I recently had the opportunity to play with the Garmin Forerunner 201 GPS and it is cool. Of course, you won’t find much use for it unless you are a regular walker, runner, or bicyclist because there are much better alternatives for purposes other than these. But, if you are in the market for a great sport GPS, the Forerunner offers some enticing features.

Chief among its’ features are its’ size - small. Not as small as a watch but it is pretty close. Officially it measures 3.26 x 1.71 x .69 inches and weighs in at just under three ounces. As I said, small but not as small as a watch. The reason I keep referring to watches is that the Forerunner comes with a watch mount for you runners. If you are interested in mounting the Garmin Forerunner on your bike, you can purchase the bike mount or improvise your own bike mount.

Performance of the Forerunner 201 was decent. I took a walk around a commercial park that had building of varying sizes and only lost the satellites once. This was near a rather tall building and the unit seemed to recover well. Of course, if you jog in a downtown area, your performance will suffer and losing the satellites more than once or twice is bound to mess with your statistics.

Speaking of statistics, the Forerunner can store several years of data within its’ memory. Of course, you will want to offload the data regularly and for this you will need to purchase the serial cable option. It is available for just over $10. Statistics-wise, it offers a calorie counter, speed indicator, lap counter, and pace data. It will help you to navigate back to your starting point, always great if you travel and exercise. It will also navigate to specific points you program.

The unit has a rechargeable battery pack and I was very impressed with the power brick used to recharge the battery pack. It is about the size of a brick! I hope Garmin got a good deal on the wall power unit because it looks like something you would expect to see in a 1970’s movie. It works to make the Forerunner less portable.

One of the neater features of the Forerunner is the virtual partner. You program your goals and then exercise against a virtual buddy. This is great and it will help you reach the next level in your fitness goals.

Don’t forget to grab the Windows logging software once you throw down the $130 this beauty will cost you. I didn’t get to play but you will want it.