Comments on: Garmin Forerunner 305 Review (part 3) – Battery life

By: mike

mike — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:59:58 +0000

Had my 305 for about 3 years now and have used it very regularly. Now, after a full charge while powered off on the cradle, the low battery warning comes on after 10 minutes and the battery dies completely after 2 hours. I had to replace the cradle a while back because the PC wouldn’t detect the 305 when plugged in, and I wonder if it also ruined the battery. My options now are to send it back to Garmin for an out-of-warranty replacement battery, or buy a 310XT which has a proper battery life.

Anyone else with similar experience?

By: Bill Hopkins

Bill Hopkins — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:15:11 +0000

good review. I had a 305 for 3 years.my experience is that when you get the battery low warning, it actually means battery finished in about 2 mins.
good info ref battery charging complete, ill ignore that in future.

By: Garmin Forerunner GPS

Garmin Forerunner GPS — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:07:47 +0000

What a great review you have here. And for me, the main attraction of Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver is the health monitoring tools.

By: Skip Grover

Skip Grover — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:33:10 +0000

Thanks for the write up. I just bought the 305 two
days ago. Charged it for 4 hours that night and started my
morning route the next day. Within a hour and 10 min. the low batt.
came on ? Will try ignoring the full charge window and leave it charge over night. Thanks to your comments I will try again ?

By: Susie

Susie — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:49:11 +0000

I bought a 305 in April of this year & run at least five days a week. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 205. (Training for a marathon & am doing run/walks. One is to measure actual distance RAN & the other to measure actual distance COVERED. I know the 205/305s have a multi sport option, but that’s a bit cumbersome for my purpose. Plus, having two units insures I *should* have a working unit, even if one fails.) Anyway, I love the units but the battery charging is very problematic, IME. The watches do not fit tightly into the charger, so if they get slightly bumped, they can disconnect & you may not even realize it. Also, multiple times, I’ve left them hooked up to the powered usb outlet on my computer over night & the next day, when I turn them on, “LOW BATTERY”. VERY, VERY FRUSTRATING. I think sometimes, when hooked to the computer, they may auto power on & be expending more power than they are getting from the USB, so they drain the battery when left overnight like this. So the battery life is not the greatest (ok, when fully charged, I’ve had them on for ~4 hours with no problem. But if it’s fully charged & you unhook it, turn it off & put it in a drawer & don’t use it for a couple of days, don’t expect it to be ok for a two hour run w/o charging it again) and the charging system is problematic. Combine these two problems & you end up with a device that shows you “low battery” a more than acceptable number of times, IMO. I do love these units and from what I’ve seen, they are less pricey than many other GPS watches. For my purposes, they are also very easy to use when you’re very tired and the display is easy to read, even in direct sunlight. I also like being able to customize what data is displayed. But Garmin really needs to work on the battery life and/or build a more fail safe charging system. Another advantage about having two of these is if I have them both charging, I *should* be able to have one of them juiced enough for my daily runs. On the days when doing the longer run/walks when I’ll be using both units, I can no longer depend upon hooking them up the night before. So a couple of hours before my run, I hook them up & regularly check up on them to make sure they are still charging.

By: mart

mart — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:48:00 +0000

Hi,
Mine came with a two pin adapter… so I guess you shouldn’t have a problem?
See my review…
http://addictedtorunning.co.uk/running-garmin-forerunner-305/garmin-forerunner-305-review-whats-in-the-box
Regards,
Martyn

By: Scottie

Scottie — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:58:33 +0000

Does the power adaptor for the 305 accept both 120v (US) and 230v (UK) power? I know that the pin configuration on the pugs will be be different, but, if I get one from the States, will I need a simple plug/pin converter, or a step-down transformer to use the A/C charger?

By: franz wein

franz wein — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:59:54 +0000

charging the fr305 unit is not a big problem, you can also use every USB-charge with no limiter up to 500mA. Then is the charging time about 3h. – no problems will occure. If you charge the battery with a lower power then you need more charging time of course.

I’m use the fr305 about 1 year – 3-4 times in the week without any problem.

with best regards
franz

By: mart

mart — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:56:58 +0000

Hi Des,

Yes – it definitely went to sleep… so that could well be what happened.

Thanks for that info.
Mart

By: Des

Des — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:26:28 +0000

Did your Mac go to sleep ? With the iPod Touch it discharges if the ac goes to sleep whilst connected…