What is the TomTom Multi-Sport?
The TomTom Multi-Sport is TomTom's latest watch aimed at tracking your exercise activities, but with a broader remit than the TomTom Runner we looked at a couple of months ago. If you like to mix up your sporting activities, and fancy yourself as the third Brownlee, you could end up with multiple different devices, one for each activity. This is where the Multi-Sport is intended to answer your prayers, adding the ability to track your biking and swimming as well as running.
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TomTom Multi-Sport: Design and Features
The design is considerably different to the Nike collaboration of two years ago. The basic Multi-Sport comes in grey or dark pink, but you can also purchase the grey edition bundled with a heart-rate monitor for an extra £50. You can buy the Multi-Sport with a cadence sensor for your bike for £279.99, too, and this is available separately as an optional extra for £59.99.
All of these accessories connect via Bluetooth SMART rather than ANT wireless technology, though, so you won't be able to use any accessories that are based on the latter, which will be annoying if you already have any of these. The strap is removable, and a turquoise alternative as well as the dark pink one can be obtained for £19.99. Whichever version you purchase, there's a bike mount included in the box, so you don't need to consult your wrist to see your stats when cycling.
TomTom has attempted to make finding your way around the menu supremely easy via a One-Button Control system, which acts like a D-pad. You don't need to remember which button does what, as you simply scroll left-right or up-down within the menus via this button. The only other control is a touch-sensitive edge on the right of the screen, which turns on the backlight. It's a very intuitive and easy system to get the hang of, continuing the excellent user-focused design strategy TomTom has taken with the TomTom Go 6000 and its others .
So the Multi-Sport is aimed at tracking your abilities in three exercises, and even four if you consider indoor treadmill use a separate activity. The running features are essentially identical to the Runner. Indoors, the Multi-Sport acts as a pedometer. After a workout, you can calibrate against the distance your treadmill reckons you covered. You can track how far you went, how long it took, calories burned, your pace and heart rate if you were using the monitor.
Outdoors, the Multi-Sport supports QuickGPSFix. We found it took under a minute to obtain a GPS lock, and sometimes just a few seconds. You can then start tracking your run with a few presses of the D-pad. Outdoor running adds location and elevation recording to the mix compared to treadmill usage. For further details about how the Multi-Sport performs in this area, see our earlier review of the TomTom Runner.
