The Garmin Forerunner 410 is a top-of-the-line GPS-enabled HRM watch offered by a well-known brand in GPS devices.
Garmin Forerunner 410 Review
In terms of the major features, it is very similar to its predecessor, the Garmin Forerunner 405 CX. Both models have a small and sleek watch face, and can be worn in your routine life. If, like me, you are the forgetful type who often forgets to bring your HRM watch to your exercise session, you’ll appreciate having a watch that you can wear routinely so that you won’t have to remember to bring a special watch when you exercise.
The GPS receiver is also very sensitive and robust, usually getting GPS lock within 5 seconds, and not losing the lock even if you jog under large trees or buildings.When purchased with the optional but highly recommended heart rate monitor chest strap, the watch tracks your current speed, heart rate, pace, and calories burnt.Like the Garmin 405CX, the Garmin 410 calculates calorie consumption more accurately based on heart rate data, rather than the less accurate speed and distance data.Based on your GPS coordinates, the Garmin 410 can even give you your current elevation (distance above sea level), the grade/slope of your current run, and the time to sunrise/sunset for your current location. You can choose to display all these pieces of data in several configurations on the watch face, either one giant field for one piece of data, or smaller fields enabling the display to 2 to 3 pieces of data simultaneously. The forerunner 410 also comes with the touch bezel, which is basically a touch-sensitive watch rim that functions like the iPod scroll wheel, enabling you to scroll to display different pages with different data. There is also a Virtual Partner feature, which allows you to program in a desired goal pace, and the watch will show you in real time how far in front or behind the desired pace you are during your run. Like all Garmin HRM watches, the 410 also comes with an ANT+ USB stick and the Garmin Connect/Training Center software, allowing you to transmit your exercise data wirelessly to your PC or Mac. The provided software can also be used to upload your training data onto the Internet, so that you can plot out your training route on Google Maps, as well as compare your workout data with that of other people who have run the same route.
The Garmin 410 is easily $80-100 more expensive than the Garmin 405CX, so naturally, a frequently asked question is how the Garmin 410 compares with the Garmin 405CX. As mentioned above, the two models are very similar, but there are a few differences. Firstly, Garmin appears to have responded to the numerous complaints about unresponsiveness of the Garmin 405/405CX touch bezel under wet conditions, and have re-engineered the 410’s touch bezel to be more responsive under wet conditions, and less likely to be activated by an errant brush of the sleeve. A second improvement is that, while the 405 and 405CX only allow the GPS function to be powered down to conserve battery life, the 410 allows the entire watch to be completely powered down, which should extend the somewhat short battery life of the watch.
So, if you are in the market for a high-end GPS-enabled HRM watch, you should strongly consider the Garmin F410 GPS heart rate monitor watch.