Review from Tri247

The Garmin Forerunner 935 is the latest all singing and dancing multisport watch from one of the market leaders. It’s not cheap, so how does it perform? Chris Hovenden has been using the unit for several months now across a number of races, sports and activities – and he is impressed. Very impressed. Who is it aimed at? Triathletes, runners and fitness enthusiasts who take their sport and performance seriously – and want the latest technology to support that. Best Bits? There were lots – aesthetics, ease of use, speed of GPS, battery life, connectivity, range of functionality and more. What surprised you? Despite the complexity of functions available, it is easy and very intuitive to use. Reasons why you would buy it? If you want a one-stop multisport watch to provide you with all the functionality you need – and probably plenty more you’ve not yet thought of, then the Garmin Forerunner 935 must be on your list for consideration. A fantastic product. The Garmin Forerunner 935 in detail… It is said that the first actor you watch playing James Bond shall always be, subconsciously, your favourite Bond. I am not sure I buy-in to the above theory and even less so that it transfers to sports equipment. In any event, in the interest of full disclosure, the first sports watch this tester wore/purchased was a classic Polar F1 (back in the early 2000s), and since then I have spent my own hard earned cash on, and tested, a wide variety of sport watches from the main players. The Garmin Forerunner 935 does so much that to fully do it justice would require a novel. I have aimed to provide you with a review of the main elements for triathletes. Aesthetics The first thing you’ll notice about the Garmin Forerunner 935 is that it is light, slender and with its high quality finish (non-plastic looking with metal buttons), it looks good even when you’re not training. The same could not be said for the substantial Garmin Epix. In fact, it has almost been a constant on my wrist for the last four months. General The Garmin Forerunner 935 could be labelled as a running and multisport watch, but it feels that this doesn’t quite do it justice. Many have compared it to the more expensive and bulkier Garmin Fenix 5 – it is true that the Forerunner 935 shares many of the Fenix 5’s functions. It has an integrated wrist based heart rate monitor, prompts you to move, counts your steps, monitors your sleep patterns, posts notifications from your smartphone, offers Wi-Fi connectivity (which is only available on the Sapphire editions of the Fenix 5), and offers a huge range of sport functions with more metrics for analysing your performance than you can shake a stick at. Out of the box test A good indicator of a product is how easy and intuitive it is to use straight out of the box. The Garmin Foreruner 935 performs well in this regard. Aside from the need to use Garmin Express and Garmin Connect to get the most out of the watch, getting started is straightforward. Tapping the start/stop button gets you to the various sport options and from there you can scroll down to select your activity – you can add further activities. Amongst other things, you can customise the watch face and tailor the data that you want to be displayed for each of your training activities. Battery Life Garmin claims the battery life is up to two weeks in watch mode and up to 24 hours in GPS mode. High level, the battery life is very impressive and Garmin’s assertions are accurate. Compared to some competitors which you could liken to a modern day smartphone, continuing that analogy regarding battery life the Garmin Forerunner is comparable to the fabled Nokia 3210. Heart Rate Having used several different products that record heart rate from your wrist, I must admit I am hesitant as to their accuracy. I carried out multiple tests wearing a chest strap and the 935 to compare the heart rate recordings. In short, although the 935’s wrist optical heart rate monitor was better than many of its competitors, a chest strap gives a more accurate/consistent reading. On the bike, I found that when warming up and warming down there was a slight lag, but when carrying out the main session the reading from the wrist device and the chest strap were almost the same, beat for beat. When running (I looked a bit strange with two different watches on), the Garmin Forerunner 935’s wrist readings would often be slightly lower than the readings from a chest strap. TrainingPeaks A new feature is the ability to link up the 935 and Garmin Connect to your TrainingPeaks’ account. Depending on whether your training session has been created with the session builder, the Garmin Forerunner 935 will direct you through your TrainingPeaks’ session (for example, letting you know target power/pace and a countdown of time left in each segment) – quite a motivator during hard turbo sessions. Connectivity As with many Garmin products to get the most out of your device you’ll need to have Garmi