I’ve been running for almost 15 years and have used every product under the sun for running, from foot pods, HR monitors, GPS devices, etc. I wanted something new when it was time to retire my Garmin 406. Garmin has always been good to me and has an extensive website function, like Nikeplus.com.
The problem with Garmin is that most of their watches are boring-looking or too big. Being a Nike person, from clothes to shoes, I figured I would try Nike, even though I was skeptical since they only recently entered the “gadget/GPS” market. I’ll break it down for you guys…
I use the Nike+ sensor in conjunction with the GPS (I have a Nike+ ready lunar glide Nike shoe, though my friend has been able to tie his sensor to the tongue of his Asics). Now you don’t need the sensor. The GPS works fine, but the accuracy is 10-fold better with both in use.
So pretty much, when you’re ready, hold the big green button for 3 seconds, and my GPS has picked up satellite and sensor data within 5 seconds without fail every time. And boom, you’re ready to go. The big portion of the screen is the miles you’ve run so far (you can change this too, but I like to keep track of my distance and see that all the time).
The top half is a little smaller, but you can scroll through or have the watch auto-scroll through your pace, mph, clock, the time elapsed, calories burned, etc… (keep in mind to auto-scroll or what you want to see on the top half, you’ll need to set this up on your computer software).
The only con I’ve found is to get the watch to light up for those early morning or night runs. You really gotta tap hard, fast. Nike says it’s like this to prevent accidental taps.
