GPS Watches

A GPS watch is either the most useful thing on your wrist or a £400 distraction that ruins every run with notifications. We test watches on routes where they actually need to work — deep valleys, heavy tree cover, remote moorland with no phone signal.

If it can hold a GPS lock across Bleaklow, it can handle your local park loop. Battery life, mapping accuracy, heart rate sensor reliability, training load analysis — we care about what matters on the run, not what looks good in a spec comparison table.

The Garmin vs. COROS vs. Polar debate is real and depends on what you actually do. A fell runner navigating off-map has different needs to a road marathon runner optimising training load. We cover both ends of the market honestly.

Dan Hollis handles most of our GPS watch coverage. He works in software, which means he's deeply sceptical of firmware promises and actually reads the changelog.