Garmin Forerunner 50 Review

Gadget geeks need exercise like anyone else, however in the time between leaving their place of residence and partaking in a run they can suffer withdrawal symptoms. No longer, thanks to the ‘Garmin Forerunner 50 + Footpod’. The watch acts as a regular, yet rather sleek digital device used for presenting the time. The real beauty comes when pressing the ‘mode’ button that moves you into ‘train’ mode.

While running its possible to check your speed, distance travelled as well as time taken, all this data is wirelessly transmitted from your footpod to your watch. The clever part comes next. Once you’ve cooled down and showered its time to meticulously analyse your journey. This is made possible with the Garmin Training Center, insert the USB dongle (included along with the watch and footpod) into your computer (after previously installing the required software). ANT Agent will allow you to wirelessly transfer the data from the watch to the USB dongle, once the data has been transferred Training Center allows you to view the statistics and a graph of your run or cycle.

Our only gripe is that we purchased too early, bought at Amazon for £64.99 (roughly $100), a few days later we noticed it dropped to £37.99 (roughly $60).

Pros are that it’s affordable, sleek, easy to use, reasonably accurate and wireless. Cons are a less than one-year battery life and an undersized manual.