GPS throwdown: Global Trainer vs. 310XT

A GPS THROWDOWN!!!

okay, so i watch food channel. probably too much.  hence, i am calling this a throwdown, although no-one really officially  challenged anyone; i would say, that garmin are akin to  the local, ethnic guys who have mastered the traditional dish, and timex are definitely Bobby Flay here. ie. they are the challengers trying to beat the originals at their own game. but enough of food channel references.

what follows is my head to head review of the garmin 310XT and the Timex global trainer.
why do i have both? a good question. but no real good answer. i like toys.

COST:
the Global Trainer lists at 375 bucks with HR monitor. the garmin is listed at 349. no real difference.

come to think of it,


you could buy a large take out pizza for the price difference. or it could put you in starbuck's for close to a week, depending on what you drink. come to think of it, i am liking the garmin here.

ASTHETICS:

this is personal, but i start with it, because the look of the watch is the first thing you will notice and it does impact on how and when you may use it. the garmin is more colorful, smaller, more square. it does not look like a watch. it looks like a gps device on your wrist. a little boxy. a little bit like a miniature tv set or laptop, whereas  the timex, looks like one of those giant ironman watches at a swim exit in your local triathlon. it is, in reality, almost that big. that might bother some,but not me. it is, in my opinion, more masculine, more attractive, and much more suited to daily wear. it looks like a giant wristwatch. if you ever had one of the ironman digital watches it will be instantly familiar to you. it is his big brother...on steroids. if hulk hogan had a gps watch, this would be it. no way would he be caught dead in an orange and gray boxy garmin.  and giant wristwatches are kinda cool right now, just watch MTV. 
winner: TIMEX

FUNCTIONALITY/FEATURES:

this is like comparing a navigator to an escalade. both are ridden with features one would expect. waterproof. multisport ready. choices of metrics per screen. scrolling functions. virtual pacing.  both watches can sync with a power meter and provide power data. both can be mounted on a bike.  no real difference in features. not enough to choose one over the other.
winner: TIE


EASE OF USE:

i am a techno dummy, and i never read user manuals. both units can easily be figured out using the intuitive techno dummy approach by me, and that is saying lots.
there are a few differences to point out however:

1. transferring data: the garmin uses a wireless ANT device, like a flashcard that sits in a serial port on your computer. when you are done your workout, press reset, and the data will magically transfer automatically to your computer and your garmin connect account. pretty cool.
except: getting it to work is not always seamless. the ant device takes up valuable port space on my computer, and i am paranoid about losing it. over the past a year i have lost several key workouts for no explicable reason. a bit of a pain. the transfer times for long workouts can be mind-numbing and the connection can sometimes break down. this is one situation where i prefer a cable to wireless.

the timex uses a cable which connects to the watch and data transfer is almost immediate. i have never lost a workout. no waiting. the data transfer cord is also the power cord, so, great. it is bigger, not so easy to lose. doesn't need to sit in the computer.  it synchs with Training Peaks which gives you a nice platform to view things on, and is quite convenient if you have a coach and use TP alot. i don't like the interface quite as much as garmin connect, but that is just me.

2. the buttons on the timex are bigger. they require less force to trigger them. they are easier to find while running. easier to use with gloves.

3. the wristbands are different. the timex is bigger and easily fits over my base layers and gloves in winter. the garmin is often stretched to the max and cannot quite get over my biggest, fattest, warmest pair of run in minus 10 gloves. after six months the wristband clasp on the garmin broke off and i now use an elastic band. (see below)

4. the screens: the garmin wins here. the screen writing is bigger and more bold making the characters are easier to see. the timex gives way too much information when you are using automatic splits by time or distance and the text is so small i don't even try to read it while running, so i never really do. and the frustrating thing is they give you no way to dummy it down. you can't choose what info you get on the screen when you hit the lap button, and that kinda sucks. with the garmin, what  i get is the time of my split. period. easy. i know what pace i just ran for 1k. that is ALL i want to know while i am running.

5. the warning chimes:  the garmin is louder and easier to hear. i ran with both watches on  my arm the other day and this was quite apparent. half the time when the GT is telling me a split i don't even hear it. this never happens with the garmin. nice, loud chime.

