The first day I strapped on the Garmin Forerunner 35 running watch, I did a personal best on my three km-run. After a three-minute break, I did a speed run of one km, again creating a personal record. Two days later, I ran five km. As you can probably guess the trend by now, I ran the fastest five km ever, getting close to the self-imposed 25-minute target.

Coming just a week after I had run a half marathon at The Wipro Chennai Marathon, I was pleased as a punch with these timings. But wait, was the new watch helping me push myself, or was it not accurate enough?

I did a test the next day, going for a 15-minute walk from my home and pitted the Forerunner 35 against Runtastic, my favourite running app on Android. The results were fairly accurate, with a difference of a few meters.

That could be well within the margin of error. But Forerunner 35’s GPS always got the location wrong, especially after the workouts were saved and synced in the Garmin Connect app on my phone.

Forerunner 35’s looks may not match its ₹15,990-price tag. The watch offers a choice of black, blue, green or white straps. While the straps do add colour to your running gear, take care if you plan to wear the watch throughout the day to keep a count of your steps. I had to take off my blue strapped-watch the day I wore formals for a meeting.

Display and looks a let-down

The display doesn’t look great and its square plastic case is nowhere close to the sleek feel of Garmin’s other, more expensive, circular offerings in the Forerunner family. At the same time, the display is bright and easy to read.

One doesn’t take time learning to operate it. Either side of the watch has two buttons. On the right, the top one is for starting a workout, and the bottom button helps you move down through the menu. There is an issue here. In case you select an item by mistake, you have to go through the whole menu before coming back to your choice. If only one could scroll up too.

On the left, the two buttons help you start, and go back.

Designed for various activities

The Forerunner 35 is designed for outdoor and indoor runs, biking, cardio and walks. There is no swimming option here, and this might be a setback for the watch compared to some of its peers, including the TomTom Spark 3. I couldn’t test it for biking, but for the rest it gave me fairly accurate results.

Once I selected a workout, the GPS made me wait for a few moments before it got the signal and showed the START sign. Once, the wait did make me a little anxious.

I used it extensively, as you would have guessed, for my running. In this mode, you choose between two data screens. One tells you distance, time and space and the other tells you the heart rate zone, current heart rate and calories burned. I chose the first, as obsessed as I am right now with my timing. It also helped that I could keep alerts for distances covered or time lapsed, helping me pace my run. I also made good use of Garmin’s Elevate heart rate sensor technology, helping me analyse post-runs.

Use it like a smartwatch

Forerunner 35 is a smartwatch too. Once you sync it with your handset, the watch sends you notifications for messages and mails. I also read that one could accept or reject calls from the watch, though I didn’t get a chance to do that. The constant vibration of the notifications can sometimes be irritating, especially when you are in the office and in the middle of something else. I changed the setting when I didn’t want to be disturbed.

One of the coolest things about the Forerunner 35, apart from its battery (it took about an hour to get fully charged and ran for nine days), is its move alert. The Move bar on the bottom of the screen grows as long as you are sitting and buzzes your wrist once it reaches its full length. The alert is useful for me as I spend a lot of time sitting, typing away at my computer.

By the end of the week, I found myself looking forward to wearing the Forerunner 35 on my wrist.

Price: ₹15,990, only with Paytm

Love: Long battery life, Move alert and light on the hand

Hate: Square case, price and the move-down button

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