910xt - the rubber seals around the buttons are cracked, and it is extremely finicky when trying to upload activities from the watch to garmin express.
I figure I’ve gotten a good ROI, so now it’s time for a new one. I see the Instinct 2 and the forerunner 255 are both in my price range, and I think both will do bike power and have triathlon mode. Any recommendations on which one is better? I “think” the 255 is more suited to triathlon, but it’s confusing trying to figure out what each model has / doesn’t have.
The Instinct 2 is the more rugged version for sure. As to which is more suited to triathlon, that’s actually a harder question because Garmin is weird AF. The Instinct 2 for example got Training Readyness and the FR255 did not!
That is a great life for a 910 XT. I had one but wore it out years ago. I got it to limp along until the 735 XT came out… Fantastic watch for its time.
Are you looking at the 255 or 265? The 255 is last years model, and the 265 is a quantum leap up from that.
The Forerunner 255 is a fantastic watch. It does everything the top tier watches do except for some of the analytics. Same with the 265 but on a bigger and better screen.
I don’t think the Instinct 2 is well suited to triathlon. It has an odd, low resolution screen with some fixed design elements. So, you give up a lot of flexibility in activity screen views. Plus it is bigger and heavier.
I should add that I don’t really care about any analytics on the watch. As long as it records the data and I can see the basics (power, pace, time, distance, etc) then I’m good. Analytics is all through TrainingPeaks and/or intervals.icu
Either work. It’s about the packaging. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with the FR255 vs the FR265 for what you want. As with all the iterations, the 265 may do things that if there, you find useful, but you won’t miss them if you never had them.
I tried the Instinct, but I’m another one that didn’t like the screen. Specifically, in workout modes the numbers just weren’t big enough to read easily for me, and the layout options to fix that are limited because of the split screen and how the screen is fairly small, period. It definitely looks more interesting than the typical Garmin, which I why I bought it, but in the end I went with a Fenix.
I had a Rival for a while. It got stolen. It was fine. But it is a couple generations behind current products. And I’m pretty sure Wahoo is soon to discontinue it and the ecosystem.
Hey Jason in Halifax. Tim in Lunenburg here. My (second) Garmin 910xt failed three weeks ago. With a half IM coming up, I shopped around for a couple days, with similar questions to yours, then bought… a (third) 910xt from a lady in Halifax! Haha. $40, like brand new. I’m totally happy to not have to learn a whole new watch. Anyway sometimes used on Marketplace is the easiest option.
In fairness then my 910XT is all fine apart from the strap that has snapped. And I was finding downloading the data a pain (I had an android app that worked 90% of the time but that was a few phones ago).
Unfortunately I no longer live in Halifax (no, really, I did) and so postage from NZ wouldn’t make sense. As to why it seems all of the surviving 910XTs hail from Halifax I can’t help.
Looks like the old 910xt can hang on for a bit longer - I deleted the device from Garmin Express and re-added it, sync was no problem once that was done.
I’m on my second fenix 7 and getting read to send my current back for a 3rd. The altimeter feature goes haywire…garmin’s solution is to replace my fenix 7 with another and send me a “swim 2”. Not ideal, I don’t want to lug around two watches, one just for swimming and one for everything else.
Garmin’s working theory is that using the thermometer while swimming is what fries the altimeter. (The altimeter & thermometer are in the same physical sensor.) So, a couple years ago, Garmin released a firmware update that disables the thermometer while using the swim profile. I wonder if they released that update to the old Fenix watches?
I seem to recall you being a bit of a swimmer, so probably better with the 255, but when I needed a watch for an event in Hali last summer, I found a rather robust market for used Garmins, so you might check Kijiji and Marketplace first. Might find a used 945 or Fenix 6 for a similar price.
Venu 2S user here. Like it and only really use it for broadcasting heart rate. When on the bike I wear two watches. The Garmin and now my iWatch series 10.
When you do come to buy a new watch FWIW I don’t think you’d go wrong with a 255. I had a 9xx (can’t recall which) and replaced it with a 255 as I didn’t want to pay for a whole bunch of features I wasn’t interested in (I caught a comment from you up thread which made me think you were similarly inclined). I still switched off / ignore features on the 255 that I consider non-core / pretend metrics but otherwise I was very happy to spend less and get everything I needed. Can’t answer your question about the comparison with the other watch tho as no experience with it.
I have a 255. Had a more pricey Garmin right before that (lost it) and a 910xt right before that.
The 255 is a step up from the 910xt. Mainly the annoying charger of the 910xt is gone, replaced by the still mildly annoying but less breakable Garmin charging cable.
2 minor annoyances for me that you probably won’t notice:
The watch band quick release is no longer compatible with the older bicycle quick release mounts for Garmin watches (so you can mount your watch body as a bike computer.) Whereas my previous $400+ Garmin watch was. I think this is how they push you into buying both the Edge computer and the watch separately (which I now do have.)
No onboard maps for cycling navigation on the 255. These were present on my prior more expensive Garmin watch. But I don’t think you’ll miss it as the maps are a pain to see anyway on the small watch screen compared to an Edge.
If you swim a lot with the 255, the altimeter will get toasted and not work within a month or two, so you’ll have to rely on after-workout altitude correction, which isn’t that big a deal, but I think it screws up your watch VO2max calculations.
