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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin 225 Review}}
[[File:Garmin 225-top.JPG|thumb|right|300px|The {{Garmin 225}}, showing the display of Heart Rate from its Optical Heart Rate Sensor.]]
I've [[Best Running Watch| tested several optical heart rate monitors]] and found them rather ineffective, so I came to the {{Garmin 225}} with low expectations. I initially found that the 225 worked better than I expected, but when I did more rigorous approach I found the [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring| accuracy was lacking]]. I'm a little disappointed in the way Garmin has crippled the 225 software compared with the 620, and I was hoping the [[Garmin 235]] would be a big improvement. Sadly, while the 235 adds things like The addition of [[Connect IQ]], it's optical HRM is nowhere near as good as the 225. If you want optical heart rate monitoringa big functional improvement, the 225 is the best and I've found, or at perhaps I d argue it should saybe a major factor in your choice of watches. For a more fundamental look, it's the least bad. A simple rating of the Garmin 225 can be based on how well they can answer some there are four basic questions:
* '''How far did I run?''' This is the most basic question, and the 225 has rather poor GPS accuracy, so its estimate of how far you've run needs to be treated with a 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 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.)
