I’m interested in one. I was looking for one to buy now and could not find it listed for sale anywhere. Amazone.com has it listed but they have not arrived.
Does anyone think that .43 inches for thickness of the heart monitor sounds big?
I am interested in one. Please keep us update.
Rod
Both of you are right. I guess i should have been more specific. I believe the distance reading is accurate, but i dont believe the pace is accurate. I can run 10 miles at the same pace and it will be all over the place. It does get better the further you go b/c it uses an average, but it is still way off at times. Notice how when you stop the timer after your workout and it is able to get a complete reading because you have stopped, the pace per mile is usually very different than what you have been looking at while on the run. Thats what I meant by inaccurate. Conversely, if my Polar bike computer says I’m doing 20mph, and I have entered the tire size data correctly, I’m doing 20mph.
Disregarding the water integrity of the unit for a second, you would be hard pressed to get any signals in a foot of two of water, even if the unit was static. add the dymanic movements of swimming and forget about wearing it on your wrist.
THe water integrity of the unit is designed to get dropped, wet, or submerged like during a river crossing and still work.
THere was an older thread about different ideas for open water swimming with the 201: pulling it on a small kids pool toy, under a wetsuit (though that would probably be to much material to recieve sat signal).
I was going to try putting my 201 in a zip lock bag and put in under a swim cap towards the back of my head, figured it would stay dry and would have a good view of sats. never got a chance to try it last summer. Plus there comes a point were the geek meter starts melting and completely nerding out is not worth that extra bit of training data… 
Jim
$139.95 vs $275? Seems like a big price jump for adding a HR monitor and new software. Not that it will stop me - just makes conversation with the wife a little harder.
I agree. It is the price for not having to carry one more thing around.
Amazon already has it listed at 299.99 and will ship it for free when it is available:
Looks like Christmas in January for hundreds of slowtwitchers!
Mark
Looks like Christmas in January for hundreds of slowtwitchers!
makes you wonder why Garmin did not release the 301 BEFORE christmas. Think how many sales they could have gotten from us triathletes. I am sure that poeple will still try this product but they did miss a number of sales.
I’d be interested in the group buy if the net price was ~$20 better than Amazon.
I’d be interested in the group buy if the net price was ~$20 better than Amazon.
I second group buy effort
This site has the price for $215.00
wow $215 is a fair price I think! Now I wish I would have waited, just got the 201 for christmas.
english muffin,
The 301 has not hit retailers yet.
Many use the 201 on their bikes and when they run. It works very well.
Is it accurate? What is your reference and what is its accuracy? Discrepancies between a well calibrated cyclometer or topograpic mapping sortware over the same route is almost always less than 1%, usually closer to 0.5%. Is that good enough?
Sounds like a great tool to me and also if it is $215 not to shabby of a bargain!
Arrrgh. My wife bought me a 201 for chrstmas. Why couldn’t they have come out with this earlier. The buttons on the 301 look way better than the 201. I’m always pressing the wrong thing.
As far as software, check out threads here on motionbased.com. It is way better than anything you will get from Garmin, and will upgraade your geek status from a 9 up to a 14!
Oh, and if getting the 301 doesn’t motivate you to go running in the snow outside with 30 mph winds, check out geocaching.com. It’s nice to have a pot of gold to run towards. One more addiction to add to the list.
Ben, here is a side by side. (question from a PM, thought I’d post the picture here for anybody interested.)
Thanks sojourner. Is it just me, or does the 301 also have actual reflective material on the strap instead of the yellow non-reflective that the 201 uses? or is it just an optical illusion in your pic?
How does the heart rate monitor seem compared with Polar? How does the transmitter fit compared with the Polar or Timex Bodylink? Is the battery replaceable by the user like the new Polars? I found Polar’s HRM to be great, but I had problems with getting a clear signal from my Bodylink. Any other feedback on the HRM would be appreciated.
Also, this site has the 301 for $209.95. S/h to my address is around $8 but it looks like it varies by destination -
http://www.adventurestation.com/product/view_product.asp?x_ID=148608&CatID=14179&ref=4GPS
For any Canucks out there, GPS Central has them listed for $289.95 CDN with availability sometime in January. This company is in Alberta so no PST.
See: http://www.gpscentral.ca/products/garmin/forerunner301.htm