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For the past year or so I've been using a heart rate monitor watch – a Polar F4 – when running. Despite a few really stupid flaws – most notably, it has no light, making it impossible to read if you run early or late in winter – this served me perfectly. After knackering my right IT band, though, I've found myself having to slowly build back up my distances from almost nothing – at its worst I could only just run 5k before my knee was in agony – so I decided to upgrade to a GPS watch that can accurately track pace and distance as well as time while I get back up to speed.

After having considered at least five different models and reading dozens of (sometimes useless) reviews, I chose a Garmin Forerunner 405CX*. Here's what I've found since buying it that I wish I'd known beforehand.

One caveat: I don't think it's possible to properly review a device such as this without having used it for a few months, and preferably through winter. When buying a GPS watch there were several questions that I wanted the answers to, however, so I think it's worth putting that information online now for anyone else in the same situation. I'll update this a few months down the line.

What you get

It isn't entirely clear what you get in the box with the 405CX before you buy, particularly as some Forerunner watches are sold with and without heart rate monitors. So, here it is: the standard 405CX package I bought includes the watch on a rubber strap, a heart rate chest strap, a small USB antenna for PC transfers, two velcro straps, a strap changing tool, a charger (it's USB, with a USB mains adapter) and a quick start guide. The heart rate sensor is much the same size as the Polar T31, but has a battery that can be changed without the use of a stanley knife. The chest strap seems to be a little larger than a medium-sized Polar one.

What you don't get

A manual, and god knows you'll need one because the quick start guide covers just that: the start. Download the full manual in PDF here. Also, there are no instructions on how to change the strap – see the video here, but beware that it's a far fiddlier process than the presenters make out. There's no software CD, either – instead this must be downloaded from here.

Why so many wriststraps?

The 405CX looks more like a watch than some older Garmin models, but this is accomplished by building the GPS receiver into the top of the lower strap. It's a clever design, as the receiver always points up when you run, but it makes the watch huge. If you have small wrists, like me, then the standard strap is uncomfortable, so switching to the velcro one is a must. Apparently these straps are not included with the cheaper 405 (non -CX) model. Here's the watch on the small strap on my puny wrist – GPS receiver side facing the camera.

Using the watch

The 405CX has two buttons: one to start and stop, and one to lap. All other controls are on the "touch bezel" – the silver ring around the bezel that works rater like an iPod controller. Tapping and holding one of the four quadrants opens that function, scrolling a finger around adjusts values and single-tapping selects. It takes a few minutes to get the hang of, but works well. The bezel can be locked by pushing both physical buttons at once – I've heard that this is a must if running in the rain, but it's no problem to lock every time.

GPS reception is impressive. It takes about a minute to position at the start of a run – go out, stretch, and it'll be ready – and kept its grip on the satellites even in parts of my run that are under some fairly heavy tree cover.

The options available are numerous. At its simplest, you can run until you want to stop and the watch will track your time, pace, distance and heart rate. It's simple to combine this with the Virtual Partner – set this to run at, say, 4:30 per km and it'll track your progress against that standard through each kilometer. When running on streets rather than a track it's handy to switch on the auto lap function that adds a lap marker every kilometer, mile or whatever – the watch beeps at each marker, and displays your pace through the previous lap.

More usefully for me, you can set the device to monitor you through a fixed run – for 45 minutes, say, or 10km – and alert you when it's done. There are also modes for heart rate zone training and intervals (run, rest, run, rest, and so on). The Advanced workout option allows for even more complicated settings, but cannot be set up on the watch itself – these must be set on the PC and transferred.

By default the watch will show two screens of information when running: one for your heart rate, and another showing the pace and so on. Enabling the virtual partner adds a third. You switch between them by tapping the bezel when running, which isn't as easy as pressing the physical buttons on my Polar, but there's also an option to automatically cycle them at various speeds. It's possible to completely customise what's shown, too: there are three main screens available, each holding three variables, plus the heart rate screen, so you could have up to twelve figures on display should you wish. I've set it up with just one screen for time, distance and pace, and disabled the heart rate screen entirely (it's still logged).

The watch is charged using a clip-on adapter, which is simple enough to use. At the moment it seems to lose approximately 10% of its charge per half-hour of running, so I'd bank on charging it once per week.

Oh, and it has a light. Thank god.

