Holux GPSport 245 review
As a rule, Men don’t need for directions. Now with that statement you probably think I’m going to be writing about a GPS Navigation Unit, but in fact I’m talking about the Holux GPSport 245 which is so easy to use that you don’t need to look at the directions! See how that first line makes sense now?
I’ve played with some of the GPS sport recorders out there and for some of them you definitely need to read the manual to understand how to get into all the different modes. Not with the Holux GPSport 245 though. With the dimensions of 82 x 53 x 23 mm and weighing in at 72g, this little device weighs has a large and very well organized screen.
There are six buttons on the unit. One each on the Left and Right side (Back/Esc and Enter respectively) and then on the front of the unit below the LCD are 4 function keys.
More than just the advantage of having six buttons, on every screen the GPSport 245 displays what options you have for each button. You may not think this is a big deal but I’m sick of trying to remember what combination of holding down two buttons turns on the Bluetooth or switches the Units from Metric to Imperial. This unit is very easy to use and configure. It has a menu button that has a Quick Setup guide, where you can set your mode (Biking, Running, Walking, Vehicle), your weight and how often you want the screen to toggle between functions (Show Speed, Altitude, Distance, Calories Burned, etc). Unfortunately, since the buttons are rubberized and sealed for the Waterproof feature, they are hard to press and sometimes do not work the first time.
Let’s take a look at the Holux GPSport 245 specs and features:
Key Features
- GPS positioning & logger
- Auto Flip Page - Cycles through information (Speed, Altitude, Calories Burned, Distance) at tunable intervals (Manual, 5s, 10s, 30s, 60seconds)
- Set an Alert for (Time, Speed, Distance)
- Calorie Calculation with 3 modes (Biking, Running, Walking)
- Auto Log Function (starts log when satellite signal is fixed)
- Single touch POI (Point Of Interest) recording
- Metric and Imperial Unit support
- On screen clock with time zone setting support in both 12:00 and 24:00 time format
We’ve talked about the size of the unit and the buttons. The GPSport 245 has 4 modes it can work in: Biking, Running, Walking, and Vehicle. The first three modes are also used to calculate how many calories one burns during a trip. If the GPSport 245 could figure out how many calories you’re burning while driving then it’s a truly incredible device but most likely you’re like me and tend to be putting on the calories at this time (but good calories I’ll need for when I get to Everest base camp for my hike of course)
The Home/Up button brings you to a screen with a nice wooden sign picture that tells you what direction your ‘home’ is. In this menu you can show your current GPS coordinates and show/set the coordinates for your destination (Finder Point). One features I’d like to see added to the unit is the ability to save some of the Finder Points so you can have a ‘Home’ or starting location and also have set the destination of interest. The GPSport 245 indicates which direction you are traveling and automatically updates the distance to the Finder Point, which was great when I was trying to find my house because all houses look the same in the suburbs where I live. Likewise it was an easy way to tell how far I’ve traveled from my starting point.
The unit displays several pages of information and you can set the device to automatically flip through them at 4 different intervals or you can manually do so with the Page/Down button. The different pages displayed are for:
- Compass & Current Speed
- Max & Average Speed
- Altitude & Altitude Variance
- Calories Burned & Total Calories Burned Today
- Distance Traveled & Time Elapsed
The current speed page is setup like an analog dashboard meter. This is more useful way to display the real-time speed when you’re using the GPS unit in the car or biking than when you’re hiking or walking. I had a little bit of difficulty with the Max & Average Speed page on one of my treks. Somewhere in during my run, the unit said I hit a max speed of 60mph. Now I did pick it up a notch when I was running across 6 lanes of traffic and I’ve been told I’m a pretty fast sprinter but 60mph…I don’t think so! I was a bit annoyed at this because it made the whole Max/Avg speed page useless for the rest of my trip unless I saved my info and started a fresh trip from where I was. The GPSport 245 also has a Menu page where you can see the History of your trips without having to connect it to the computer and upload your logs. You can also lock certain logs so they cannot be deleted from the unit itself.
The Enter Key on the right side of the unit also serves as a One-Touch mechanism for saving a POI (Point of Interest). If along your travels you see something of interest you can simply hit the button once and it will mark the spot so when you upload your data log to your PC you can use the Holux software which uses Google Maps to show your route and there will be a mark for all your POI’s. You can also save the data as *.kmz files so you can open up your locations in the Google Earth application.
This is particularly useful if you have taken pictures along the way because the Holux GPSport 245 also doubles as a GPS logger so the software matches the timestamp of your picture with the data logged and updates your photograph file with comments and GPS information or GeoTag (if you want to use the buzz word). If your camera and GPSport 245 have different time zone settings or off on their clock settings by just a little bit, the software has a feature to allow you to shift your photo time by any specified days, hours, minutes and/or seconds so you can sync up and add your GPS information. The software also allows you to upload your photos to Flickr, arguably the best known online photo management and sharing application.
The software also shows a Speed or Altitude graph, or both at the same time. The points with photos are marked with squares on the graph. On the graph you can pan left, pan right, zoom in, zoom out in the altitude graph.
The user manual goes into detail about all the features of the included software. However, note that the software user manual is in softcopy only and is installed on your system when the software is loaded. Here is what does actually come in the box:
- USB Cable
- Quick Start Guide
- AC Adapter
- Warranty Card
- Software Installation CD
- Bike Mount Kit (rubber pad, 2 plastic mounting pieces, 3 Black Cable Ties)
The Bike Mount Kit mounts stable enough and has a latch to keep the unit in place and eaily remove it from the mount. I would have liked to have arm band for the unit to use for running/hiking because I found myself holding the GPSport 245 in my hand when I was running instead of having it bounce around in my pocket and to avoid having buttons accidentally pressed, which in hindsight is unlikely because it takes some force to push these buttons in!
The unit is charged with an included USB cable. The mini-USB port on the unit has a rubber cover which actually pulls out almost ½’ for when you need to plug I the cable.
It’s the little things that make me happy because I was thrilled when I saw this! I hate when the rubber cover on electronic units bends just slightly so you can plug in the cable but you know it’s a strain on the rubber and the cover will break after just 10 times. I didn’t drain the battery fully but after 18 hours the battery was only half drained according to the battery indicator.
Summary
I am a fan of the Holux GPSport 245 Outdoor GPS. The ease of configuration and navigation of the unit was my favorite part. I couldn’t find any information about the IPX-6 waterproof rating except that the unit is dust tight. I did take a walk which happened to turn into a shower as the rain came down on me and the unit was fine in my hands. The buttons are hard to press but that tends to be a given with sporty waterproofing. Other than that the unit worked very well for me except when it indicated my New Balance sneakers allowed me to go from 3.3mph to 60+mph in a few seconds. But that was a one time fluke that I could not reproduce. I’m guessing I might have dropped my bag quickly and that could have caused it to track itself as going a small distance extremely fast.
(Via NaviGadget.)
The mini 
