Making decision to buy new Garmin

I need a new GPS / Heart Rate monitor, and I have now been researching a bit. It seems like nobody really competes with Garmin for integrated units. The other big name is Polar, of which I previously owned 2 watches, They do not come with integrated GPS, it is an external unit.

I am very tempted to buy a factory new Garmin FR 305 again, price is DKK 888 = $160 this week. But my wife says, that since I have been unlucky with that model, I should get another one.

The alternatives out there are the 310xt, 400 series and the 610. People seems to be unhappy about the 405 series and the touch ring, the 410 is not really what I want, and I tried the 610 in a store. I had almost decided this should be it. But I did not really connect with the pressure sensitive screen (it is not really touch), and knew I would not be happy with it because of that. So that left the 310xt and the 910xt.

310xt is the old model, and as I can see on the Garmin forums, it has many firmware bugs, and Garmin seems unable to fix them, As some people says Garmin has success despite of itself. The 310xt looks nice, and I like the orange color, and so did my wife :)

The reasons to get the 910xt over the 310xt is, that support and firmware focus will be directed towards that unit, it has a newer and better chipset with better and faster GPS reception, it has barometric altimeter, and then it has some swimming functions, that might motivate me to swim.

The 910xt should be out in november, now it is mid december or mid january, or sometime in february, there are many contradictory times reported now. Garmin US says ships in 5-8 weeks. Garmin Denmark says december,  Garmin Germany says Q4 2011. When I ordered locally, they contacted Garmin Denmark, who said it would likely be mid january.

But I think that Garmin has not released any information after they announced november 2011. If they were a professional company, they would go out and officially move the release date.

So now I am waiting for Garmin to release the 910xt, hopefully without too many software bugs and hardware errors.

Garmin and failed QC of repairs

I have had a great GPS watch, a Garmin Forerunner 305 for almost 2 years, and recently the battery more or less completely failed, and I couldn't charge it for more than 30 secs at a time.

Sicne I live in Denmark, we have a 2 year warranty on all products, so I returned it to the shop where I have bought it (Bilka), and they sent it in to Garmin for repairs. 12 days later I had what looked like a brand new watch, but in a bag labelled refurbished.

When I wanted to go for a run, I put the watch in the window for 10 minutes so it could get GPS lock before I went out. Then I put it on, and a minute later, I found out it was turned off. Found out it just took a slight tap to make it turn off. Repairs probably forgot to solder the battery wires :(

Back to the store. They again send it in, with the documents from first repair, and asks to make sure I get one that works. Well, they did not read that note at Garmin.

In my second replacement they probably forgot to solder the GPS antenna inside the watch. Here is a photo of the new one side by side with my wife's 305, after about 1 hour in the window.

Garmin does not seem to have much QC of repairs / refurbished products. I have asked for my money back, or a new-in-box unit from the retail store. I am happy with the watch, so I would like another 305. It seems like the 4xx series is a step down in size and functionality, and the better models are more than twice the price of the 305.

Garmin needs QC at their repair facilities. It is not acceptable that they ship 2 defective replacements to the same customer.