Best Reviews UK

A guide to buying - tips, advice and reviews

Richard

Garmin Forerunner 220 GPS Review → with Colour Display

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To fit a variety of consumers, Garmin has created several watches for runners under the forerunner title. The 220 GPS Running Watch with colour display is just one of those. It is set apart by the features it contains which differ from other Garmin runner’s watches like the 110. Two things to instantly notice about this watch is its accelerometer and variation. It comes with or without the heart rate monitor. As the title suggests, it also has a colour display which brings it up a notch if you like to have more colour to your screen than a standard watch providing running information. Yet, is it worth owning. Do these added features make it worth the upgrade from a previous model or a switch from your current brand?

Description and Features

This red and black watch is 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.2 cm in size with a display of 1 inch in diameter. It has 180 x 180 pixel resolution for the display. It is not a touchscreen device, but it does offer a water rating of 5 ATMs. The battery life is tested up to 6 weeks in standard watch mode, and 10 hours for training. It is GPS enabled with the ability to store up to 200 hours of activity.

Numerous other features are provided such as a heart rate monitor, automatic sync with a computer, access to Garmin Connect, auto pause, auto lap, and auto scroll. The auto scroll feature allows you to examine data while you are working out by scrolling through the pages of recorded information.

It has advanced workout features where you can create custom, goal based workouts and be alerted of your past if it is varying from your preset requirement. Users have the option of setting up interval training so there are rest periods tracked along with the workout information of time, distance, and pace.

While not all have a heart rate monitor, it does carry a feature of heart rate calorie computation to track how many calories you burn based on your heart rate. Overall in features, it offers a customizable screen runners can use to get the exact data they want while working out.

The Garmin Forerunner 220 GPS has an accelerometer, which is fairly important as a feature. It enables you to run inside or outside without losing data, even if you are using a treadmill instead of a track or other path. With the ability to sync it to Bluetooth or ANT+ you are able to monitor your phone and heart rate.

Advantages and Disadvantages

If you want to begin your run without complications, this watch allows you to hit Run three times and head out. It will record the data for you. Satellite GPS tracking is quick. You can also pause and resume quickly without having to hit a button. For instance, if you want to pause to look at the data, you can as the watch will scroll through everything. It offers two screens of data so you can keep up with your run.

As the screen display is customizable, you can ensure the data you want to see will scroll. One feature besides the time, pace, and distance is running cadence. This does not display automatically, but you can go to your display and change it to do so. If you care about running cadence this is a very helpful feature.

This watch truly offers plenty of options when it comes to information and the display screen. You can change the theme colours if you do not like the defaults.

As mentioned in the features you have interval settings, therefore, if you like interval training this is the right watch for you. Not all of the Garmin Forerunners will allow for interval training options. Some you need to set up after going through a long process. This watch makes it easy with the advanced technology. Now it might not work as you hope as there are still a few bugs for interval training, but it can also depend on what you input into the watch.

Another advantage is being able to record your history with ease. In the event you cannot get to your computer to download the history, it can upload by syncing your device through Bluetooth. In this way you do not lose the data. Speaking of syncing, be aware that sometimes it can be problematic for some reason you might have to start and stop syncing before it actually syncs with the computer correctly. Be aware there are space limitations for recording, so you will want to sync often.

Is this the Right Watch?

The cost of this watch is on the high side due to the multiple features it comes with. The Forerunner 220 does have a few downsides: like syncing errors and complicated recordings of interval training; however, it is a light watch with more functions than your lower cost Garmin Forerunners. It is not something to use with cycling or swimming, but as a running watch, even on a treadmill, it definitely performs.

Overall, it has value. It is difficult to say it has enough value for the current listing price if you buy direct from Garmin. You may want to shop around to see if you can find a discount. Some of the glitches, like the syncing, should not occur on such a watch. Although you do have more features than the less expensive options, it is still a little pricey in comparison to value.

In saying that, do remember you have a customizable display screen that can tell you a lot about your run while running. The accelerometer is certainly handy to give you a wider array of options for running, particularly in inclement weather when you want to be inside. Certainly there are better watches on the market if you train for triathlons. Someone who does swim or bike would find another product more useful, especially for the price. But if you are a runner a comparison is worthy.

Garmin Forerunner 10 Review → is a Good Starter Watch

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The Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS Running Watch has been out for a couple of years now. Over this time period it has received at least one software update to enhance the pace feature, which occurred in 2013. It is a great starter watch for runners and not meant to be used as an everyday watch for all activities.

