blackfriday Garmin has a variety of GPS watches for runners and cyclists, from the $99 Forerunner 25 to the $599 fenix 3 Sapphire. Among its hottest watches, the $199 Forerunner 35, falls somewhere among, both in cost and features. This GPS watch includes a built-in heartrate monitor, acts as an all-day activity tracker, and even provides some smartphone notifications. Even though it does each one of these things well, it generally does not excel at anybody ― which is unfortunate considering its price.
Design
Even though many of Garmin’s GPS watches are circular, the Forerunner 35 looks similar to an Apple Watch, for better or worse. Its flat-faced, squarish design sets it in addition to the rest of Garmin’s lineup, which either look sporty (the Forerunner 235) or even more such as a traditional watch (the vivomove). It’s a safe, middle ground between your two that I felt looked bland, but wouldn’t watch out of place in a number of situations.
On the proper of the watch are two buttons: one for starting and choosing the workout, and one for moving through menu items. The left side includes a button for turning on the backlight, and a Back button.
I came across the Forerunner’s 35’s 0.93-inch, 128 x 128-pixel display simple to read in virtually any condition. It’s a whole lot brighter and crisper compared to the $149 Polar M200, a GPS watch that also offers a heartrate monitor and smartphone notifications. It even seemed somewhat brighter compared to the TomTom Spark 3, although two were pretty evenly matched.
Navigating through menus with only a down-arrow button proved more time-consuming than I would like. Too often, I’d press the beginning Workout button, thinking it could move me back up a list, and then select an item in error. Also, scrolling through long menus was tedious, specially when I scrolled at night item I needed, and had to scroll completely the list again.
Just like the TomTom Spark 3, the Forerunner 35 is water-resistant to 5 ATM (130 feet) ― it’ll survive some splashes and swimming, but don’t take it scuba. You can obtain the Forerunner 35 with a black, light blue, green or white band. The bands are replaceable, but you’ll desire a screwdriver.
Performance
The types of activities the Forerunner 35 can track are limited by Cardio: walk, run outdoor, run indoor and bike. That isn’t as comprehensive as the TomTom Spark 3 Cardio, that may also track swimming.
The Forerunner 35’s GPS took slightly longer than more costly GPS watches to get a signal, but I didn’t need to wait a lot more than about 2 minutes ― plenty of time to get some good stretching in. Within my runs, the Forerunner 35 was accurate, precisely charting my route.
I came across the Forerunner 35’s heartrate monitor somewhat slow. Several times on runs, my heartrate will be stuck around 150-160 beats each and every minute, then suddenly jump up to 170 or more for the rest of my run. This wasn’t because I was sprinting, either; I maintained a reliable pace throughout my run.
Although it isn’t as customizable as Garmin’s more costly devices, which enable you to add watch faces and other apps, the Forerunner 35 does receive notifications from your own smartwatch. I possibly could read texts and see who was simply calling, and, as an advantage, reject the decision from the watch itself. Limited because they were, it was helpful to get all of this information directly on my wrist.
For the lazy types, the Forerunner 35 includes a Move alert, that will buzz your wrist if you have been sitting too much time. A Move bar in the bottom of the screen grows long the longer you’ve been sitting, and only an excellent 5-minute walk will clear it.
Battery Life
Garmin estimates that the Forerunner 35 can last up to nine days in watch mode or more to 13 hours in training mode. I wore the watch out for a complete week, going on three runs using GPS for approximately 45 minutes every time; by the end of the week, the battery was half full. The Forerunner includes a tiny clip-on USB charging cable, that was not only simple to carry, but stayed on the watch securely.
Bottom Line
The Garmin Forerunner 35 is an excellent, but unexceptional, running watch. It includes a safe design, connects rapidly to GPS satellites, and lasts some time on a charge. However, if you wish a GPS watch with an increase of features, I would advise spending a supplementary $30 for the TomTom Spark 3 Cardio + Music. The TomTom Spark 3 permits you to stream music from the watch to your headphones, for instance. And it generally does not cost a lot more. However, if money is a consideration, you will discover more value from the Polar M200, which does not have as bright a display, but offers you a lot of the same features for $
