It’ll teach me to be an early adopter but I’ve had nothing but troubles with my Nike+ Sportband since I bought one a few months back.

My first one suffered a "bleeding" crystal display:

I sent this back to Sweatshop and they sent me a new one. A week ago, lo and behold, the bleeding display was back. I dropped them a quick mail and they replied saying that there was a known issue with the very first batch of devices and would I like another one or my money back.

So, I’ve gone for third time lucky! I can’t say enough how good Sweatshop have been in sorting all this out.

The Nike+ utility also seemed to have difficulty in realising that not everyone used Pacific Time on their computers, which meant the time on the device was always -8 hours out. v1.1 seems to have fixed this though.

I’ve heard some other complaints about the calibration not working, but I’ve not had much trouble with that.

Anyway, I shall hold onto my wallet next time :)

I went to the London Marathon expo last night to check out the Garmin 405 primarily. I have to say that I wasn’t impressed. Even though the actual diameter of the bezel is quite small, the initial part of the strap (closest to where it joins the bezel) is rigid – I’m guessing to hold some electronics or the GPS antenna. So, on someone with small wrists like me, it looks pretty stupid as it sticks out the side of your arm!

Also, the touch sensitive bezel seems overly sensitive and a bit clunky to use and reacts to you brushing it (I’d probably knock it against my leg a few times a run!).

All in all, I wasn’t impressed so I didn’t splurge.

All was not lost though, as Nike were there in force and I had a nice demo from a lady on the stand for the new SportBand which interfaces directly to the Nike+ foot sensor, so no iPod needed. And at £40, I couldn’t resist so I’ve bought one. They do look very sexy indeed and definitely suit the more petite of us.

So, it’s not guide the Aero+ we were expecting, but Nike have released a device that neatly sidesteps the need for an iPod Nano to use Nike+ foot sensors with.

Looks like fun, but I think the Garmin 405 may well be the one for me when it finally arrives.

[via engadget]