With multiple features you have the ability to record your running history, download it for tracking overtime, and listening to the automated voice while running to keep up with where you are in pace. For those looking for a watch that monitors a full range of body functions, this is not that watch. Instead, it provides your distance, pace, time, and the calories burned. It does not have a heart rate monitor and is not designed for other sports activities like swimming, basketball, or tennis. It is strictly a runner’s watch.

Description and Features

The Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS Running Watch in black and red, has quite a few features in a tiny package. In looks it is a fairly slim design to fit most wrists comfortably. It has an easy to read display, and four buttons including one for a light and one to start the running features. All told the dimensions are 2.25 inches in height, 1.78 inches width, and 5/8 inches in depth.

The Garmin FR10 is able to measure your time, distance, pace and the calories burned. It stores up to 7 activity histories, allowing you to review up to seven days of your workout history. By reviewing your workouts you can compare how well you did each day and see if you are maintaining your pace or even improving.

It also comes with a GPS receiver designed to track your route, speed, and distance. The virtual pacer charts your current pace and bases it on your target pace to help you remain informed while exercising. Depending on the type of exercise, it offers a run/walk feature designed to monitor both running and walking if you have walking breaks in the middle of your workout.

A handy feature is auto pause that allows you to resume the time based on your speed. This works with auto laps so new laps will automatically record. After exercising you can connect it to your PC as a means of downloading, reviewing, and even sharing your data.

This is a watch made for running and the accidental rainstorm with water resistance up to 164 feet.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The battery life is one of the best things about the Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS Running Watch. It works for five hours continuously, without the need to recharge.

You also receive weather conditions with the watch based on your GPS location. It tells you the temp, wind speed, humidity, and if there are clouds or sun. It might seem basic and something you can look up with Google, but if you are leaving from work or haven’t had a chance to see the weather you know what’s going on.
The watch offers voice information for your pace, which is nice. The little updates every mile or lap helps you know if you are keeping pace with your run. It’s great if you are just starting out as a running enthusiast or if you like to be 100% accurate.

The watch supplies five hours of working time before it needs a recharge. It has a fairly long battery life, but do remember it is to be used for running and exercising rather than an everyday watch.

All products have some negative aspects around the good. While it is not related specifically to the watch itself, you do need to be in an area with proper satellites. To provide you with location, date, time, and weather conditions being out in the open without trees or tall buildings is best. Otherwise, you will have interference and this can mean some inaccurate recordings from your run.

The display is not customizable. You have pace, time, distance, and calories, but you can only display two of these items at a time. For someone who wishes to see everything at once this can be a little difficult.

A last feature and pro of the watch is frequent updates to the firmware. With new updates there are improvements such as the lap pace update.

Is this the Right Watch?

Watches offer a host of features, some good and some bad. When it comes down to making a decision it is all about whether the watch works for you based on where you live, what features you want it to have, and the value over price.

This watch is considered a good starter watch for runners because it offers the key information you would want during running: namely time, distance, pace, and calories burned. The reason it is a good starter watch for runners comes down to the information and the ease of use. You can get the information on your run with ease and have it tell you your pace. If you just want those four features this is a great watch. For beginner runners who may not be able to estimate their pace or distance, it is a great tool to help with that. If you live in an area where satellite reception is not an issue, then one of the larger problems with the watch is not an issue.

Overall, Garmin makes a solid product designed for users who want to hear where they are in their pace, record their run and compare it to their previous runs. You have seven days to download your runs, as it keeps an activity log.

Are there better watches out there? Garmin offers more than one watch, so yes, if you want things like heart rate, pulse monitoring, and multisport recordings there are better options. But, if you are a runner who likes keeping track of your pace, how far you’ve gone and a weather update as you run, this is definitely a watch that is well worth buying.

 

Russell Hobbs 12 litre Halogen Oven

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This halogen oven is produced by Russell Hobbs who have been making quality kitchen appliances for over 50 years.

The is slightly smaller then the as it only extends to 16 litres rather than 17 litres.

It also does not have the advantage of a detachable electric lead, like the .

