I’m thinking of getting a sport watch for my wife. I saw both of these watches at Costco. The difference in price is about $100. BUt I could not find any reviews on New Balance Nx990 GPS Cardio Trainer.
I’m hoping some of the good fellows here can share your reviews or comments.
Many thanks
Garmin products are tried and true. they work well, easy interface, fast lock-up to satellites.
if NB got it right on their first shot- I’d be impressed.
Thanks for the reply. It would be nice if someone do have thel experience with NB. Again, much appreciate for anymore inputs.
I also compared the phones’ specs at Costco and went for price and bought the New Balance NX990 for something like $129. I’ve been on two runs with it. Impressed so far with the GPS feature. Haven’t hooked up the cardio. It locked into the satellites in 5 seconds or less when I started away from trees. The software that interfaces with it installed correctly on both a Vista and a Windows 7 PC. The graphic path is overlayed onto a GoogleMaps, and looks as accurate as I’m going to need it. Since I referee soccer, I need it very accurate so that I can review my paths on the field.
So in summary, I can’t give you a comparison of the two devices in use but I can give you a data point that the NX990’s GPS feature works well after two days of testing. One tip to those to hit this website looking for the software: Don’t download the N9 software from the nbmonitors.com site. Go to their main page, select GPS devices from the tab, then drill down to the NX990 page. The software for it is downloadable from that page. I’ve already submitted a ticket to the third party OEM about this, and told them to likewise alert nbmonitors.com’s webmaster to add the link.
Since I referee soccer, I need it very accurate so that I can review my paths on the field.
I am looking into a gps watch for exactly this purpose. I read on the NX990 manual that it records 99 waypoints but you mentioned that it depicts your running pattern on google maps overlay. Is this pattern limited to 99 points (I assume a waypoint is a change of direction) or is a real track of your running pattern so you can see how deep or wide you were at certain times in the game?
Are you using it as well as a chronograph/countdown timer?
Thank you.
There are waypoints and there are data readings. The waypoints are used for orienteering. For example, you define some waypoints while you are out for a hike so you don’t get lost when returning. I just reviewed the tracking data for a run, and there would seem to be a couple of orders of magnitude more data readings possible for the run than the waypoint limit (I’m estimating 2000 for my 6 mile run) . The display overlays a running person icon over the path as you move the mouse over the speed or distance graph. I just zoomed in to a section of the run where I can guess the distance covered at about 40 yards and it had 7 data points while I was going 7mph.
I do plan to use the countdown timer. I will try to test this while the GPS is running and post anything unexpected. Since the watch would need to be able to multitask to do this, I want to be sure that the GPS tracker can work while the countdown is going. For my first few games with this watch, I’ll probably wear a second watch just in case.