1) The price is lower.
2) It uses Bluetooth 4 instead of Ant+ which will integrate with more device and applications moving forward.
3) It acquires satellite connections much faster than Garmin.
4) They have greatly reduced the thickness of the watch over Garmin’s. I wanted to wear it as an everyday watch and click into run mode when needed instead of carrying around a watch that is only used for runs.

One thing I struggled with was leaving the Garmin webstie for TomTom’s incomplete website. However, you can upload your runs to Garmin manually if you want. Automated uploads to other sites like Runkeeper are included. TomTom has promised to keep building out their site so I figure it will get better.

I gave this 4 our of 5 stars only because there are some items that need to be addressed before this watch is the total package. I think they will get there but rushed to market before some of the kinks were worked out and the website was more robust. I have high hopes for the coming months.

Pros:
The size of the watch is perfect – very low profile and comfortable on the wrist.
If you sync every three days it will pick up satellite connections very fast.
I like that I can wear it as an everyday watch as well as my fitness tracker.
Menu navigation is very easy.
Nice large display that is easy to read.

Cons:
The watch band isn’t tight on the watch device. It can easily fall out of the band when not on your wrist.
The tracking website is in beta. I think this should have been a little more complete before launch. I have hopes it will be expanded soon.
They need to figure out a way to stop accidental push of the button to end a workout. Maybe a double click or click and hold instead of a single click.

Suggestions:
Offer more watch bands – sizes and colors.
Offer the ability to purchase additional charging cradles.
Improve the watch band so it is more secure to the device.
Improve the website.
Make the stop of a run a little more deliberate so it can’t be done my mistake.

Firstly the good.

-It’s VERY slim. I’ve owned multiple GPS watches – this definitely is the slimmest.
-It does mostly find satellites quickly.
-It appears to be accurate. That was one of my biggest issues with the nike gps watch, which was often wildly inaccurate.
-The vibration alert is strong – maybe even a little better than my garmin 610.

The Not So Good.

– The functionality is light. The lap issue has been spoken before, but it’s frustrating. If you want to get mile laps, for instance, you have to run in ‘lap’ mode. Ok – I can deal with that. But then when you get that lap – it tells you just what lap you’ve done. So ‘Lap 1’ on the screen after a mile. I can actually remember that – and also figure that out from the distance. I want to know my lap pace, but that doesn’t seem to be possible.

– Screen metrics. So you can get 3 metrics on the screen, but 2 are small at the top, and one big one in the remainder of the screen. I’d prefer 4, but 3 are okay, although it would be nicer if they were similar sized. But there needs to be an option for ‘current lap pace’. You can have overall pace, but not for the current mile. Most other GPS watches provide that. That’s key for me. If I’m running laps – I’d like to see what I ran that lap in…

– The ‘single button’ isn’t so easy to use. If you get to a stop light while running and need to pause – you hit the left of the button for pause. If you want to stop – you hit left again. The problem – you can do that accidentally. On today’s run I hit it once to pause, the light changed, so I hit the right side to start the run again – unfortunately it had ‘taken’ 2 left pushes and so now my run was done. You can’t ‘continue’ from where you were in this case – just start a new run. That’s frustrating – especially if you’re running long. Again, other GPS watches don’t appear to have this issue.

– Finally the web site is very basic. When your runs are uploaded, there’s very minimal functionality. It doesn’t compare to other offerings from Garmin, Motorola or even Nike.

Overall, it feels very much like this watch was rushed out to market without everything being fully baked. Maybe future firmware updates will add new functionality (please fix laps and provide lap times !!), and I’m sure the website will add functionality too.

The hardware itself has possibilities – but I’m not prepared to be out 0 and *hope* these things are fixed. Maybe I’ll buy it again in 6 months if they have been, but it’s a competitive market place so maybe another watch will come out and I’ll get that instead. I’m bummed. I really wanted to like this watch.

Pros:

Connection time- The fast linking is a very critical feature. After getting used to the Nike watch which connects quickly switching to a watch that does not(Timex and Garmin) is painful. Like the Nike watch, which tomtom designed the GPS for, the link time is far better then the Garmin and Timex watches. Doing weekly group runs, runners with Garmin watches stand there for minutes and sometimes have to start the run before connecting. Nike watch owners and me connect almost immediately.

Slim fit-I had been running in the Nike GPS watch but after my FOURTH Nike watch broke during normal wear I started looking for new watches. This fits and feels much slimmer then the Nike watch and Timex watch.

Interface-Like the Nike watch, setting the watch is done with menus on the watch, not by hitting buttons like Timex or Garmin. Menus are easy to navigate and change settings.

Design-The slim profile is awesome, plus the display looks nice. When running people have complained about the joystick. I like it and agree it is easy to use while running.

Vibrate alert-When running with the Timex watch i realized the vibrate when it beeps is very useful. I constantly miss laps using the Nike watch. This is a small feature which I personally think is quite valuable.

Additional functionality- Won’t comment too much because I have not used these features yet. But the graphical training features seem nice.

Upload-You can choose to upload to multiple sites as well as the tomtom site. You can also access the files on the computer. This is a nice mix between the Nike and Timex watch. With the Nike watch it was easy to upload to the Nike site but you had no control over the Data. Timex you could get the files but was not user-friendly when uploading to their site.

Battery Life-10 hours is a fraction more then the competition. Unless you are doing an ironman, this will be enough. If you need a longer battery the Garmin 910 will last longer but you will compromise price and a slim-fit.

Neutral:

The online site is in Beta so there are some issues. You can choose to upload to other sites as well. The costumer service is doing a good job responding to peoples complaints and are passing user suggestions forward. When the Nike plus site first started I lost run data constantly, the site crashed and it was terrible. Now it is very smooth although limited in what data you can get. The Timex site is the worst. Garmin probably has the best online interface right now, but if you are worried about that you can upload your data to another site while Tomtom is in Beta.

Cons:
Cannot get the multi-sport in the pink band!!! But maybe in the future

Secondary stats while running are kinda small.

Overall
Feels like the update to the Nike GPS watch; which in a way it is since tomtom designed the receiver and who knows what else for Nike. The features I most wanted from the watch were slim fit, fast satellite link, and easy watch interface. This so far is the best in all three categories.