Garmin Forerunner 305 Best Deal

My husband and I just decided to gift ourselves for Christmas a bit early this year.  We found such a cheap price for the Garmin Forerunner 305 that we just didn’t want to pass up on the opportunity.  It’s been too many too many years since my old heart rate monitor, the Polar Beat has been fully functioning and with my quest to qualify for the Boston Marathon, we thought that it was time to take the plunge.

When I started researching and reading reviews for the heart rate monitors, I came across the Garmin 305 for $149.00.  I couldn’t believe that I could get a heart rate monitor and a GPS system (and more) for the same price as what I would pay for a decent heart rate monitor.  I had to investigate further.  In the meantime, I had dug out my old Polar Beat and on the box it had a price of $139.99, and The Beat never had any features – no target heart rate, average heart rate or upper and lower limits.  Just a plain and simple heart rate monitor which was actually very useful to my training in it’s day.

Now that I was onto GPS systems instead of individual heart rate monitors, I wanted to compare the Garmin Forerunner 305 with the Garmin Forerunner 405, since the 305 is basically less than half the price of the 405.  I wasn’t sure how old the technology was on the Garmin 305 and I wanted to make sure that I was making the right choice.  The easiest way for me to compare the two GPS/heart rate monitor systems was to draw up a table, which I would like to share:

Compare Forerunner 305 vs 405

Features	Garmin Forerunner 305	Garmin Forerunner 405
Price at time of writing	$139.00	$349.99
Weight	2.72 oz	2.11 oz
Dimensions (WxHxD)	2.1” x 2.7” x 0.7”	1.9” x 2.8” x .65”
Display size	1.3” x 0.8”	1.06 diameter
Water Resistance	Yes	Yes
Battery Life	10 hours	8 hours
Calories burned	Yes	Yes
Lap heart rate	Yes	Yes
Average heart rate	Yes	Yes
Heart rate zones	Yes	Yes
Time/distance alarm	Yes	Yes
Pace alert	Yes	Yes
Interval training	Yes	Yes
Auto lap	Yes	Yes
Auto pause	Yes	Yes
Lap history	stores 1000 laps	stores 1000 laps
Waypoints/favorites	stores 100 locations	stores 100 locations
Routes	stores 50 routes	No
Virtual Partner	Yes	Yes
Backlight	Yes	Yes
Wireless heartrate transmitter	Yes	Yes
Sport watch	No	Yes
Unit to unit/PC transfer (shares data wirelessly with support of USB ANT stick)	No	Yes

Differences Between Garmin Forerunner 305 and 405

The biggest seen difference of the two units was the size.  Some don’t like that the Garmin 305 is bulky, however those that use it say that it is very comfortable to wear.  The 405 has a whole different look and feel in that instead of the square bulky look, it is round and looks like a watch and could double for a watch, since it has all  the sport watch features.  Surrounding the watch face is a touch bezel that allows the user to scroll through the functions screens, unlike the 305 that is operated through push buttons.  Though user reviews felt that the touch bezel was awkward to operate.  The navigation capabilities were comparable on both units.  They both let you mark or find locations and also navigate you back to your starting point.  I think that this will be a very nice feature if you go for a run anywhere that is unfamiliar and there is the possibility of getting lost.  This would definitely let me be more adventuresome in my route planning.

After reading multiple reviews of both units, it was clear to me that the Garmin 305 was a very well liked product.  It performed well and would work great for our needs.  It would definitely out deliver the heart rate monitor that we were initially interested in.  And compare to the Polar Beat – well, no comparison.  We ordered our Garmin Forerunner 305 through Amazon and will have it in a few days.  After I have put it to the test, I will provide a full review of the product.

By the way, If anybody is looking for a Polar Beat with a dead battery, contact me and it’s yours.

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