TomTom Runner 2 GPS Watch with Heart Rate Monitor and Music - Large Strap, Sky Blue/Scuba Blue

I'm reviewing this mainly as a keen but rather average runner. I run 3 times a week, have done a couple of marathons and numerous halves. I sometimes swim and bike. I've owned and used 3 garmin GPS watches. I have also used Fitbit and Jawbone devices as daily activity trackers.This is billed as a GPS watch to track your sport, and to wear as your daily watch to track your activity, like a Garmin and Jawbone all in one.The "USP", and what is supposed to set this apart, is the in-built music player with bluetooth headphones, and the heart rate monitor on your wrist rather than a chest strap.ACCURACY. First things first, my number one priority is it's accuracy as a running watch. Reviews/users seem to argue til the cows come home about which device is most accurate etc etc. In day to day testing, this measures up accurately enough to Garmin, my phone, and a measured mile, and the GPS seems very accurate indeed (to the extent it knows which side of the road you're running on). And locking in to the signal is very quick indeed, just a few seconds.What's most impressive is the heart rate monitor accuracy. It's brilliant. It seems in testing just as accurate as a chest strap. I've read a few other reviewers casting doubt on the wrist monitor, but it really does work and is sooooo much better than a chest strap.FUNCTIONALITY. Variable! There are some lovely features on here, such as the race feature, being able to change interval training on the device, audio prompts to keep you at designated heart rate zones. There are some features that are missing that I liked on Garmin eg. much more sophisticated training programs, alerts at mile stages, auto pause. You gain some, you lose some!I am a little frustrated with the interval function. There is no ability to set a target pulse or heart rate during efforts. And there is nothing to tell you have far through your efforts or rest you are.THE LOOK AND FEEL. It's thin. It looks smart. The rubberized strap is extremely comfortable. It's thin enough to use as a daily watch. The screen is clear and bright and I love the ability to switch on the back-light by placing your hand over the face.MUSIC. It's a bit clunky to create playlists on windows media player and transfer them, but once you get the hang of it, its straightforward to transfer the music to the device and the sound quality is great. I love having the music on my watch, no extra devices, and no wires.COMPATIBILITY. I like to use Strava to store runs etc and my fintess pal, and the device syncs perfectly with the usual suspects of sports/activity/running apps.OK, so now for a few negative points1. Bluetooth connection to phone. It's flakey. I have a Galaxy S6, and connection to the device is extremely variable. It sometimes connects, sometimes doesn't. I often have to unpair my phone and then repair it to get it to work. Not a problem if you're at home and can connect the phone to the PC, but a right pain if you're out and about.2. Bluetooth connection to headset. It's flakey. Connection to certain headsets is not great; some work only if the watch is on a certain wrist, many don't work at all, only a few have been tried and tested and recommended by Tomtom...... my 2 pairs don't work well.3. Using as a daily activity tracker. It's really no good at doing this! It's a nice extra to have steps and sleep tracker. But step count is vastly overestimated compared to jawbone/fitbit/phone. There is very limited sleep data. The step count does not integrate with other lifestyle tracking apps, which makes it difficult to use if you want to carefully track your calories burned vs dietry input etc.In summary, it's a cracking running GPS watch. The wrist HR monitor is a HUGE forward step in running watch technology. BUT TomTom need to sort out the bluetooth issues to get 5 stars, and until it does I would recommend only buying the cardio+ version not the music version.Item was supplied by TomTom in exchange for a fair and honest review. No attempt was made by TomTom to influence my review.EDIT: I've now got a bluetooth headset that works perfectly without cutting out. And it's a joy to use. BUT after an hour it cut out, the activity failed to upload to the internet and has been lost forever. Looking on the Tomtom forum, its probably because the bitrate of the music is too high. The solution is apparently to resize your music files, reducing the bitrate, before uploading to the watch!! Seriously!!! The music aspect of this watch is just seriously frustratingEDIT: 10th March 2016. After the firmware update which claims to solve the bluetooth issues; there are still issues connecting watch to phone, nothing has changed. There is some improvement in watch to headphone connectivity, but it's still not great and has certainly NOT solved the issues.....