Features of Russell Hobbs Halogen Oven

  • 4 Cooking functions – Roasting, Baking, Grilling and Defrosting.
  • The oven has a 12 litre capacity glass bowl which extends to 16 litres when you use the stainless steel expansion ring
  • Comes with a self cleaning function
  • Halogen heating technology and circulation system
  • Sixty minute count down timer
  • Temperature range from 125 to 250 degrees
  • Two racks so you can cook a whole meal
  • Temperature control sets heat to precise temperature
  • Powerful 1400w capacity

Operating the Russell Hobbs Halogen Oven

All Halogen oven are easy to operate.  To use the Russell Hobbs oven you just push the lid down and lock in place. Then set the timer and temperature by using the two switches on the top of the lid. While the food is cooking you can watch the progress through the glass bowl.

Performance of Russell Hobbs Halogen Oven

The oven claims to roast and bake any food up to 40% faster than an ordinary oven. The glass bowl enables you to view the food while it cooks so you do not have to consistently open the oven to check the food. The oven is easily portable and ha a 12 litre capacity which can be extended to 12 litre using the extender ring.

Halogen Bulb Replacement

The Russell Hobbs Halogen oven does not come with a spare halogen bulb unlike the Andrew James oven. It also does not seem easy to buy a spare bulb for this oven.

Instructions for Russell Hobbs Halogen Oven

The instructions that come with this oven are poor. They only consist of an instruction sheet which gives a guide to rough cooking times, but does not give nearly enough information. There is no recipe book included with this oven, you need to order one separately.

Accessories for Russell Hobbs Halogen Oven

The accessories you will receive with this oven are as follows:

  • 1 – Steel expansion ring
  • 1 – Lower cooking rack
  • 1 – Higher cooking rack – the low & high racks combined allow for cooking of whole meals
  • 1 – Set of Tongs
  • 1 – Lid holder – important to use as the lid gets hot

Dimensions

Boxed product weight is 8 Kg

Weight 6.88 Kg

Depth 410 cm

Height 334 cm

Capacity 17 litre

Item Model No: 18537

Product Code: RUS-PCR-18-537-W

Guarantee 1 Year

Available Colours

The oven is available in White only

Pros

  • There are not many pros for this model compared with the other models I have reviewed.

 

Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

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halogen oven

This is sold by Coopers of Stortford.

Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

This is a good option to buy if you want to try out cooking with a halogen oven but are not sure if you will continue too use it in the long term.

The is generally available from Amazon for about £30.

The oven also comes with a 200 page recipe book from Hamlyn.

The is more expensive but comes with a free spare halogen bulb.

Features of Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

  • Can be used to Bake, Roast, Steam, Fry & Broil
  • 12 litre capacity which can be extended to 17 litre by using the oven height extender.
  • Simple two switch control one for time and one for temperature controls.
  • The whole oven is sturdy and of  good quality.
  • Temperature settings for heating and defrosting
  • The power lead is detachable.
  • Self cleans
  • One year guarantee
  • Cooking temperature range up to 250 degrees
  • 1400 watt power
  • Comes with 2 racks so you can cook on two levels at once

How to Operate the Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

The Designer Habitat halogen oven is easy to use, just set the timer and temperature switch and close the lid. Like all halogen ovens it takes a little experimentation to get the cooking time just right. The advantage with these ovens is that they sit on the worktop and you can easy view the progress of the cooking.

The oven has two dials to control the timing and temperature settings of the oven. Included are a 200 page cookbook with the details of the settings required to cook using the halogen oven.

Performance of Designer Habitat Halogen Oven

You can cook almost anything with this oven from roasts to pasties and bread. Users of the oven have often stated that they us the oven every day and rarely now use their conventional oven. In particular meat cooks better than conventional oven in that it is more tender and tasty and does not dry out. You need to do some experimentation with the timing of the oven to get the best results. This is usually the case with all halogen ovens. This is not too much of a problem because the food is visible and it is easy to add timer using the timer.

The halogen oven cooks everything a normal oven can cook but also the cooking is faster. It is large enough particularly when adding the extension to cook a family meal. In addition the food cooked tastes better than that cooked in a microwave.

Halogen Bulb Replacement

The designer habit oven comes fitted with a halogen bulb. I could find no information on obtaining a replacement halogen bulb for the designer habitat oven when the original bulb fails. This can be a problem as unless the bulb can be replaced you have to throw away the oven when the original bulb goes.

Instructions for Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

The oven comes with a instruction booklet which contains a section on the use of halogen ovens, halogen oven safety and a few recipes. Customers have complained that the instruction booklet is a bit sparse in content.

