Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS watch

The Garmin Forerunner 10 is a GPS watch that tracks running distances. It can calculate your running pace, how long you have been running and also how many calories you've burned.

There are many things to love about the Forerunner 10, including its size and its simple-to-use design. We tested the pink model, which is light on the wrist and has an adjustable wristband that’s designed for people with small wrists. A green model is also available for small wrists, while red and black models are available with a slightly larger face and wider wristband.

For the pink model of the Forerunner 10, it’s easy to forget you’re wearing it while you're running, that's how comfortable it is. Best of all, the watch is extremely easy to use, so even a technophobe fitness fanatic should be able to operate it.

The watch has four buttons — two on each side — with markers on the face of the watch to show what each button does. There is also a battery indicator, and the watch can be charged easily via a USB connection. The two buttons on the right side are the main ones you use when you’re running — these toggle between displays — and the watch overall is very easy to get the hang of. Importantly, the Forerunner 10 was relatively accurate in measuring distance and pace in our tests, and when we didn’t want to use the GPS function, we just operated it as a stopwatch.

The watch allows you to toggle through different displays while you’re running, giving you the option of selecting different settings to view. For example, you can show the distance you’ve run along with the time on one display, and then press the button again to show your pace and how many calories you've burnt. Pressing the button again shows the time and date. You can also customise what data readings you want to show on each display.

However, there are some downsides to the Forerunner 10. The GPS was a little unreliable in our tests, as it didn’t always pick up signals consistently. For example, sometimes it would pick up the signal within a minute from our test location. On other days, we had to get away from buildings in our test location in order for the watch to pick up a signal. Turning the watch off and then on again sometimes helped in getting a GPS signal. Also, the GPS worked better when the battery was full and struggled when the battery power was low.

Although the watch calculates calories, it should be noted that the amount of calories you burn during exercise is only accurately measured when you have a heart rate strap, which this watch doesn’t come with (nor is it an option). You can put in your weight, but without an option to also put in your height, the calories burned aren’t very accurate on the Forerunner 10.

Despite these little niggles, the Forerunner 10 GPS watch is good value for money at $149. The winning point is that it is easy to use and it covers the bases (distance and pace) very well. The only real drawback is that the GPS does sometimes need to hunt for a while, which can be frustrating when all you want to do is just start running.