If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – right? That appears to be TomTom’s thinking with the Spark 3, which hasn’t changed significantly in the looks department since the first version. This will appeal to anyone with a terrible sense of direction, or those of us who just like to run free and explore new areas without the fear of getting lost.

Running might be the focus on the Spark 3, but it fares very well when it comes to cycling too. Indoor and outdoor riders are covered, and you can set up the same training targets as when on two feet.It’s a running watch that I’ve found has largely stood the test of time. Its feature set for the money still makes it great value, with reliable GPS, heart rate monitor and extensive battery life. While its design is probably beginning to look more dated than ever, the four-way controls do work a treat when you’re out running and simultaneously trying to interact with the watch whilst dodging pedestrians. I can see why TomTom has been so averse to giving it a proper design overhaul. When you return within range of your phone, you can sync up your activities to the TomTom MySports iOS or Android app, or PC or Mac software.

After fully charging the Spark 3 on a Monday night, I wore it for an entire week, using it for three 40- to 50-minute GPS activities. I streamed music from the watch during two of these workouts. By Saturday, the watch beeped at me that it was low on juice. Bottom Line Aside from setup, you need the PC software for when you want to upload playlists to the Spark 3, so you can stream music directly from the watch to a pair of Bluetooth headphones. You can't just drag and drop the files, though; you need to pinpoint and upload them using the app. Mac users have to use iTunes as a middleman to add music through the Connect app. It's a slow process, and I wish you could just upload files through the mobile app.The Spark 3 is particularly suited to runners. You can set specific objectives for each part of your run (such as fat burning), or how many calories you want to burn, or what distance you want to cover. Then there’s pairing Bluetooth headphones. There’s no volume control on the Spark 3 itself, so you’re reliant on adjusting volume using your headphones. Only problem is, some headphones, more often than not the new wave of ‘truly wireless’ headphones, don’t always have integrated volume controls and thereby rely on you adjusting the volume from your source device. Given the impressive options for setting up and planning runs on the Spark itself, it would be great if there was an option to create a training programme, or even just a one-off session, in the app and sync it over. It would be less fiddly than setting it on the device. How often am I going to have to charge it?

It’s a shame you can’t link up sports for triathlon training, however. There are workouts you can activate to work on targets, such as running a 26-minute 5K pace or a 3-mile run in under 25 minutes, for example. These have you racing against a virtual partner, with the screen showing if you’re ahead or behind and by how far – a really great motivator to keep your pace up. According to TomTom, you're not required to calibrate the compass before activity but the Spark 3 will offer to calibrate if it considers it's needed. You can still calibrate whenever you wish as well. It's not 100% perfect. You will see the odd outage, perhaps twice in a two hour run, but this is absolutely a problem with chest straps as well. What you get with Spark 3 is a responsive and relatively lag-free experience that means you can effectively and reliably manipulate your heart rate to the right zone during your training – and that's what it's there for. It’s a great feature, and makes it that bit easier to let go, and stop running with your phone – which is an invigorating experience on its own. Add in the ability to go off-piste and run wherever you feel like going, while knowing it’s that bit harder to get irredeemably lost, and you’re in a whole new territory.With so many color screens doing the rounds you could argue the 22 x 25mm grayscale (144 x 168 pixel) display looks a bit dated, but, while slightly boring, we’d rather have practical features than bling any day of the week. The Spark 3 has enough storage for about 500 songs, but getting them onto your wrist isn’t as simple as we’d like.