Challenge: Garmin 910XT vs Garmin 310XT

March 17, 2012 7 By Jakob

This is a quick write-up and by no means a product review.

For a truly comprehensible review of the Garmin 910XT go here: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/10/garmin-forerunner-910xt-in-depth-review.html
For an excellent 310XT review from the same source, visit: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2009/09/garmin-forerunner-310xt-in-depth-review.html

In this post I’ll briefly try to cover my experience from a run done with both devices. As you can see on the image to the right this covers an approximately 5K run with both watches on the same arm.

Here we go:

  • Looks like they pretty much measure the same kind of distance. 90 meters out of 5040 isn’t much at all…
  • You’ll notice that the 310XT has been active for longer. It takes the 310XT longer to register non-movement, so it doesn’t pause as quickly. In fact “elapsed time” on Garmin Connect tells me that I was out there for a total of 27:31.
  • Pace is an odd one. It was rarely the same on both devices at the same time. I guess the Smart Recording on the 910XT is just a bit smarter – records a bit more frequently than the 310XT…
  • More on pace: the 910XT seems to be more spot on in general. The 310XT would have moments of 3minutes and change per kilometer, which is way faster than I can run right now – especially with a backpack.

I guess that’s pretty much it. The run isn’t really the reason to change from 310XT to 910XT anyway – the 310XT is still an excellent piece of hardware. No… the main differences come in swimming and cycling.

Of course later this year Garmin will come out with the Vector pedals that measure power and integrate with the 910XT – not with the 310XT. In addition – and I’ve been enjoying this so far – the 910XT can measure your swim like I did this morning.

I still need to perfect that. Generally I get distance which is about 100 meters too long on 1250 meters. That sounds like about 8% error to me. That’s a bit high and I’ve heard about worse for the 910XT. Potentially this can be fixed in firmware later on…?

In case you’re in doubt, the 910XT is the clear winner so far. For the multi athlete it’s simply version 2.0 of what was already a very good experience.