Timex Ironman R300 is a $120 GPS watch with retro chic

In a week of surprise fitness devices from the timekeeping old guard, Timex has announced its Ironman R300 – which it describes as its first smartwatch.

Hot on the heels of the new G-Shock GBD-H1000, the Timex R300 GPS is a sports watch that will track outdoor sessions for up to 20 hours – ands last 25 days as a smartwatch.

It boasts continuous heart rate monitoring for sport and fitness tracking, and this includes tracking resting heart rate, which can be an indicator that you need to take a break from training.

As you’d expect for an Ironman tracking watch, it's water resistant to 30m.

There are also guided training plans as part of the Timex offering, with expert coaches drawing up schedules for running, cycling and triathlon.

It does the job of a smartwatch too, with notifications displayed on the wrist.

And there are some other neat features on offer too. You can race yourself on previous routes, with the R300 showing you how far ahead/behind you are to your PB. And all workouts are recorded in the Timex Smart App.

So why would you buy this over a Garmin? Well, the price point helps.

The R3000 is already on sale for a paltry $120, which looks pretty damn good value for the feature set.

This is only really competing with basic sports watches like the Forerunner 45 or Polar Vantage M, but even these are upwards of $200.

And, you know what? The whole Timex look is pretty retro and cool.

Of course, we’ll be reserving judgement for when we get the watch into testing. Watch this space.