Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsHaving purchased thiswatch in late Apr
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2015
Having purchased this watch in late Apr, I believe I have done enough workout training and race to give a detailed review.
Before my purchase, I would have thought I do not need too many fancy features of a running watch, yet I feel disappointed in following:
- manual lap is by tapping. I do not have complaint if it works well, but I felt speechless when I ran during some heave rains one day, and it count the lap for me when the raindrop fell on my watch...
- tapping is defective sometimes. During two workouts, it just did not respond (even no backlight when I tapped on my watch). Is sweat or wet surface affecting this function? I have no idea...
- for the "Intervals" workout, it is hard to believe you cannot change the time setting by 1 second - the only choice is +/- 5 seconds. For serious runninger, 1s and 5s means a lot!
- also for the "Intervals" workout, it will not record your pace during each interval, nor can you do any manual lap yourself to record. The information would be very useful to review one's training progress
- pace alert/HR alert is only available for the specific "Zones" mode, not any other training mode
- the TomTom MySports mobile apps failed to connect the the watch to get the workout activity uploaded under Android 5 (Lollipop). No update is announced to fix the problem as of today.
- TomTom MySports website is lacking the function to export your wokout to other formats like TCX, GPX. You can only convert by connecting the watch to computer.
- The workout record is removed once you paired up the watch with TomTom MySport apps. If you want to get your workout in other formats, you can only locate the ".ttbin" file somewhere from your mobile phone, open it in your computer - but you also get a duplicate workout record by doing so
It is because of above that I cannot say I like this watch (to give a 4-star review). But the watch is OK in other functions: GPS quick as many have pointed out, screen is big enough, strap is comfortable to wear on. I haven't verified if HRM is accurate myself, and although it lost the HR from display once or twice, it did recover and the records look normal for me.
I chose this watch since when I purchased there was really not many choices on the market, and after some comparison it fit my bill. I have to admit the issues mentioned above is out of my expectation. They are absolutely not anything new for a running watch or sports watch. Looking for future firmware update and mobile apps update that can easily make me a happier runner with this watch.