Viewing the data

After running you need to hold the reset button for two seconds to end the session and commit it to memory. Garmin offers two ways to track your runs: Garmin Training Center, which is PC-based, and Garmin Connect, which is online. I've only used Garmin Connect.

Synchronising the watch with the website is simple enough: plug in the USB stick and place the watch nearby and the two will detect and transfer the last run. Once transferred it'll appear on Garmin Connect when you next log in. Here's a snap of the main run screen (map obfuscated to hide my home address):

As you can see it plots a Google Map (with surprising accuracy – you can see which side of a narrow road you ran on, for instance), with pace, elevation and heart rate graphs below. Lap times and paces are shown to the left, along with lots of average data. Click Player and you get this screen:

.. which allows you to replay the run, or check out where you were when any strange peaks or troughs appear on the charts (hint: waiting to cross roads). It can only graph two variables at a time, though, so you can't have pace versus elevation versus heart rate here. A report option allows you to tally data for a period (the last month, say), and you can set goals. These aren't very sophisticated, so you're limited to "run two hours this week" rather than "get back to 15km per run within two months".

Verdict

As I said earlier, time will tell. For the moment, though, the 405CX does everything I wanted it to, and a whole lot more that may or may not be useful in future, and the Garmin Connect website is particularly nifty. I'll update this review in the depths of winter once I know how it copes with the cold and pouring rain. If you fancy buying one, please click here* – it's £250 from Amazon, or about £300-350 elsewhere.

Update: Rain

One concern I had was whether the 405CX – and the bezel in particular – would cope with rain, as I'd read reports of it causing accidentally activating in the wet. Tonight I took it out for a run in some truly awful British weather, though – rain, wind, yuck – and it was fine. I left the bezel unlocked while it got a fix, with no problems, then locked it during the run. I got soaked, so did the watch, but it kept working with no problems.

* These are affiliate links, so if you click one I'll get a small kickback to waste on comic books. The price you pay is the same, and Amazon is the cheapest place to buy (I shopped around quite a bit).

Before heading over to Tokyo last year I'd say I was moderately interested in Japanese animation and mildly obsessed with the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Since returning, I've been hoovering up other anime films and television series, attempting to find the gems amongst all the truly godawful rubbish. In particular, I've found myself looking for anime set in a realistic present day setting, whether it's ostensibly a work of comedy (Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers), science fiction (Hosada's The Girl who Leapt through Time) or, in this case, romance.

I stumbled across 5 Centimeters Per Second on the web at the end of 2009, and it sounded interesting – a film in three distinct parts from Makoto Shinkai, who famously created the sci-fi short Voices of a Distant Star single-handedly on his computer. Getting a copy wasn't easy – details later – but a month or two later I finally got to watch it. As there are relatively few reviews available, I thought I'd put one online. I'll avoid spoilers as far as is possible.

The plot

The sequence of films follows two characters, Takaki and Akari. The first film, Cherry Blossom Story, is set as Takaki makes the (complicated, lengthy) train journey north from Tokyo to see Akari; as he does so a sequence of flashbacks explain how they met and became friends in elementary school before Akari's family moved out of the city. Since her departure a year previously the two have corresponded by post, but with his own family now moving far afield the two have one final – at least for the conceivable future – chance to meet.

The second segment, Cosmonaut, is set  years after Takaki's move to the island of Tanegashima – home of the Japanese space agency, NASDA. This section is narrated largely by Kanae, a female classmate of Takaki who has suffered unrequited love for him since his arrival, and who goes out of her way to arrange 'chance' meetings. The two, soon to graduate from high school, discuss their plans for the future, but Takake is somewhat distant and is constantly seen writing emails on his mobile phone. At several points we see Takaki and Akari together, but these appear to be dream sequences.

The final segment, 5 Centimeters Per Second, is set back in Tokyo. Takaki, now 26, is a computer programmer, and significantly depressed. One day, while walking across a level crossing, he spots Akari. The finale, which makes up the majority of this segment, takes the form of a montage of rapidly cut visuals shown as a song is played.

The look

It's worth noting immediately that 5 Centimeters Per Second looks beautiful. The animation slides between a slightly painted style and the more realistic look that you'd expect from computer animation but throughout the shots, and in particular the use of colour, are remarkable – many of the scenes are set in twilight or night, with an amazing luminous appearance and glowing pink washes that link the narrative back to the cherry blossom tree of the title.

