I've been training with a Forerunner 245 Music for several years and I'm very happy with it, but as it started failing, I decided to upgrade to a Forerunner 265 with high expectations. Today I did my first workout (from the 10K Jeff's training plan) and I was very disappointed with the functionality, to the point it feels like the watch is not fit for guided workouts. I guess some things can be improved with some configuration, but others I don't know.
Here are some of the issues I encountered:
1. The lap key doesn't have any feedback. My training included 15 second uphill runs which start when pressing the Lap key. So, I pressed the key and nothing happened, no bip, no vibration, no screen change...after a couple of seconds, there was some feedback and after another second a voice started talking. By the time I understood that the button press did in fact start the interval, I was already many seconds in. In the following intervals, I pressed the button and started running, hoping that after a few seconds it would confirm that the interval had really started. Only this to me makes it useless. I can't just start an interval at full speed hoping that I pressed the button hard enough. The 245 had a clear and immediate feedback to the button press, a vibration and a beep on the watch and headphones.
2. The end of interval signal is very confusing. With my 245, there were 5 beeps on the watch and headphones and then a clear signal at the end, with a different tone and noticeable vibration. With the 265, the beeps on the watch start, after a few beeps, the ones on the headphones start, then there are several light vibrations that I could feel when walking but not when I running, then there is a different beep and a voice starts talking. How am I supposed to know when the interval exactly starts and ends? I never had an issue with the 245 and with the 265 even putting the full attention to all those signals it was still difficult to know.
3. The volume of the workout beeps and voices was too low to hear compared to the music...I assume this is configurable somewhere which I haven't found yet, but why is it like this? I never adjusted any volume on my 245. It just worked
4. The watch talks a lot and everything it says is useless. I couldn't listen to music during today's training because I had to raise the volume to hear the voice and signals and the music was too loud, but also, with the 15 seconds intervals, the watch spent most of the time talking irrelevant or incorrect things. For example, when pressing the button to start an interval and after waiting a few seconds for the watch to realise that the interval started, it said "End of interval X", where X was some interval number that wasn't even the right one.
5. The run-within-range screen doesn't have an arrow! My workout today had a run within a pace range interval. This screen has two red bands on both sides and a green band in between plus a number indicating the current pace. The 245 used to have an arrow showing me where I was on the range, so I could immediately see if I was low, high or in range, so I tried to run with the arrow pointing to the middle of the green range. The 265 doesn't have the arrow! so, I see the number and what? before every workout I'll have to memorize the low and high ranges and then do the calculations while running to see if I'm a bit high or low?
6. This one is minor, but when I started the workout it wasn't really clear if it had started or not. I confirmed the Do Workout prompt and it showed the run screen which said "wait for GPS", but it wasn't clear that I had to press the run button again to start. I never had this type of issues with the 245.
Sorry, this became more of a rant than a question per se...because I'm really feeling disappointed with the watch, especially having paid 400+ Euro. My 245 has 2 lines of dead pixels on the screen and the battery doesn't last very long, but it seems it's still far superior than the 265 in terms of workout experience. When I do a workout, I want to listen to music and be 100% focused on my breathing and running. I don't want to have all my focus on figuring out what the watch is trying to say.
I guess the actual question would be, has anyone had a better experience with it? Can it be configured somehow to fix most of these issues? or should I return it and look for something else?