I have been using a 405 for about three years now and haven’t experienced any of the problems you mentioned. There are five runners at my running club who use the same watch and none of them have reported any faults other than the occasional freezing when updating the software.
You dont get half the online features with the Timex’s, and although they are good watches, nothing compares to the Garmin Forerunner series!
I’ve been using the 405 for about 11 of the last 18 months (I was injured for a while). The watch has been hugely annoying. Lot’s of problems. I would say it works well about 60% of the time. The rest of the time it randomly crashes, the stop watch will just stop and it may start beeping incessantly for no obvious reason. As you can imagine this can be very annoying while doing a long, hard run. The battery has now also become a problem. Only last week it simply stopped working. I recharged it several times and each time I went out for a run it died almost immediately. A friend bought the 405 a couple of months ago too. On a number of occasions her watch has simply stopped working. It works again now, but I’d suspect it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. I can’t use my 405 in races because it so temperamental. The last thing you want is it to stop working in the middle of a race while you are trying to focus. As my watch is now out of warranty, I’d have to pay 80 GBP to have it “fixed” but I’d have little confidence in it actually being fixed. I believe i’d also have to spend a further 40 GBP on postage as I live in Ireland and I’d have to send it to the UK. In my own inexpert opinion, it seems the technology just isn’t up to it, hence it being so temperamental. Ross, I’m surprised by your incredulous nature response to Steve. If you look at reviews of this watch online, the lead review is usually an unabashedly positive and long review of the 405 but a significant percentage of the “comments” detail a litany of problems, mostly a repetition of what Steve said. It’s a bad watch. Don’t buy it.
Jonathan it really does sound like you have been having a nightmare with your 405 but your negative experiences really are limited to a small minority of 405 users. If the 405′s were all terrible like you said then I think Garmin might have perhaps received quite a bit more bad press from the running community than the generally positive and encouraging reviews that litter the web. Lots of bloggers like myself use the 405 to record our running (eg -http://www.warriorwomen.co.uk/2008/06/12/garmin-forerunner-405-the-review/ ) and the only gripe that keeps cropping up is that sometimes the bezzle can be unresponsive when wet. I have never had this problem myself and the only time I actually ever touch the 405 when running (including in the rain) is start/stop and lap/reset and if it is raining too hard to give the unit a quick wipe with your sleeve to dry it off then literally you must be swimming not running!
If I were in your shoes then I would write to Garmin explaining your dissatisfaction with the product, explaining that the watch has no signs of external damage and that you have done nothing to place the watch outside of the usual operational limits recommended in the 405 manual. Every electrical good in the EU is covered by a two year warranty but the burden of proof switches to the customer after six months from the date of purchase to prove that the fault in the watch was inherent since the point of manufacturer. I have used the same process to obtain a replacement laptop but I did have to take the laptop to a computer shop to prove that the problem was with a faulty mother board and not due to wear and tear.
Ross,
My 405 sucks! Keeps crashing. And I’ve only had it for 1 year. Perhaps a minority of users experience problems, but that’s enough for me to advice anyone NOT to buy it.
305 works beautifully. Its chunky, but it doesn’t crash.
I have had the same battery problems. I have had the watch for about 13 months now (great, just past the 1 year warranty!). The watch will not hold a charge at all. It says “battery low” and shuts off within 1 mile of running, it’s just terrible. Then I read that the battery is not user-replaceable and Garmin will replace it for $60 + $40 for shipping. That’s more than it’s worth at this point, no thanks.
Yes, I would agree with the negative comments about the 405. It’s hardly a good watch. The best thing about it is the GPS sensitivity. Most of the time the bezel is really annoying. The battery problem is a new twist to my annoyance. I’m running a half this weekend and I think I should be able to get a full run out the watch (about 100 minutes), but my prospects for keeping a charge long enough in my marathon at the end of May are less promising. Mine is less than a year old, but I’m doubtful of the customer service from Garmin (I’ve been there before – I finally got a good 205 on my 5th watch). I read today that a firmware downgrade to ver. 2.20 solves the battery issue, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Do not buy this watch!!! I have had it for two years, and have experienced problems from the beginning. It has finally died…and I will not be replacing it with another Garmin!
Ross,
Ran a half marathon yesterday with my Garmin 405 and the timer kept going but the GPS said I had only went 12.63. I mentioned it to them at the finish and also verified with another runner whom I noticed had a 305 and his showed 13.1? Do you have any suggestions or tips I could follow? Still love the watch btw.
If it matters at all, it was very hilly so maybe I lost a signal for a time?
Thank you for your time.
FR405 stinks. My wristband broke into several pieces of rubber garbage 12 mo. old, the bezel is a nightmare – no matter the sensitivity setting, battery life is a joke even with gps turned of, buttons require 3- 4 pushes before working.
A real piece of crap.
If there is even the slightest mentioning of similar problems with 410 or 610 in forms I will never buy Garmin again.