6. use as a daily watch: near impossible with the garmin. the battery burns out faster. it takes more work to get the gps off. it is just not set up to be a daily watch.
 the timex battery can last 5 days with GPS off. it is much easier to use with GPS off, in the pool, for example. it is quite easy to get your swim splits with the global trainer in the pool. not so with the garmin. the global trainer works just like a basic timex ironman watch for the preset alarm functions, which is nice, and better than the garmin.
 the timex is just basically more like an every day watch, but really big, and with gps when you need it.

7.open water: i have yet to use the GT in open water. (lake ontario is pretty cold right now). however the garmin has a new software update that will allow you to estimate swim distance and pace without putting the watch in the top of your swim cap. nice. no more buzzing on my head to let me know i went 500m! the timex has no such function, so i imagine it will suck in the water and give no reliable GPS data.given how it struggles to find satelites on cloudy days (see below), i wonder if it would lose signal in the water.

8. GPS: i will say more about this in the next section, but basically the timex takes way too long to find signals at times, which leads to lots of standing about, stretching, and getting cold. if it is mid-winter, it leads to freezing your ass off and starting your run without gps because you are so fricking cold.  it also has the irritating habit of turning off and going to sleep mode if there is no gps signal for a while. it will ask you if you want to continue without gps, but when you are on the move do you have time for this? i am really paranoid about struggling with this watch to find signals during a race.


EASE OF USE WINNER: i would say a tie, with a slight edge for the garmin on the things that really matter to me race day. i prefer the Global Trainer as a watch i can wear every day, so no need to switch watches between workout and office and i can use it as an alarm. the garmin is not so user friendly in that regard. so i would probably like the gt for day in day out wear and just be prepared for a long pre-run stretch while it calibrates. for a race, i am too anxious. give me the garmin. 

HEAD TO HEAD ROAD TEST:

yes, i have done a couple of road tests head, to head. i am that deprived of things to do, and this in spite of being too busy all the time. go wonder.

first off, both runs were on cloudy days. the garmin found satellites within 1 m. ready to go!
the timex was struggling.  this has been my experience with the GT almost every time.
i have done more stretching since owning the global trainer than ever before. i stretch, i point  the watch to the sky. nothing. i start getting cold. nothing. five minutes into the run. the garmin is fine. the timex. no signal.
this happened on both runs. the fact is that the garmin just finds the signals faster and more efficiently. and, it is a major pain to be standing there on a frigid morning waiting for your gps to kick in. (let alone stressing about this at a race) and i can tell you this happened many times this winter with the timex. and it doesn't find the satellites once you are moving, so you have to stop and wait. and press off and on again. and then it finally kicks in. PITA! (and i don't mean mediterrannean bread!)

in terms of the data generated, perhaps the most depressing revelation was that they actually keep slightly different time. wow. i thought all digital watches gave perfect times, but they can actually disagree by several seconds, even with careful synchronized button pressing. it certainly says something about how literally you can take the data from either watch. 

they were pretty close in terms of estimating distance. however, the garmin will start to generate data before it locks into all the satellites and can inflate your pace a bit at the beginning of a run.
my impression is that the garmin estimates faster times overall. 
friday's run, for example, was a tempo progression run. my last set was 20m long and the  garmin estimated a 4:33 pace, while the timex gave me a 4:36 pace for the same exact split. that is a small but significant difference.

in terms of feedback, the timex does give you the choice to adjust smoothing for gps. with the lowest smoothing setting, i found the feedback closest to the garmin. however, both watches tended to give me quite different moment to moment feedback on pacing during random checks. there were also times when they read the same. there was no real pattern i could define. overall, i would say that the feedback numbers fluctuate less with the garmin. i tended to trust them more moment to moment because they were jumping around less.

OVERALL WINNER:
this is tough because i like different things about each. however, i am racing Ironman New Orleans 70.3 next weekend and i am pretty sure it will be with the garmin on my wrist. i just trust it more. more reliable moment to moment data. perhaps better swim data. i don't worry about losing satellites or not finding them.
so the winner of the GPS throwdown?   GARMIN 310 XT for racing. i will still use the GT for daily training and for runs where i don't mind standing around in the nice sunny weather waiting for 10 minutes for the gps to kick in.