Garmin 610 Review

The Garmin 610 is smaller than most of the available watches and overcomes many of the issues seen in the 4xx range (see below). With the release of the 620 the price of the 610 has started falling, so it has become better value. While the 620 has many more features than the 610, the 610 is actually a better watch as it has good GPS Accuracy and can display pace from a Footpod.

Garmin 610

1 Garmin 610 Pros

• The 610 is smaller than the 910XT/310XT and closer to the size of a traditional watch.
• Like the 310XT, it can use the optional Footpod to display your current pace while using GPS for overall pace, distance and route. Only the 310XT, 910XT and 610 can do this (so far).
• The 610 displays and records Training Effect, an indicator of how hard or effective a training session is. I don't think the algorithm in the 610 is quite as good as the 620, it's still useful.
• The touchscreen interface works with gloves and in the rain, unlike most touchscreens found on phones or media players.
• The 610 will not display Heart Rate Variability but it is possible for it to record Heart Rate Variability for later analysis. This recording can be enabled from the firstbeat.com ATHELTE software (there's a free trial).

2 Garmin 610 Cons

• The battery life is rather short. It is claimed to provide 8 hours, but based on experience with other Garmin devices, the actual live may be quite a bit less. This is likely to cause an issue for slower marathon runners or ultrarunners.
• Not the range of accessories that the 910XT/310XT has, such as power meter for cycling.
• No display of course maps or mapping of your current route, but it has a simplistic 'back to start' arrow.