Best Watch For Runners - Timex Vs Garmin Vs Polar

Looking for the best watch for runners? This article shares my research after buying a running watch for my husband. It gives summaries of the best watches from the brands, Timex, Garmin and Polar. The best running watch for you will depend on how many features you want, need and will use balanced with the price you want to pay.

This article compares the latest running watches in 2014.

Garmin Forerunner watches are well known for their accurate GPS and many of their watches have excellent training aids such as virtual partner to help with pacing and to reach your training goals. Garmin pretty much dominates the market with several makes of running watches. The main ones featured in the article include the Forerunner 620 which has a touchscreen interface and some fantastic features for advanced runners . Another option is the Forerunner 10 which is a great budget option. It is much cheaper than other Garmin watches but it does forego the heart rate monitor and some training tools.

To make matters more complicated there are several other Garmin forerunners to choose from. I have given a rundown of a several forerunners available in the article too. You will pay a little bit more with these watches for the extra features.

Timex has the Run Trainer 2.0 which is another good budget buy and has an excellent easy to use interface and easy to read screen. There are also some good features for advanced users so it's a great watch for all levels of runner.

Polar has also released their first watch with inbuilt GPS. Polar is well known for the accurate heart rate monitors on their watches and if you're looking for a watch the offers the ability to analyse your workouts in relation to heart rate the RC3 Polar watch mentioned in the article is a good choice. They also offer some great ways to analyse your training date to help prove the effectiveness of your workout sessions.

Read on for an indepth analysis of the best watches by Timex, Garmin and Polar below.

If you're looking for the best watch for runners read on.

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Garmin has a wide range of GPS running watches in it's forerunner range.

The 3 watches below cover a budget watch (Forerunner 10), a mid range watch (Forerunner 220) and the top of the range forerunner (Forerunner 620)

All three have the advantage of being able to connect to Garmin Connect. This allows you to see your run on a map, track your run and share it with friends on social networking sites.

The Garmin Forerunner 10 is a great choice if you're looking for a good running watch around the $100 mark and you don't want a heart monitor with your watch. It does lack some of the more advanced features of other running watches, but if you're looking for a simple running watch on a budget, it's a great choice.

What the Garmin 10 offers is a high sensitive GPS receiver which connects quickly. It will record you position, speed, time and calories and can display two pieces of data at one time.

It is simple and easy to use. It's light and fairly small so nice to wear when running. More advanced runners will enjoy features such as the virtual pacer which compares your current running pace to a target that you have set.

Here are more Garmin forerunner watches with even more features.

Polar has now introduced GPS to their watches such as the RC3 but being in the mid price range it does have a lot of competition.

However, if you want to use heart rate to guide your workouts a polar watch is a good choice. Although you can get the Polar RC3 without the heart rate monitor if you wish.

If you're still looking for more options of running watches, here are a couple more choices.

My top pick for the best running watch is the Garmin Forerunner 620 if you have the money and running is serious for you. However, for most runners the Garmin Forerunner 220 offers a great combination of value and functionality. A budget choice would be between the Garmin 10 and the Timex run trainer 2.0. The Garmin 10 has excellent reviews, has access to Garmin Connect and is great for simple running watch for beginners but I like the extra features the run trainer offers such as vibrating alerts and the fact you can display 3 pieces of data at one time.

Of course is the best watch for you will really depend on the features that are the most important. If price is your main concern and the extra features won't make too much difference to your training, go for the forerunner 10. If cycling and running are both important to you, the Polar RC3 may be the best choice. A multi-sport athlete should check out the Garmin 910.

I hope this article has been useful. Happy running!

Still unsure or unconvinced about which running watch to get? Here are some more articles which you may find of interest.

Find out more about how a running GPS watch can help your training.