For those still wondering if the FR735XT is the right watch for them, I did a number of tests on Elevation and the Optical HR. In general I got better results with the elevation than others seem to have. The optical HR generally followed the same path of being good for steady efforts and less good at picking up the changes when doing intervals. Still like having it though. For those interested I've put a pretty detailed review on my website here: http://www.trijedi.com/2016/08/27/garmin-735xt-review/
Nice comprehensive review. One quick point; you do get Performance Condition without a HR strap from just the watch HR, I get it all the time running. It may not be as accurate, but it is estimated.
Very nice review, Tri_Jedi, it's nice to have additional sources doing detailed and deep reviews aside from dcrainmaker.
Vertical GPS data ("elevation") usually gets an undeserved bad rep. Aside from the fact that there is a geometric disadvantage for the vertical data - the GPSr cannot see satellites on the other side of the earth – there is no build-in degradation of vertical GPS data (cf. e.g. http://www.edu-observatory.org/gps/gps_accuracy.html).
Now, what is hard for a GPSr is:
(a) generating something like “altitude above ground” or “elevation” from the vertical data since the earth is no perfect sphere – this is done approximately inside the GPSr and usually with more advanced models when uploading the GPX track. This is also the reason why your GPS altitude data might differ from e.g. a printed map (especially when you are using different dates between map and GPSr).
(b) measuring small relative changes, such as running/cycling a relatively flat course yet undulating course – a barometric altimeter is much better in detecting small relative changes.
please help. maybe i'm too dense, but how do i change the activity background color? by default i have it set to white but would like to change it to black. i found where i can change the watch background color (settings>system>clock>background>white/black) but i'm struggling to find the same for separate activities:confused:
strange. i had vívoactive® HR for a few days and i recall i could change background color settings for individual activities. so the software does exist for that, it just needs to be added/implemented to the 735xt
For those still wondering if the FR735XT is the right watch for them, I did a number of tests on Elevation and the Optical HR. In general I got better results with the elevation than others seem to have. The optical HR generally followed the same path of being good for steady efforts and less good at picking up the changes when doing intervals. Still like having it though. For those interested I've put a pretty detailed review on my website here: http://www.trijedi.com/2016/08/27/garmin-735xt-review/
Thanks for this, TriJedi. Very useful.
Can I add new activities/sports to the 735XT? E.g. Tennis, with GPS reading and HR reading...
