🏃 Polar M200: Advanced GPS Running Watch with Wrist-Based Heart Rate Monitoring Review

I love my new M200. My Fitbit Surge broke after 3 years and I was very frustrated with its short lifespan. When looking for a Fitbit replacement, I looked for water resistance, interchangeable straps (lack of styling), GPS, and heart rate. The M200 has all this and more! My favorite feature is creating training plans. I don't even know if I meant it until my watch started vibrating when I was in the wrong zone. This is a game changer. I really like that it warns you when you've been sitting too

Used in some workouts. Terribly inadequate. The battery only lasts 3 hours in GPS/HR mode, which is very bad even in this price range. The HR is very finicky and requires a very tight fit for an accurate reading. Did a direct comparison to chest based heart rate and it took a good 20 minutes and a lot of fiddling to get no more than 30 points off. Once you get it right it's within 3 beats of a chest strap so that's the only reason it got 2 stars instead of 1 because technically you can get it…

I like Polar. I have an H7 chest strap that fits and works great with the Polar Beat app on my phone. I love it! However, the M200 watch has some disadvantages. My needs were simple. I wanted the H7 for the accuracy and a watch that I could use to check my heart rate while exercising without pulling out my phone. just right? The problem is I can't get this watch to read data from my H7 chest strap! It tells me it's pairing but still trying to read my heart rate from the M200 wrist sensor (see…

I've had the M200 for about two years and I'm refusing it because it's literally falling apart. Pros: The watch works well. Heart rate with optical sensor and chest strap works well. It should be noted that the optical sensor signal is filtered and delayed. Therefore, it always reacts more slowly than a chest strap. The step counting algorithm seems fairly accurate and the GPS tracking is on par with my Garmin handheld GPS devices. Cons: Watch design is an accident waiting in the wings. The…

So far I like this fitness watch. They accurately determine the distance when walking. This is the main reason I bought. I am retired and I like to choose different routes for my daily walks. My last watch didn't calculate the distance correctly. Heart rate seems accurate to me too. I love the Polar Flow app and the ability to see all my hike stats and location on the map. It's easy to use, but I'm still figuring out all of its features. was for running. I can't walk anymore, but walking is…

First impressions from a first time GPS watch buyer but a seasoned athlete. So far this watch has exceeded my expectations. It is convenient and easy to use. It has everything I was looking for. 1) Enough wrist heart rate readings when needed, 2) BT connection for chest heart rate monitor (I use Wahoo TickrX) for more accurate readings during workouts, 3) Accurate GPS. I was surprised how accurate it was when running in the woods with 50ft trees blocking most of the light, 4) multiple and…

bought this product because I had good experiences with other Polar devices for almost 20 years. compared to my Polar M400 chest strap which is often uncomfortable to wear. Having both an M200 and an M400, it was natural to compare them during my regular training sessions anyway. Below are my observations without embellishment: It was possible to set the clock using only a computer or a smartphone application. I didn't find it well explained in the attached tiny instructions. Not a big deal…