HKRunners [Garmin Forerunner 310XT] Group Buy offer

Hi,

I'm wondering some comments / feedback to all the brave souls who purchased the Garmin Forerunner last year.

Any particular highlights / downside regarding the watch? Is it user friendly in illustrating and downloading the time /distance / heart rate etc and etc? Is the data useful for analysis such as constant 80% maximum heart rate training in LSD?

I asked because I would like to have a try on Garmin's product as my Suunto T6 heart rate belt broke down into two pieces after 2.5 years intensive use (probably because of excessive soiling of sweat).

Young Yeung

Its HRM is excellent. The user interface of FR310XT is very friendly and behaves similar to the previous verson FR305. The battery can be last for around 20 hours even under GPS mode and water-proof are excellent. It can setup 4 page screens with max data-fields 4 x 4 (i.e. 16 data-fields) plus the virtual partner screen. But the buttons are not improved and not durable. I found the scroll buttons are easy to be broken after 2-3 months' intensive use in this race season. The hang problem occurs more frequently than the previous FR305.

I'd like to also know if there's any chance for group order again such that more people could join and enjoy the benefit of using GPS watch.

After the SCM 2010, I start training again and now I'd like to commit more so using a GPS watch should encourage training as it's quite boring always running on treadmill.

I've search and review quite lots of review on Garmin product, seems 310XT should be the best at the moment (405 has lots of bad mouth on the bezel part). Unfortunately there's no official warranty product at Hong Kong now and seems most people are buying it on eBay. So it will be great if such kind of group order could start again (I think it should be easy to gather at least 10 interested parties here if the condition is unchanged for the eBay seller)

Thanks. :)

John

I bought the 310XT from an Australian firm on a reputable website, which has also been used by another friend of mine. About HK$3,000 from memory and it is despatched by courier and gets here in about 2-3 days.

It is my first GPS watch and I can't rate it highly enough. The only issue that I have found is a compatibility problem between the USB drive software and the new Snow Leopard OS in MAC, but I think this has now been rectified.

Bottom line is that this is a watch I recommend, and if there is no demand for a group purchase, I am more than happy to add in the link to the Aussie sellers. HK stockists seem pretty hopeless on Garmin by the looks of it.

I called the Australian company earlier this year to buy from them, but i was told that they no longer provide the service into HK and was referred to a shop in Discovery Bay that I eventually bought the 310XTs from. Dont remember the name of the shop but it was in the Plaza and there shouldn't be too many sports shops there so should be fairly easy to locate.

Yes, thanks for your feedback, maybe you could add the aussie sellers at here as well such that we may have an alternative. Shop at local store normally sell at around $3,600 now.

I'm also running Snow Leopard and hope the issue has been solved now. :)

Hi jl,
May I know if that's the ebay seller of group offer? At their information at ebay, they still have delivery option to HK. anyway, May i know the price of the shop at Discovery Bay (Though it's a bit far away) ?

Thanks.

john

these are the guys (my disclaimer: I have no vested interest in this business).

http://www.firstendurance.com.au/index.html?cPath=231

As I said, should be here in 2-3 days and you can even track the Garmin's journey on the courier tracking system, which increases the sense of anticipation by another notch. I recommend you get the heart monitor as well, I have found that to be very useful.

I bought mine from Australia too, but a friend of mine who posted a message here last week just bought a 310XT (model with HRM) two days ago at Wai Kei Photos & Audio in TST for HK$3200, which seems to be a good price. They don't keep stocks; so you need to call them in advance to make reservation before picking up the watch a day later. The shop is an authorized dealer for Asia Link so it comes with the local warranty. The address and tel of the shop can be found on this page: http://gpsasialink.com/Dealer.htm

yes - it was the same thread from the Group Buy

Hi ade69, thanks for your update. Do you know if it cover warranty as well. Heard that 310XT has fewer broken case after several month.

Hi keith,
$3200 is quite good price, however, I read from several discussion that Asia Link is no longer the authrozied dealer for Garmin Forerunner product, i worry about the warranty to buy it at HK, as you know, if there's no warranty and the shop won't help you to return to the service provider, then eBay maybe a better choice as the price should around $2500-$2700 with HRM now.

Thanks.

john

Hi John

$2500-$2700 sounds excellent, and actually I bought all my Garmins from overseas, but there are people who prefer one that comes with local warranty. Know nothing about the status of Asia Link, but instead of reading discussions on Internet (not always reliable) people can simply call them to find out.

the one I bought from the Australian seller comes with a 1 year warranty once you register the product online. To the best of my knowledge, this is a global warranty, which is not contingent on purchase location. I'd do a quick check on the Garmin website though.

Hi there

I'm reading your post just now, a bit late! Any chance to find this Garmin watch at a good price somewhere in hong kong?!

Thanks!

I've asked the eBay seller gps-r-us, they said they will ship to HK with US$20 shipping rate, the 310XT with Heart Rate monitor is around US $320, so the total price is US$340 ~= HK $2635.