Much better is the 200 page Hamlyn Recipe Book that Habitat have now added to the package which comes with the oven package. The book normally retails at £4.90. The book explains halogen ovens and what they and recipe book. The instruction booklet is sparse and has a poor layout. It includes sections on using a halogen oven, health and safety and a few pages on recipes.

Accessories for Designer Habitat 12 litre Halogen Oven

The oven comes with the following accessories:

  • 1 – Oven Height Extender Ring
  • 1 – High food grill
  • 1 – Low food grill
  • 1 – Lid Holder
  • 1 – Set of Tongs
  • 1 – Baking Tray
  • 1 – Steamer Tray
  • 4 – skewer forks
  • 1 – Single Glove

In addition, there is 1 Year warranty

Dimensions

The halogen oven stands quite tall on the work surface and this may cause difficulty in setting the dials which are located on the top of the lid.

The bowl diameter is 33 cm.

The total height is 33 cm and with extender ring 40 cm.

The internal depth is 16 cm with the extending ring 23 cm.

The bowl capacity is 12 litres

Boxed weight is 5 kg.

Model No 07 /009

Available Colours

The oven is available in White & Black

Amazon Rating: 4.5

Pros

  • The cheapest halogen oven so a good buy if you just want to try out a halogen oven and not sure if you will continue to use it in the future
  • The halogen oven comes with a detachable electric lead. This takes it easier and safer to use the oven as you are able to remove the lead before opening the lid
  • The oven comes with a good cookbook with over 200 recipes in full colour

Cons

  • The main stand, bowl and oven lid are of good quality. However, the accessories that come with the halogen oven are of rather poor quality and a bit flimsy particularly the lid stand a common fault with all halogen ovens
  • The instruction booklet is of a poor quality containing little information

The price of the designer habitat oven varies depending on where you buy it but tends to have the lowest price.

 

Coopers Halogen Oven

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This is sold by Coopers of Stortford.

Using infra red technology combined with a fan to circulate the air in the oven, it claims to cook food up to 60% faster than a conventional oven.

Features of Coopers Halogen Oven

  • can be used for baking, roasting, frying, steaming, toasting, reheating and defrosting
  • Infra red technology
  • Self Cleaning
  • 12 month warrenty if you buy the oven from Coopers Offers
  • The oven has a 12 litre capacity bowl which can be extended to 17 litres
  • Comes with two racks which can be used to cook entire meals
  • Timer and temperature control
  • Fitted with a safety switch

Operating the Coopers Halogen Oven

As with all halogen ovens the Cooper oven is easy to operate. Unlike a conventional oven you do not have to wait until your oven heats up. Good if you are living alone as instead of using your oven you can make a small meal using your halogen oven.  It has a pre wash facility but you then have to empty a heavy glass bowl of hot dirty water. It is much easier just to clean the empty bowl in the sink using hot water.

Performance of the Coopers Halogen Oven

This oven will cook a whole roast chicken and crispy dry potatoes in 35 minutes. it uses 50% of the electricity of a ordinary oven.  The hot air is circulated evenly around the oven and as a result you do not have to keep on turning the food. It browns and crisps food just like an oven. Some users have commented that the fan is not powerful enough to distribute the heat evenly throughout the glass bowl.

Halogen Bulb Replacement

The Cooper Halogen oven does not come with a spare halogen bulb. In addition the bulb tends to blow fairly quickly.

Instructions for Coopers Halogen Oven

The oven comes with a booklet of recipes but little in the way of basic instructions.

Accessories for Coopers Halogen Oven

The accessories you will receive with this oven are as follows:

  • 1 – Steel expansion ring
  • 1 – Lower cooking rack
  • 1 – Higher cooking rack
  • 1 – an accessory to remove the racks

There is no lid holder so this needs to be brought separately

Dimensions

Boxed product weight is 6 Kg

There is a one year warranty when buying through Cooper Offers

Available Colours

The oven is available in White only

Amazon Rating: 3.8

Pros

  • There really no pros when compared to other models reviewed

Cons

  • A few customers have complained that the glass bowl has broken
  • Numbers for temperature and timer can be rubbed off
  • You need to buy a separate lid stand as lid gets very hot during cooking and need something to hold it in

The price of the halogen oven varies depending on where you buy it but tends to have the lowest price.