New Garmin Forerunner 405 Announced

As ya’ll know – I love my current Garmin Forerunner 305. I’ve taken it basically everywhere (open-water swimming, running, cycling, kayaking, hiking, two workouts a day, etc..) and beaten the crap out of it since getting it early last summer. And generally speaking – it keeps on ticking. Ok…the fact that I might have killed it for realz last week in Palau is besides the point – it will be better soon.

Well – we have great news – CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is right around the corner. Which is where Garmin will be showing off their newest Forerunner – the 405, which they announced today.

This new one actually looks like a watch, which is nice. Much better than the larger 305 edition. Of course the downside to that is that it may be harder to read (especially on the bike). We’ll have to see how things shake out. I’d really like to see a slightly extended battery life to be able to get through an IM race as well. I’m dying to get my hands on one – so Garmin…hello?

The site says it will retail for $300 – which is good news, as I was concerned it would be higher. It comes in both black, and a greenish color.

It has wireless data transfer between the watch and the computer. The question is if it will be IR, Bluetooth or something else. IR can be kinda a pain, so if it’s Bluetooth that’d be good – but good ol’ USB is basically dead simple and it just works. It looks like from the video there is a tiny USB adapter/dongle that may do the wireless portion, it’s sitting on the laptop in the background. They said as soon as you walk into the room, which also seems to rule out IR (as it requires line of sight).

Also, if it’s more watch-like, I wonder if the waterproofing will be better on it? It looks a bit more single-piece than the last one, which might help in that respect.

Anyway – here’s Garmin’s official little video and blog about it – there isn’t much detail at the moment, hopefully that will come soon. Perhaps when folks get their hands on it next week at CES.

And here’s an independent news source’s view on it:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/garmins-new-forerunner-405-puts-the-watch-back-in-gps-watch/

Lastly, here’s their video from their site:

[Update]: A couple of quick updates based on some more info from Garmin today:

1) It will include a HRM
2) It will work with the cadence meter
3) It’s certified to the same underwater level as the 305
4) It’s wireless sync is via a small USB dongle, and it’s non-standard
5) It does NOT have a simple one-touch multisport mode…uhhh…bad.
6) The battery only does 8 hours as compared to 10 (for training). Ummm…more bad.

Here’s a full page table from Garmin comparing the 305 to 405.

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