Soleus Mini Black/Silver GPS Activity/Calorie Tracker Watch with Integrated USB SG006-005

Bought this for my 10 year old who runs regularly. We have left him to work out how to use it but he has measured his running pace and speed. Still needs to get an app to record the data, but one step at a time. It fits his wrist on the smallest hole and he is slim. Battery seems to be doing well after its first charge a few weeks ago - GPS only turned on when required. Good price for a first GPS watch.

Had several issues with this watch: 1) takes too long to get a satellite signal, often 5 minutes or more 2) charging cable also worked itself loose from poor design and would only charge in certain positions 3) when watch appeared fully charge, upon disconnecting the cable battery said 60% charge. Manufacturer did replace the watch but for now, its still boxed and will be forever on the shelf gathering dust. Don't know if can get refund or not as had it 8-9 months as it was a Xmas present for me wife. While the watch was in repair, bought a Garmin Forerunner instead. This gets a satellite signal before even stepping foot outside the front door and is from a different era compared to the Soleus.

This watch works, but it's not a good product. The instructions, as mentioned by many, aren't clear. This said, the good news is that all Soleus watches have the same OS, so you can use video demos of other watches when it comes to this one (for example, I checked a video online for the Soleus Fit and it worked). The GPS is hit and miss. I used it 4 times and in two of them the distances were innacurate. I had no other problems. I kind of works, but it's a poor product and I would recommend against buying it

Good gadget for the price. It was a little bothering to synchronize with Strava, but somehow it was solved.

This product is terrible, the screen is old fashioned and trying to set it up and operate it is just a waste of time.

Note that this was bought for me as a present from a local running shop. I had previously attempted to use a GPS tracking app on my mobile phone and found it completely unreliable. (I believe that this was due to failures of software as much as problems with actual tracking. Any software that is happy to display a runner as nipping from one side of the River Thames to the other and back again at 50 mph is seriously flawed). So this is my first dedicated GPS watch. It has been very reliable but not flawless. I have had about 3 runs where there are clearly artefacts in the tracking and "impossible" actions recorded, but this is after running several times a week over many months. This makes it easily reliable enough for training. Physically the watch is small, light and nicely designed, but notice Quirk's comment about size around a small wrist. I'm a 5'9" male but am only three notches from finding it too big. I think that it is smaller and much nicer looking than the Garmin equivalent. The display is rather blocky but perfectly readable. (I now struggle to read any watch without reading glasses). There is quite a steep learning-curve to negotiate in manipulating the buttons to get the thing to do what you want. I had several irritating failures on my early attempts (I promise that this is not because I'm a technological numpty!). However, the downloadable instructions are reasonably clear and with a bit of practice anyone can master the sequences of button-pressing to save numerous details of a run or cycle ride. The advantage of the Soleus over its Garmin equivalent is that it is possible to set a lap recording sequence. This means, for example, that you can record the pace for each kilometre of a long run. You can see start and stop times, average pace, average speed, distance travelled (etc) and you can see this broken down for each leg/lap that you have selected from 400m up to 5km stages. You can make these recordings in miles if you prefer. Two button presses set the watch hunting for GPS signals and where I live (North Hertfordshire) there can be a wait of up to 2 minutes before it "locks on". It's never taken longer than this and is often quicker. A single button press then starts the timer. A single button press stops it and a further press-and-hold of the same button stores the result. The short USB connector then connects to a USB port on the computer. The built-in USB connection on the watch is ingenious but water and sweat need to be wiped away and you need to put it in the right way round (which is not immediately obvious). It really comes into its own when you upload your data to Strava. This software is quite brilliant. Even the basic, free version allows you to see your run on a map and to record and discover all sorts of training information. There's a massive online community of thousands of runners around the world using this site and it's quite addictive once you begin exploring it. There's a premium version that costs $59 (about £38) for a full year. I haven't signed up myself as I'm a very low-key amateur runner but I can see that, for the serious competitor, the facilities available would be terrific. It's a beautifully-designed adjunct to the Soleus and a strong incentive for buying the watch. I know that there is a "Garmin Connect" equivalent but the data that I can see indicates that lots of Garmin owners use Strava anyway. This is the most basic GPS watch that Soleus make but I think that this Texas-based company have got it just right for the newbie and I can't see that I would ever need anything more sophisticated than this. Recommended.

Confusing to set up, does not sync with chromebook, can take several minutes to locate GPS which you cannot do whilst indoors (particularly useful if living in the wet UK). To return I had to pay postage for a product which is pretty poor. My advice is spend the extra £50-£60 and get a decent running watch

I love this watch, takes a bit of getting used to but worth it once you know how