Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Soleus: Long-term update

After several weeks and over 20 runs with the Soleus, it's time for an update on it.

Honestly, I've got nothing but good things to say. I've been using the Soleus a lot more than my Garmin of late, the reason for which really boils down to one important factor: battery life. The Soleus can go weeks between a charge, and this is running 5-6 days a week for 40-90 minutes each time. It's sort of hard for me to believe how long the battery lasts. My Garmin, by comparison, needs a recharge every week under the standard load. I'm not sure if this is a matter of the skinnier chassis (more space for a bigger battery), the larger/brighter screen or what, but it's definitely noticeable.

As for the Run/Chrono modes, I've actually been using the chrono mode more than the running mode. I'm still sort of adjusting to getting a feel for my pace based upon how much of the current mile I've completed against my running split time, but this view seems to be the most intuitive to me as a stack of 3 numbers: Current Split, Total Distance and Total Time.

My list of gripes hasn't changed much: the screen is still smaller than I'd like, though as I'd predicted, my mind has adjusted and knows where to direct my eyes when I'm looking for a particular metric mid-run. The other main gripe is sort of two-fold. I mentioned in my longer review that the audible alerts leave something to be desired. When you couple this with very, very sensitive Stop/Start buttons, I've found the watch to be a little bit cumbersome with gloved hands, which are a necessity up here as the temperature hovers in the low teens (and below). You accidentally brush against the Start button and it immediately splits your time. I've taken to being very deliberate about hitting the buttons, but it seems that even firm contact with a jacket sleeve can set it off.

A lesson learned is that you can often get around the lag time in acquiring a satellite signal by turning the GPS on and off. Yesterday, the watch took 15 minutes looking for a satellite before finally giving up. It acquired a signal almost immediately after I turned it back on. This is accomplished via the handy "GPS" button. I also shut the GPS off as soon as I finish my run to further increase the already staggering battery life.

Bottom line: get this watch if you want a super affordable, super reliable GPS unit. It stacks up perfectly well against the entry-level competition and simply blows them away when you factor in the price point.