So I delayed writing this review until I had used the watch for several months, I bought it back in November 2015. I've used it running, cycling and indoor cycling and working out.Firstly, I use the watch with 2 different headphones - MPow Petrel in-ear headphones and Plantronics BackBeat FIT headphones. I use the MPow Petrels for indoor gym work (sealed sound) and the Plantronics for running outside (ambient noise is good here & sweatproof for high intensity sessions).Both sets of headphones pair perfectly with the watch. The Plantronics work fantastically and have never cut out, the MPow Petrels will cut out (occasionally) if I have my watch on the opposite arm and down by my side. To the reviewer below, I presume that since you sent the watch back you didn't get round to updating the firmware on the watch - this may help with any issues.Battery life is great, I have used the watch on consecutive days without charging (2x 3hr cycles+gps+hrm but no music and 1x40min jog+music+gps+hrm).I sync the watch with my Sony Xperia Z1 compact and have not had a single issue yet (touch wood). The mysports app is great for heart rate zones but not much else and I use it with Strava (auto-syncs) to check out segment times and leaderboards etc + the whole social aspect. When syncing I leave the watch and phone sat beside each other on a desk, it takes anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes to finish.It's very easy to navigate around the menus on the watch. the physical buttons are easier to use than a touch screen - especially when sweaty.The GPS is very accurate and picks up quickly (use quickGPS feature on watch).The only slight downside is the heart rate monitor - sometimes it can take a while to "catch up" if you suddenly start exerting yourself e.g. in interval training. We are talking 30 seconds of high intensity work being missed. But if that's a major concern you can always get a separate HRM and link to watch.I also use a speed/cadence sensor on my bike which works flawlessly with the watch, its a Wahoo Blue SC which has bluetooth compatibility.Other than the HRM accuracy (which I don't think is much of a big deal at all) I really can't fault the watch, especially considering the price. Looking forward to seeing what the competitors bring out now - I was waiting for a GPS watch with HRM & music, yay no more phone!

First thoughts were that it was an amazing bit of technology but the more I use it the more I'm annoyed with its flaws. GPS takes ages to kick in on a run sometimes and so a lot of the run isn't recorded or you don't start for 30mins whilst it's searching. When swimming it doesn't count all lengths of you do training like only kicking and not using your arms, and sometimes it doesn't count them for no apparent reason.It counts steps but you wear it on your wrist and I don't know how it counts steps whether with motion or GPS tracking but sometimes it's says I've done steps when I've been sitting still.It tracks heart rate which is cool, but now dubious over accuracy.It looks great, it's waterproof and is a good fitness guide, it is a good product but I don't think the technology is good enough yet.Music function works well and I only bought cheap £7 Bluetooth headphones and it's fine.

2 years into using this watch and the functionality has gone pair shaped. Currently I get about 90 mins battery life with GPS no music.

Very happy with tomtom watch

Good watch, clever strap and clear improvement on the old Runner watch.

The watch is as described and I received it really quickly

I have had various Garmin watches over the years which have been superb... but this Tom Tom is my favourite fitness watch of all times!

I have always used Garmin sports products but thought I would try these for my wife and I as they have an mp3 player and wrist heart reader....

I purchased 'TomTom Runner 2 GPS Watch with Heart Rate Monitor and Music - Small Strap, Black/Anthracite' from Amazon EU S.A.R.L. It came with a defective charger.

Had this watch since August 2016 (9 months). Bought off Amazon for £179.99 at the time with the bluetooth head phone option.This does everything I want it to do.

I git this as a birthay present, and after 12 days returned it, to get a garmin. Pros: very comfortable, waterproof, replaceable watch straps, kept good HR.

Very impressed with the tomtom.... more than what I really needed but I thought I may as well make the most of what tomtom had to offer and I wasn't disappointed one bit...