Polar FT60G1 Men's Heart Rate Monitor Watch with G1 GPS Sensor (Black with Red Display)
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Product Feature
- Black men's heart rate monitor watch with several innovative training features
- Displays heart rate as percentage of maximum, bpm, and within target zone indicator
- Polar Star personalized training program delivers feedback and weekly training targets
- Includes G1 GPS sensor for measuring speed and distance during outdoor sports
- Offers ZonePointer and Polar OwnZone modes; water-resistant to 30 meters; 2-year warranty
Product Description
Helps improve fitness and keeps users motivated with the new Polar STAR training program, which adapts to the user's personal exercise habits, providing weekly feedback and updated goals comes with G1 GPS SensorPolar FT60G1 Men's Heart Rate Monitor Watch with G1 GPS Sensor (Black with Red Display) Review
I have now had the Polar FT60, together with a GPS unit, for about 9 months. I initially got it when I got frustrated with trying to come up with regularly increasing routes for my marathon training long runs using Google Maps. In short, it does the job: it has all of the normal HR monitor features of most running-oriented Polar watches (hear rate, calories, training programs, etc.), and it tracks your mileage, pace and speed.But it does all of that in a not particularly elegant way. Here are my gripes with it:
(1) The monitor displays only one essential measurement at a time: for example, HR, distance, speed, etc. So you cannot, for example, see your heart rate and mileage at the same time. In fact, the two readings are something like 4 or 5 clicks of a very awkward button apart.
(2) Speaking of awkward, the buttons are awkward, as they tend to be on most (in my experience) Polar watches.
(3) The screen is very dim. You have to be in good light to be able to read it. The backlight is downright useless. It might work alright in complete darkness (I haven't tried), but it does nothing at night on a city street.
(4) The GPS navigator often tends to take a long time to link up to a satellite. I live in a big city, so I can imagine there are interferences, but it is the worst performance from a GPS navigator I have seen. Once on a trip to London, I stood on a street corner on a chilly morning and waited for the thing to locate a satellite and just gave up and went on a run. At some point, it did figure out where it was.
(5) It's not a huge problem, but I do find it a bit annoying that the GPS unit is a separate piece of plastic that you have to strap to your arm. I don't find it to be particularly heavy or constricting, but I do find it annoying that you have to keep up with one extra unit (particularly for when you have to travel) and its battery gauge is unreliable (so I have run out of battery (AAA) out on a run - not the end of the world but annoying).
(6) And, finally, it does not sync with Macs AND you have to buy a separate USB communicator unit. I can't comment on the quality of the syncing interface or the exercise log software because I have never bothered buying the sync unit because I do not want to have to fire up Windows on my Mac just for this or to be restricted to using it only on my office computer.
I understand Garmin Forerunner 310XT is not perfect (my wife has one and has recently had some syncing issues), but between the two, I would pick the Garmin, which doesn't have most of these issues:
(1) the monitor is large, clear and displays several readings at the same time (there is definitely room for that);
(2) its buttons are water sealed and have a nice easy click to them;
(3) the monitor is bright and the backlight is extremely bright;
(4) it seems to home in much more quickly (at least that's my experience on our runs together) and if it detects that you are not where you were last time, it asks if you have traveled more than 500 miles, which I guess helps it find a satellite; the GPS unit also seems to be more precise - one of my tennis partners wears one and the unit even told him how much he had run in a match; whereas my Polar unit "robbed" me of 300 m on a recent 10K run in Central Park;
(5) the GPS unit is built into the watch; although the downside is that the watch itself is much bigger, but it's still pretty light; It would also be appropriate to mention here that the Garmin uses a rechargeable battery that is recharged by putting a USB-powered clip on the watch. One downside is that I believe it's limited to 12 hours of power.
(6) the Garmin syncs with Macs and PCs and has a pretty cool interface that allows you to see your performance (for example, speed or HR) superimposed over a map that shows elevation. This would have been nice when I recently trained for an Alpine half-marathon.
As I mentioned above, my wife did report problems syncing lately. Also, the Garmin is a much larger watch. Finally, a couple of people I know do not wear their Garmins for swim practice, whereas I have found no issues with my Polar watch.
All in all, I would choose the Garmin over the Polar unit and, in fact, plan on doing just that.
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