Walkiing GPS? Watch or ??

[cosmicbike]

Last year on my hike across the Isle Of Man my phone packed up and I lost my record of the hike. Rather than rely on Strava to record this years Cornwall hike, I figured I'd pick up a cheap, used GPS watch off ebay. Been looking at the Garmin Forerunner 410 which seems likely to go for about £30 - £40 and does what I need.
Anybody else use a GPS watch, or something else. Or even a 410 and have an opinion?

Ta

 

[Sea of vapours]

I'm entirely sold on gps watches and use a Suunto Ambit2 for mountaineering, walking and cycling. What's applicable really does depend on what you actually want it to do though. If all you're trying to do is record where you've been then comfortably the best option is a screenless track logger attached to your rucksack, for example. Battery life on those, as well as capacity to store a lot of track, is very high, or can be.

I use my watch for navigation and for power/cadence/other bike data in addition to track logging so neither a pure logger nor a Forerunner would do it. Any of these things is going to be better than a phone, typically.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

If you only want to record, your bike Garmin in your pocket does the trick, my Edge 200 does it anyway.
You can upload the walk to strava too, just edit the setting from ride to walk on the upload.
I guess you could use a Garmin to navigate a walk too, if you hold it in your hand.
A bit inconvenient though.

 

[Venod]

Or even a 410 and have an opinion?

I have had a 410 since they first came out, I used it on the bars when cycling and for running, its still working as new, I sometimes use it on the wrist for rough MTB rides.

There is no cable socket, so charging is via contacts, as there is no cable connection an Ant usb stick is needed to upload rides to PC.

It takes longer to acquire satellites than my 520 but it is now quicker than it was when first bought, due to updates.

At £30 to £40, I would say its a good buy, but if it doesn't come with an Ant USB stick and if you haven't got one, you will have to budget for that.

The scrolling through the menu's and screens is rather quirky and takes some getting used to, its a swiping action on the rim of the watch, not as friendly as the buttons on the Edge devices.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

Like @Pat "5mph" says, you could use a bike gps. And as a companion app: Komoot supports hiking/walking as it details the topography right down to trail and footpath level.

 

[Nibor]

I just picked up a garmin Oregon 450 for £75 from CEX it is a well feature gps and will do way more than a GPS watch including a barometric altimeter added some very detailed mapping to it fro free from https://talkytoaster.me.uk/

 

[Archie_tect]

I stopped recording or saving data two years ago and haven't missed it- I really enjoy the freedom of just pootling and using Google Maps on my phone if I lose my way but it's amazing how intuition for where you are builds up its own map [providing you can work out where north is!]. Recording it all becomes meaningless in the end as one of our best friends found out last year so I just enjoy the freedom of where I am... the views... the moment.

Have a great 2019 folks!

 

[Dave7]

Like @Pat "5mph" I use my Garmin 200.
I also used it to measure distance when kyaking around the Anglesey coast.
Mrs D and I went walking around our old haunts in New Brighton last summer (we lived there in 1968) and even just tootling around the streets we were surprised to find we had walked nearly 6 miles.