I'm still thinking whether buy 310XT, 305+HRM+Foot Pod (US$220 at eBay) or using the Runmeter at my iPhone. I'm now using Runmeter with several runs and it seems great with Voice announcement, GPS logging, Ghost run (not try yet) and integrated with Google Map.

Hi John

GPS-R-US is the same dealer we bought from for our group earlier; Patrick is very helpful too.

Thx Keith, I just confirmed Patrick that we can ship the watch back to him for 1 year warranty.

So the price for 310XT is

1. 310XT ONLY: $295+$20 = $315 = HK$2442
2. 310XT wHRM: $320+$20 = $340 = HK$2635

Quite good price, does it need a bulk order? Interest to give it a try, thanks.

hi 3man,

the price is show at eBay, please kindly search the seller name 'gpr-r-us' and you could find the same listing price, i just asked the seller the cost to ship HK and the warranty. :)

Actually, i'm bidding the 305+HRM for max US$150, so if i succeed, i will probably stay with that. :P

Please check out our website, we are retailing the garmin forerunner 310XT with the Heart Rate Monitor for 3150 HK $ and offering a 5 % discount to HK runner's. We offer free shipping throughout Hong Kong.

Regards

SportsWorld Limited
516, 5/F, Block C
Discovery Bay Plaza
Discovery Bay

T: 2914 1323
E: info@sportsworld.hk
W: www.sportsworld.hk

Earlier on, I asked for comments regarding the 310XT and resurrected this old topic.

I would like to ask for some summary of comments with regard to the performances of 310XT versus 405CX. Judging from the outlook, 405CX has a sleek design whereas the major downside is the bezel. The 310XT is quite bulky to me.

I have reservations to using GPS in HK because of our predominant urban setting prone to interference and hence in-accuracy in tracking distance.

On the other hand, I bought the Forerunner 60 with foot pod and premium soft strap heart rate monitor. The foot pod is so small that you don't notice when clipped on top of the shoe lace. It comes with USB ANT for uploading data. The price tag is only US$199. It is 98% accurate in providing distance, speed, pace, cadence against the usual data such as max / average / zone heart rate training etc and etc.

I just checked the official Garmin site and another new model Forerunner 110 (with GPS function) will be released in May 2010.

I have the 405 and the 310XT. As mentioned many times, the issue for the 405 is the bevel - but in another thread i was advised to lock in when running and that solved my problem. The main advantage is that it is pretty much a wearable watch that i can use on a daily basis, unlike the 310XT, and i can just take one watch when i travel.

The other problem with the 405 is that it does not seem to take water/sweat so well which is why i bought the 310XT ( but never really tested it! )

To summarize, 405 - good for daily use and sufficient for most purposes; 310XT great functionality but more bulky and solely for training and not daily usage.

I've asked again Patrick which has foot pod for 310XT with additional $75.

I've been a user of 310XT but am not satisfy with it and had stopped using it for a while.

I've posted the problem of my 310XT on https://forums.garmin.com//showthread.php?s=d4e83513eef5fcd7c68881a456b8...

& you may see that the problem seems widespread.

In short, my 310XT had locked up at several occasions (incl. Mizuno HM & SCM) and I had lost confidence that it would perform at the field when I need it the most. I'm now reverting back to use my old faithful 205.

I don't mean to discourage you from buying 310XT but you may need to think about it's reliability as well.

Another issue that I had found out with the 310XT is that, in the cases it's not locked up, it always logged something different from my FR205 and the several other GPS my running pals were wearing.

I had experimented with it and found that if I run in a sports ground, the logged path of my loci was like a hexagon, instead of the following the oval shape of the standard sports ground. In other words, the GPS had 'cut the corner'. Later on, I learnt that Garmin had employed a so called 'smart logging' system that log the data point at the processor's will, which in occasions when there are many corners and bends on the trail, the 310XT would miss some points to 'help' the runner to smooth out the curve. The feature is good for running on straight track but not good for me because my training path is full of turns.

I hope this piece of info is helpful for your wise selection as a consumer.

Maybe Ah Chung's experience is at one end of the spectrum. So I'll present my experience from THE OTHER END of the spectrum.

I've been using my Garmin 310XT since we got the watch from the Group Buy. (Oct '09)

Problems experienced : ZERO.
No. of times the watch froze/hanged/locked-up : ZERO.

I've swum in the ocean with it. Biked up hills & crashed/fallen off a bike with it. It's a faithful companion in my runs. Needless to say, I'm perfectly happy with it.

Hence, I hope this piece of info will likewise be helpful in making a wise selection as a consumer.

I also became an user of the 310XT since the Group Buy last year. Generaly speaking I am happy with the performance of it, except the calculation during signal lost. As I found that the speed is unreasonably fast when I passed through tunnel / under bridge (2:3x / km).