Garmin Forerunner 310XT Unboxing

Hi everyone!

 I was so excited when my new Garmin Forerunner arrived in the mail a few days ago! I already have owned 1 but it just didn't have all of the functionality I was looking for, so it was time to upgrade.  I ordered my 310XT from Amazon and splurged on the 2 day shipping (I really needed wanted it immediately!). I opened the box Amazon shipped it in and it was a decent size box

 

Very nicely packaged but I couldn't wait to rip into it!  It was killing me to open it slowly and take pictures!

Upon opening the Forerunner box, I pulled out each little baggie as well as the instruction manuals.  The box contains the Forerunner 310XT, a charging clip, a USB ANT stick (more about this later), instruction manuals (in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Russian) and several power adapters for countries outside of the U.S.  I chose to buy the version without the heart rate monitor.  I know myself and would never use it so I saved myself about $20. 
 

 

After opening each appropriate baggie (I only needed the power adapter for the US and the English manual) I turned my device on and went through the steps of setting it up.  It took me all of 5 minutes to do this.  It asked me the language I wanted to use, whether I wanted 12 hour format or 24, Standard or Metric measure, my age, gender, height and weight.  There may have been a few more questions but these were the important ones that I remember.  The battery came charged to 41% and it is always recommended to fully charge prior to first use.  After set up, the manual instructs the user to install the ANT stick driver software and pair the stick and the device. 

 

This ANT stick is pretty awesome!  What it does is allow the watch to wirelessly transmit data to your computer!  It is the size of a wireless mouse USB stick but does so much!  I am very excited about this feature!  I use Daily Mile and it has the functionality to sync with Garmin devices.  It is very nice not to need a USB cord to get the data from my watch.  I always had a difficult time with my Forerunner 210 but that is because of the charging clip.  More about that later on in the post.

 



Once I paired my watch with the ANT stick I put the watch on the charger.  I knew that I wanted to use it in the next hour so I wanted to get it as charged as possible.  With that, let's talk about the charging clip.  This is definitely an upgrade from the charging clip on the 210.  The 310 charging clip has 2 connector points and the 210 had 4.  You would think that more is better but not in this case.  I ALWAYS struggled with the 4 connectors.  It was very hard to get the clip lined up with the connectors on the watch.  It would take me 5-10 minutes at times to line it up perfectly.  And it would only charge/transfer data if the connectors touched just so.  Irritating.  So I was very skeptical about the new one.  But the first time I placed the connectors together, it worked!!!  I was so excited and already was happy about my purchase! 

I let the Forerunner charge for about 30-45 minutes and in that time it charged to 84% and I decided it was good enough!  I was out the door!  I was out the door so fast that I hadn't bothered to read the instructions on how the watch worked!  HAHA.  Luckily I am an IT nerd and after fiddling with it for a bit determined how to set my intervals (3/:30) and how to start and stop the timer.  My old watch showed the intervals times, distance and pace but this shows each of those on different screens.  I was stuck on the intervals times for half of my run until I figured out to view the pace and distance!  But I think that helped.  I think I was running faster because I was focusing on time rather than pace. 

I don't have a detailed review at this time, since I have only used it once.  But I can say that it was very easy to start and stop and I really like that there's a backlight.  I will use that during my night run in Ragnar next weekend.  This watch is designed for Triathlon participants and to be honest I will most likely never use the swimming or biking function.  However, most reviews I have read about this watch I have heard good things about it with the bike function.  Please note that the GPS will not work in the water, for obvious reasons.  But during a Tri, you know your distance and just need to record time. 

That's all I have about it at this time.  If you have questions, please comment and I'll do my best to answer!

Red Kisses,

Krissy