Garmin Foretrex 401 Review: A hands-free wrist-mounted tracker

Nowadays, GPS trackers have actually ended up being very little as well as portable without giving up much of their efficiency. And also while most Garmin designs are conveniently pocketable, few are the ones that really take convenience into factor to consider. The Garmin Foretrex 401 is a hands-free wrist-mounted tracker that is an excellent alternative for anybody trying to find a respectable model at a bargain cost that you won’t have to hold when using. In this review, we will certainly go over some of its primary benefits and negative aspects, as well as also compare it to a few of its closest rivals consisting of the more recent Foretrex versions.

If you’re set on getting a mobile GPS tracker, make certain you look into our thorough overview on some of the best handheld GPS trackers that are presently out on the marketplace!

Style and Durability of Garmin Foretrex 401

The style of the Foretrex 401 is extremely special as well as instead interesting compared to everything else that originated from Garmin these previous few years. The whole collection has always been wrist-mounted and that’s one of its main allures. The text of the tracker is 1.70 x 0.90 x 2.90 inches making it a little large for something that you would certainly put on all the time on your hand but to compensate for that it is much lighter than standard portable trackers. It evaluates only 3 ounces which is 2 ounces less than the GPSMAP 64 series as well as 0.10 ounces lighter than the 601.

The tracker includes an IPX7 score which is practically standard on the majority of Garmin designs nowadays. It can endure unintentional dashes and as much as 30 minutes of direct exposure to water that is 1 meter deep. It additionally shields the tracker from snow, hefty rain, and also even showering.

You can use the 401 either as a handheld tracker or as a wrist-mounted one when you attach the wrist expansion strap on it. It is really comfortable on your hand and has a lot of changes to it. The band works with a hook and also loophole Velcro system to stay secured in its placement and is just as great for both youngsters and adult dimensions.

Tacking

For monitoring, the 401 makes use of a digital compass, a barometric altimeter, and a high-sensitivity GPS receiver that likewise collaborates with HotFix. All that permits your Foretrex to work extremely well also in remote areas that are heavily covered.

One of the features that I definitely like about the Foretrex 401 is that it can retrace your course as well as steps. Let’s say you are seeking a cache that is a mile far from your camp. The tracker will instantly trace your course and also present it on your display as a populated line. You can just utilize the TracBack attribute that will aid you follow your course back to the base camp as soon as you are ready to go back.

Something that I do not such as below is that the compass requires frequent calibration. Additionally, in order for it to be accurate, you will need to hold it degree when using it, or else, it might set you off by a bit. This is really among the few downsides of this model as well as is dealt with in the more recent Foretrex generations.

Display of Garmin Foretrex 401

Unlike various other spending plan for Garmin trackers, this one doesn’t come with a colored display. Rather, it packs a 1.7 inch LCD display that is abundant as well as relatively big in contrast making it reasonably very easy to check out even in the day. For the night, it has a backlight to help you see your course metrics.

For a bigger display, you could intend to get several of the newer Foretrex models that have a 2.0 and also 2.2 inch displays which are still LCD and also colorless yet are likewise easier to check out as well as much more detailed in regards to course details.

Battery of Garmin Foretrex 401

The battery right here is certainly a solid attribute. Foretrex models have always gotten suitable battery life as well as the brand-new ones have it also much better in spite of the larger screen. Still, the 2 AAA batteries you use right here benefit greater than 15 hrs, depending upon their brand, kind, and also mAh ranking. For the best outcomes, I suggest utilizing 600+ NiMH batteries that will certainly give you the maximum feasible battery life which can be as much as 17-18 hrs.

What the newer Foretrex designs have are a couple of various modes that save a ton of battery usage. The navigating setting on the 601 can offer you up to 2 days of battery life, while the UltraTrac setting obtains a week before the battery runs out. Finally, the watch mode gets up to a month of battery life as a result of the energy-saving LCD display and also the very little quantity of information on it. All the Foretrex versions, however, work with AAA batteries, meaning you can bring a pack along if you want to improve the time in which you can make use of the tracker. You can likewise bring a solar battery charger for your rechargeable AAA batteries.