TheyThought

Garmin GPS 305 ForeRunner Personal Trainer Dimensions: 4×4x4 inches, 1.3 pounds Part Number: 010-00467-00 Measures: heart rate, speed, distance, pace, altitude Online mapping & route sharing AutoPause / AutoLap Waterproof MotionBased compatible USB Interface

The Garmin GPS Forerunner 305 is a compact physical-activity monitor and personal trainer packed as a hand-wrist watch. This Garmin utility is an Amazon #1 Best Seller in the Sports & Fitness GPS department.

The following contain information on this product as well as handpicked reviews from online forums, blogs and stores’ customer reviews.

 

Lowest price found at Amazon.com: $ 205.48

Note that Garmin 305 ForeRunner and the Garmin 305 Edge are two related yet different products. The Edge is specialized for use on bikes where as the Forerunner requires an additional part to mount and fit on bike’s handles.

 

 

Videos describing and reviewing the Garmin GPS 305

 

Lowest price found at Amazon.com: $ 205.48

 

What TheyThought

Many people had good things to say on this product. You can find some general enthusiasm about the 305 in these places: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and this one from the official Garmin blog.

A few improvements in this version of the Garmin product are worth stressing:

Improved Accuracy: Inspector Gadget copared the 305 to her Nike+iPod GPS sprots shoe and found the shoe to be as high as 20% off mark from the 305. See here as well.

Improved Sattelite Reception Under Trees and Buildings: See here and here.

Easy to use: See here.

 

Hate posts on this product are scarce and not so easy to spot.
Here are some we found and thought are worth citing:Buldgy : Here and here.

Altitude Problems : Here and here.

Bad Customer Support : Here and here.

Reset Problem : Here here and in the comments here.

Battery Issues : Here and a very crafty post by Chriss Bennet on how to supply power to the unit on the road.

No Mac OS compatibility

No use Indoor : Running on a treadmil can’t be monitored with the 305. A special add on needs to be purchased for that. This is probably the only place where the Nike+ option wins over the GPS measurement devices.

 

 

Lowest price found at Amazon.com: $ 205.48

 

Review Hubs:

4.25/5	by over 300 people at Amazon.com
4.5/5	by 13 reviews at Buy.com
4/5	by 18 people at ePinions
7.2/10	by 12 people at CNet
3.7/5	by 3 reviewers at BestBuy

Gizmodo.com

Price

Amazon.com	$ 205.48
Buy.com	$ 214.99
BestBuy.com	$ 299.99
Garmin.com	$ 323.06 (suggested retail price)

Curious about what people who use the Apple iPhone have to say ? Well, You’ve come to the right place.

The Apple iPhone is a piece of digital art. Smooth, beautiful and colorful, feels good just to hold it in your hands close to your chest. No wonder it’s become “Gadget of the year” here. People all around the web keep raving about it non-stop.

The new iPhone by Apple is a mobile phone, a multi-media player and a web browser.

The iPhone was launched on June 29th 2007 and by September 9th (74 days later) 1 million units were sold. Current price is $399. Apparently, a new iPhone model will be released by March 2008. By Feb 2008, Apple will release an iPhone SDK open to third-party applications.

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Here are some cool iPhone videos:

 

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What TheyThought

Here’s the official spec sheet by Apple, and this is a walk-through over the iPhone’s major functions.

Many major features are missing:

• 3G for fast browsing. Edge is too slow for our times.
• GPS
• No MMS which means there is no option for sending a picture to a non-iPhone/non-Wifi phone
• Medium quality camera for stills
• No video capture
• Web browser has does not support Flash

Additional resources: 1, 2, 3

Minor features are missing as well:

• Bluetooth restricted to headset
• no file browser
• web browser is slow and buggy
• no customized ringtones
• no voice/speed dialing

See: 1, 2

Size should also be considered. The pictures and the videos actually make the iPhone appear smaller than what it is in reality.

Smashing and crash-testing the iPhone has become somewhat of a hobby for a few:
Scratch, crash, blend, hammer, drown, and many more. Oy !

The Apple / AT&T pack deserves special attention as many out there had a lot of angry things to say about that. Many people hate the Apple / AT&T pack that forced iPhone buyers to sign up with the latter. AT&T is quite happy with that pack, and so is Apple.
See some references to these posts, below.

Recently, Apple restricted sales of the iPhone trying to fight back hackers. So now you can only get up-to 2 units and only pay by Credit Card. See here.

Further resources

iPhone affection:
I love my iPhone… 1, 2, 3, 4
I love my iPhone but hate AT&T: 1, 2, 3, 4
I love my iPhone, hate AT&T but Napster is a good add: here.
I hate my iPhone… 1, 2, 3
I say hate but I mean love ! 1

“issues”

• Vista 64 bit and Sync problems
• Heating up quickly
• Firmware updated kills non-Apple apps, and some prefer to downgrade from 1.1.1 to the older hacked image which offers much more

CNET customer reviews here.
About.com iPhone review.
PC Magazine review here and another one here.

What WeThought - Our Bottom Line

The iPhone is stunning - no argument here. But don’t let your head spin. Judging by what so many people say, this product is still not yet ripe for the buying and needs more time to get bugs fixed and essential features put in. Mid 2008 will probably the best time to grab it.