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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin 225 Review}}
I've tested several optical heart rate monitors and found them rather ineffective, so I came to the {{Garmin 225}} with low expectations. To my surprise, the 225 worked much better than the competition, though there are still compromises in the 225's optical HRM. I'm a little disappointed in the way Garmin has crippled the 225 software compared with the 620, and I'm looking forward to trying out the replacement 235. '''I would recommend not buying the 225 until the 235 is released and tested. I think the 235 will be a big improvement over the 225, with things like [[Connect IQ]], but even if you decide the 225 is for you, the release of the 235 should drop the price of the 225.''' A simple rating of the Garmin 225 can be based on how well they can answer some basic questions:
* '''How far did I run?''' This is the most basic question, and the 225 has somewhat reasonable, but not great rather poor GPS accuracy, so its estimate of how far you've run needs to be treated with a little quite a bit of caution. * '''How fast am I running?''' Knowing how fast you're running can be a nice to know, or it can be vital for your training or race performance. Because of the nature of GPS, watches that rely on GPS signal alone tend to have serious problems with current pace. Without the ability to display current [[Pace From A Footpod]] while getting all other data from GPS, the 225 can't answer this question. The mediocre poor GPS accuracy exacerbates this issue, and I've seen the pace estimate wildly wrong on the 225. The 225 would be my top pick for marathon runners, but I firmly believe that this is a killer feature, as accurate pacing is essential for a good marathon performance. (I've some slight hope that Garmin will add this feature in with a firmware update, as they have to a number of their newer watches.)
* '''Where am I? '''The 225 has no navigation features. If you're lost, the 225 won't be much help.
* '''What's my cadence? '''[[Cadence]]''' '''is one of the most critical and often overlooked aspects of running. If you get your Cadence right, many other things naturally fall into place. There is support for Cadence from the internal accelerometer, though I find that's not as accurate as the [[Footpod]] which it supports.
* The 225 includes an internal accelerometer to give you an idea of pace and distance while running on a treadmill without a footpod, but I found it was too far out to be of any use. A lot will depend on your running style and how you use a treadmill.
* The battery life is short for ultramarathons, but it is fine for the most runners.
=GPS Accuracy =
The Garmin 620 had some well-known [[GPS Accuracy]] issues, but this has been resolved with a firmware update.
* The 620 does surprisingly well going under the bridge, an indication that it is not having excessive problems with reacquisition.
* On the out-and-back turnaround the 620 does a little better than I'd expect for its overall rating.
* Running in a straight line is a fairly easy task for most GPS watches, and the 620 does well, beating many watches that have higher overall accuracy.
* I not had any issues with the 620 acquiring or maintaining the GPS signal, unlike some other devices.
{| class="wikitable"
|- valign="top"
|[[File:BridgeGarmin 225.jpg|none|thumb|x300px| You can see the 225 has rather mediocre accuracy, and is rather worse than the similar [[Garmin 620]]. It does badly around the twisty section, cutting the corners too much due to smoothing. It does a little better with the sharp turn seen on the right side of the diagram. It gets a little lost going under the bridge on occasion, but that's not too much of an issue. The lap markers in blue are more widely dispersed than they would be with a better device. (This diagram has tracks color coded with green indicating good accuracy through to read indicating poor accuracy, and the lap markers as blue dots.)]]
|- valign="top"
|[[File:AccuracyGarmin 225.jpg|none|thumb|x300px| This close up section of a zigzag shows the 225 tracking okay most of the time, but a disturbing number of the tracks are poor. (This diagram has tracks color coded with green indicating good accuracy through to read indicating poor accuracy, and the lap markers as blue dots.)]]
|- valign="top"
|[[File:ZigZagGarmin 225.jpg|none|thumb|x300px| Here you can see the 225 displaying the typical GPS behavior with the tracks that have the green lines shifted slightly down and to the left, blue up and to the right. This is less marked that other devices, but you can see the pattern. You can also see the lap markers shifted based on direction. (This image has the tracks color-coded for direction, with green coming from the right, blue from the left.)]]
|}
=What's Missing=
While I don't consider these missing features as 'cons', it's worth understanding the features that are missing compared with other watches.