The effect is a world that's immediate and real – Takaki's journey through and out of Tokyo is almost photo-realistic – and yet somewhat otherworldly, and in the second film this is taken even further as the setting introduces another glorious light source to both dream sequences and the segment's climax.

Swirling cherry blossoms are something of a specialism of Japanese animation – there's probably a firm somewhere in Tokyo that specialises in computer-rendering them – but here the blossom and snow swirl and dance beautifully as the camera moves through them, while light sources flare and glint off the surroundings. Even the rapid shots of the final segment, each on screen only momentarily, are beautifully put together.

The effect

Of course pretty animation is all for nothing in a drama if the viewer doesn't feel emotionally involved. Here, though, the Japanese voice cast does a wonderful job of conveying real-sounding emotion without recourse to the squeaky, shouty clichés that plague many teenage anime characters, and the plot is paced cleverly enough to suck the viewer in enough to build a sense of unease from that most mundane occurrance: a delayed train. Although ultimately a simple tale of young love it left me with enough emotion invested as to care what happened to both parties at the end, which is surely a success on the writer's part. And it's always a good sign when you watch a film through to the credits, then immediately pick up the remote control to flick back into the story again. Overall it's a simple but elegantly crafted tale that avoids saccharine sweetness in favour of the affectingly recognisable, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Where to get it

Picking up a copy of this film (legally) is a pain. There's a Blu-ray, but you'll need to import it from Japan, play it on a Japanese or American Blu-ray player and, not least of the obstacles, understand the Japanese-only audio. A DVD with English subtitles was available in the US, but it's Region 1, out of print and currently selling for $150 or so. In the end I imported a Region 3 DVD from Hong Kong via Ebay – this has the Japanese audio track and English subtitles.

I've been avoiding the Tate Modern lately. None of the exhibits have been that interesting – I was surprised by how effective Rothko's famous paintings were when I finally saw them a few years back, but I couldn't be bothered to queue for hours and face the tourist crowds packing his recent Tate exhibition – and even the installations in the turbine hall have seemed a little half-hearted since Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth.

Now, though, there's a new and fantastic exhibition on. And, because it's of Russian contructivists rather than ikea-poster-friendly-material, there are no queues and you can actually get close enough to the art to see it.

I'm an art ignoramus and had only previously heard of Aleksandr Rodchenko because of his famous poster for Battleship Potemkin (the symmetrical one with the guns, not the one with the stairs). Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism begins earlier in his career with something rather different. The first few rooms are full of abstract, geometric paintings made before he abandoned traditional artistic techniques (abandoning artistic strokes in favour of drawing lines with ruler and compass) and then painting itself – his farewell to the medium, three panels of solid colour in which he "reduced painting to its logical conclusion", is remarkable when you consider when it was created. There's then a small collection of sculpture, a few pieces of which are striking.

This is all quite good, but then things become brilliant. Having given up on painting and sculpture ("as useless as a church") both artists turned their attentions to advertising and graphic design, and plenty of space is given to both. I read at least one review sniffing at this as inferior to the earlier art and deserving of less space, but if you like typography, propaganda art or commercial design you'll find it fascinating. There's also space given to one area where Popova found a genuinely popular use for her art: textile designs that were then mass produced by a state-run mill.

The exhibition ends with some film extracts, which are interesting but rather hard to watch – I attempted the 25 minutes of nonlinear socialist montage while standing up, but after about ten minutes it was beginning to resemble the visual equivalent of white noise – and, more effectively, a reconstruction of the "Worker's Club" that Rodchenko designed, which is rather like the set of a 1970s 70mm sci-fi film. Of course, things don't end happily for the artists. Popova died in 1924, aged 35, while Rodchenko fell out of favour as Soviet Realism became the only acceptable form of art in Stalin's USSR. The exhibition effectively ends with his 1925 work, including none of his return to painting or later photography.

I came away convinced that Defining Constructivism is one of the best things I've see at the Tate Modern since it opened, and it also reminded me that the museum has on display in another room a small selection of David King's collection of Soviet propaganda posters. It's great that the museum devoted so much space to Rodchenko and Popova, but I'd love it, in future, to make available so much room for King's huge archive of art and photos from the same period. For the moment, King has compiled many pieces in this book, which I'd also recommend.