Nike+ GPS review
I've now owned a Nike+ GPS watch for about 2 months. I wouldn't say that it's changed my life, but I can't believe I didn't bite the bullet sooner! I've been using the watch for long runs, tempo runs, some races, and for interval training when I'm out of town. I don't use it on every run because I don't really want to become reliant on it and obsessed with the numbers.
Pros:
- It looks pretty rad (extremely superficial, yet extremely important!). I have scrawny wrists, and it looks big on me – but like it's a sci-fi type cuff that may give me magical powers.
- It's very simple to use: hit down>run (green button to select)>continue>start. Even I could work this part out.
- The watch keeps track of 'records' for different distances, and congratulates you when a new record is set.
- I can set intervals based on time or distance (or a combo, e.g. 1km reps with 2 minutes recovery)
Cons:
- Certain settings can only be changed from a computer. It took me a long time to work out how to turn on and off the options on the watch, and this is only useful to turn intervals on/off, or laps on/auto/off. I'd like to be able to change my 'favourite stat' before each run (distance for long runs, average pace for races etc).
- The intervals option doesn't have a warm-up/cool-down option. If I'm going to be using the watch, I'd like to know the total distance run for the day.
- It's taking a long time to connect to a satellite. I travel a lot, and the watch really doesn't like finding satellites when I'm in a different location (especially if I'm in a small country town). It frequently takes 15 minutes or longer, and sometimes it takes so long that the watch goes back to standby mode. When I'm at home I can plug the watch into the computer to update satellite data, but this isn't an option when I'm travelling.
- When they first released the watch, a lot of people were complaining that the current pace value fluctuated ridiculous amounts. They've smoothed it out now, but I think they've gone too far in the opposite direction. If I'm doing intervals, the watch will take at least 30 seconds to respond to a change in pace. I fail at pacing as it is, so I want a watch to tell me the truth!
- The website is more about flashy graphics, and less about analyzing the results in depth. I don't really have a major problem with this but I think it would be frustrating to some people.
Overall, I think it was definitely a worthwhile purchase. It's great value for the price, and fits my needs. I would class it as an entry level GPS watch – so probably not very appealing to the tech heads out there.
Posted with Blogsy
