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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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* There's no way of recording a lap manually, which I think is less about intentionally crippling the VA3 and more about bad design. The manual says the single button will record a lap, but it doesn't work, and it's not clear how it could work given the button is used for start/stop. They could use the Suunto approach and have a press record a lap and a long press perform the stop, but that's not something Garmin typically does on their user interfaces and it's a little unfriendly. * The touchscreen is nicely responsive, though sometimes it does its own thing, with the display scrolling mid run for no obvious reason. * I'm not a big fan of touchscreens as they're tricky to use while running and even harder with gloves. Unlike the original Vivoactive which had four buttons and a touchscreen, the VA3 only has the single button. This makes the user interface far more challenging and complex. The touchscreen is nicely responsive, though sometimes it does its own thing. It's like it detects taps or swipes when there are none.
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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin Vivoactive 3 Notes}}
I'm still testing the Vivoactive 3, and normally I wait until I've completed my evaluation before writing anything up. This time I thought I'd publish my ongoing thoughts for those that are interested, and it should morph over time into a full review. (Garmin updated the firmware to 2.60 on Oct 10th, and I'm in the process of retesting as some of these issues may be resolved.)
* I find the way that Garmin have intentionally crippled the VA3 to be rather mean spirited. They've gone beyond the typical limitations of not supporting all sensors and restricted the data that can be displayed while running. The first Vivoactive (and the Vivoactive HR) had some of this, with only a few screens of up to three fields, but this could be overcome by [[Connect IQ]] apps like "Single Field Run" that display lots of data by taking up the whole screen as a single field display (hence the name.) Garmin have made it far harder to use this type of data field by forcing all screens to have the same number of data fields. I think that's just nasty and petty.
* The display is lovely, and it's really big given the form factor of the VA3. The display is the same as the [[Garmin Fenix 5X]], but the watch itself is about half the volume. This move towards smaller bezels is something that's occurring on TVs, phones, laptops, and it's good to see it happening in watches.
* I've had some problems with [[Footpod]]s on the VA3. I've found that the [[MilestonePod]] and the Adidas Speed Cell (both Bluetooth) work fine, but I've can't get the Garmin Ant+ footpod to pair, nor can I get [[Stryd]] to pair over either Bluetooth or Ant+. Strangely the Stryd [[Connect IQ]] app works fine (it doesn't require pairing.) The previous firmware had some problems, but 2.60 seems to be worse (or it's intermittent and I've been unlucky.) I've not had any issues with heart rate monitors such as the Garmin HRM, Suunto, or Polar H7. * The [[Stryd]] support quite limited. You can get the Stryd estimate of running power through the [[Connect IQ]] app, but even if the Footpod issues could be resolved you can't use Stryd for accurate pace and distance unless you're have to be in treadmill mode (no GPS.) In addition, I could not to get Stryd to work as an Ant+ footpod, only via Bluetooth. The Garmin Ant+ [[pace/distance from a Footpod]] works fine. * The battery life is worse than claimed. I got only 8 10 hours under optimal conditions, rather than 13 hours claimed. The claim of up This is a little better than the previous firmware where I got only 8 hours, and it's unusual to 7 see a company claiming longer than actually provided these days in watch mode also seems rather optimistic. * Because there is no lap button I can't test It will take me a few weeks to gather enough data to evaluate [[GPS Accuracy]], but it appears rather poor.
* I've not gathered enough data to understand the accuracy of the [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring]], but superficially it seems no better than I'd expect.
(I'm testing with Firmware 2.60, and future updates may resolve some of the issues.)
=Comparison Table=
{{:Best Running Watch-table}}
