I wrote this review on the Up and Running website and I thought it may be of use here as it has the first impressions of the store and watch:
The service.
I normally purchase from an Up and Running competitor who have this watch on sale for £30 less than Up and Running, however they were understandably out of stock. I found Up and Running had shops in my area so I figured I'll pay the extra since it's going back into the local area.
This was the first and probably last time I will use Up and Running.
I ordered the product on the Fri 3rd, postage is apparently immediate including Saturdays.
Tue 8th my order was marked complete and so I rang up as I hadn't had a tracking number or a watch. I was told there had been a mix up and so I won't get my tracking number, but my watch will arrive that night. I got the T-shirt that night but not the watch.
Wed 9th I tried to ring at 16:50, I left work 10 minutes early to make the call but nobody answered, I just let the call ring until eventually someone hung it up. Clearly nobody wanted to answer a call so close to closing but if the opening time is 17:00 then in my opinion you answer calls at 16:50.
Thur 10th I called and was told there had been a mess up with my original messed up postage but they'll send one special delivery.
Fri 11th the watch arrived in a bag with no padding and so my watch case was crushed and marked. I'm pretty such if I tried to return the watch in this condition it would be refused. Luckily the watch works which is lucky because the main part of the box that was crushed is the plastic part which shows the watch, there is also a scratch on the watch casing. I'm sure when posting a £269.00 watch someone could put some shredded paper or anything in the bag to prevent damage. So 2 stars for price/service and 2 stars for overall performance of the company and not the watch.
I will add that I rang Up and Running Clitheroe a couple of times and the main Up and Running number, all of the staff were extremely helpful and friendly, especially the Clitheroe shop; which is partly why I'm posting this review. Without knowing you gave poor service you'll never get better, because seriously I cannot be bothered writing all of this down...
The watch
If you go to the Garmin forums (worth doing before buying any Garmin product) you'll see there are problems with all of them.
However, I have the Vivosmart HR and now the Forerunner 235. With the Vivosmart I experienced none of the problems written about on the forums. With the Forerunner 235, pairing to my LG G3 was a pain in the ***, I just had to keep pairing and unpairing but eventually it held.
Tip: Set units online at the Garmin connect website, that seems to be the only way they actually change.
My watch seems to not leave sleep when I do, perhaps its lazy, but a quick restart at it was out of sleep tracking mode.
I have done 1 run, it was wet, windy, cold and uphill, the watch seemed fine with it, HR was stable, elevation matched previous products I've used doing this run, HR seemed to match my excursion. It is a bit jagged but overall I find it responsive useful.
I had a Fenix 3 before, I find the screen on this to be very good (although annoyingly plastic and I feel I need screen protectors). and easier to read than the Fenix 3, although like most on the forums I have light bleed from the bottom of the screen. For those that don't know, this is uneven back lighting where the light is much brighter at the edge of the screen. The screens colours are better than the Fenix 3, having buttons is preferred to me over touch screen for running and they're very easy to use.
The noise bleeps are loud, so loud I turned them off, but you should hear when running.
Vibration was enough to wake me up and now you can have multiple alarms set from the watch.
There are many watch faces on connect IQ which is great.
Steps tracking seems reasonably accurate, some people expect steps to be perfect, but does +/- 10 steps really matter when you're doing 10,000+.
I find the HR monitor nub that sticks out does leave a mark but doesn't cause discomfort.
Unlike the Fenix 3 you can actually sleep it this watch. The Fenix 3 is heavy and if you caught your gf with it while sleeping you'd probably kill her but this is very light and unnoticable.
It fits under my work shirt cuff which the Fenix 3 didn't.
TL:DR Up and running service wasn't great, staff seem nice though. I'm extremely happy with the watch and I prefer it to my old Fenix 3.
