I noticed that my Garmin Forerunner 235 had been out of extended warranty/drops and spills coverage for over 6 months. This of course made me paranoid enough that I went ahead and replaced it with a Garmin Forerunner 645, the non-music version. There is no chance in hell I'll step out of the door without my phone, so there's no need to pay another $50 for the "M" version of the 645.
My 235 was a complete rock star. It kept me safe and measured my performance through more than 9,000 miles. It never had a charge failure, never lost a tracked activity, and whatever dings it took were all absorbed by the glass shield, which I removed before I took this picture. The back looks like shit, it's obvious that 2.5 years of extended wear were more than what the paint in the back of the case could stand, but the optical reader was still pristine, and the watch itself was 100% functional. I did change the strap when the locking loop fell off the old one (later I found that the strap was starting to dry rot, so it was going to need replacement anyway) and I had to replace its charge/sync cable since one of the spring-loaded contact pins wasn't doing its job. Except for those two, and maybe sync delays from Strava every six months, it was absolutely trouble-free.
Pairing my current Garmin foot pod, and my new Wahoo speed/cadence sensors for the indoor bike was painless. I probably spent more time trying to figure out how to update its firmware than what it took to set up everything else. Even if this is not the model with on-board music it still has a phone media widget*, something I couldn't get to work on my old 235. I even got to try Garmin Pay today, it worked perfectly.
I also appreciate how little was changed in how the devices operate. Sure, there are new menus, and a at least one new button command, but everything just "works" the same.
I *was* going to post a link to the eBay auction to the old 235, but the damn thing sold as I was typing this post.
* The music control widget is broken as of firmware 6.4, it stops your run whenever you try to skip a song. Sigh.
