I’m thinking about getting a Garmin Forerunner for my Mum, so that when she goes off on her hiking adventures (e.g. Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc in the last couple of years) when she returns she can bring some record of the trips back with her. I’ve never used a Forerunner or Motion Based, so am wandering if there’s any advice I should have? E.g. ease of use, reliability, model recommendations. The Forerunner 101 and 201 look clunky - the 205 looks better, but does it work as well? Does Motion Based cover the whole world? Is the free account sufficient?
for sure the 205 (and 305) are better…
motionbased is fine for a free account the only real restriction is that you can only see the last ten activities in your diary with a free account. there is some analyser stuff missing but not so important for her i reckon.
worldwide aint a problem… and best thing is you can export the routes to google earth… very cool
the biggest issue is the forerunner restrictions…
- 10hr battery life… you can get an external USB battery pack to help but it makes it all clumsy… but probably needed as i suspect she will be out for more than 10hrs per day.
- will she be able to recharge the unit each day?
- it is pretty cool memory wise… but as it fills up it will start reducing the number of trackpoints for previous activities so is best to upload activities if possible to either PC or motionbased (so she would need to take the cradle with her). this is only really an issue if she is gone for a long time
definitely go with the 205/305 versions because they’ve got a better gps chipset, there is a noticeable difference between them and the earlier ones. REI has the 205 now for $200, and with their no questions asked replacement/refund policy you can’t go wrong. Sporttracks is the best (and free) program i’ve found for analyzing data, far superior to training center and motionbased. motionbased is ok, and its benefits are the browsable community, and the fact that its stores your data online. for your mom to record her trips she’ll have to upload every 20hrs of data or the gps points are lost. uploading to sporttracks means lugging her computer around with her, uploading to motionbased means taking a usb drive with the MB agent program, the garmin driver, and an active internet connection. uploading on the go to trainingcenter is the simplest, all you need is TC on a USB drive and the garmin driver. the latter two she’ll need to find someones computer somewhere in the world to use… if she’s going to be out in the mountains for any number of days she’ll need to find a way to charge the gps daily. i’ve used a Scotty solar charger w/ USB connection, but the Solio one would probably work too… the supplied AC adaptor may not work all over the world. right now the 205/305 are not built to handle multiple day/ultramarathon type events with their limited battery and memory but you can work around it.
I have a 205 and it works great, but it isn’t designed for long excursions like back packing. As mentioned above, the battery life will for sure be an issue. Also, if she’s going to have a GPS, she’d probably want some kind of mapping software. While the 205/305 can show you a basic layout with your route, it doesn’t have much functionality.
I’d recommend stepping up to a unit more appropriate for her type of activity.
From these replies it sounds like you’re right. Any suggestions on what would work better for backpacking type trips?
As mentioned…if hiking is the activity, she’d be better served with one of these devices (minus the Foretrex)
eTrex and Gecko are popular.
I second the bigger units.
A friend of mine loves these toys but isn’t too tech-saavy. That said, he found the interface easy enough to use to download and sync with motion-based on his own. Battery life on his 205 was closer to 6 hours in his opinion. He prefers the Garmin UI over the Polar 625X which he also has.