Rating:

Pros – I would suspect it provides as detailed info as possible as it asked for age, height, weight, and sex. Watch is not ugly so I can wear it at work. It is pretty easy to use. While you have to/should take it to a Polar Dealer or mail it to Polar to change the battery in the watch (not uncommon for these things), I love the fact that you can put the watch in sleep mode to conserve battery power.

Cons – easy to use but not so easy you could pop it out of the box and strap it on. But one read of the manual should be enough. The funtion keys and menu are okay but could be easier.

The one thig I with it could be is give me a read-out of calories burned while I am actually working out. For example, if I want to burn 400 calories in a workout I can’t check while I am working out. I would need to stop my session and then read it. Minor issues though, I would buy this again in a second.

Rating:

Cons: -With 3 lines of text on each screen, You cant read the screen during a run. Particularly the tenths of miles. (This blows the whole deal, what’s the point of info you can’t read)

-too many screens to go through, just overly complicated a good thing.

What is the value of all that information that you can’t read during a run. I get home from a run and realize the thing wasn’t on.

There should be a way to opt out of some of the bologna. 99% of athletes don’t need that info and don’t want it.

I still love Polar and I’m still trying to love the RS300 but its not easy. I guess it like buying a book and when you get home you realize the font is too small to read.

Rating:

After a couple more workouts and a few hours of trying to figure out this product… well, their user documentation is horrible, which means you must spend hours discovering almost everything on your own.

I like the RS300X for its ability to track and store training data. (But, finding the data is a hassle thanks to poor documentation with no examples. Ultimately, I will have to spend time creating a navigation chart myself.)

I like the chest band with its detachable transmitter and easy-to-replace battery.

I don’t like the molded one-piece watch-band that forces you to wear the watch atop the wrist. I prefer to wear the watch on the side of my wrist where I can glance down to read, rather than having to raise my entire arm to read.

I still don’t like the display because of its obnoxious glare and requirement of perfect up-close vision to read it.

Based on my experience with the RS300X and other Polar products, I would now raise my 2-star rating to 4-stars (if I could). Without excellent and useful documentation – that SAVES MY TIME & FRUSTRATION – I can’t give it 5-stars.

All my other Polar products have been reliable and of high quality construction. I assume the RS300X will be the same or better.

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Sunday, September 6, 2009 11:25AM

I received my new Polar RS300X a couple days ago. I shoulda shopped around…

I’ve been using Polar Heart Rate monitors since 1986. and have been pleased with them all… Until now.

I bought this RS300X because I loathe the hassle of sending the equipment in for new batteries.

While the RS300X electronics seem to offer many features, the smaller display is utterly crappy – a significant obstruction to my workouts!

You must try to read the tiny display info through TWO glaring reflections off the clear plastic lens (glare NOT SHOWN in the photos). What good is the real-time feedback info if you can’t read it while running?!?!

I assumed I would love this new product.

Unfortunately, after only two uses, I hate this RS300X. If I change my mind after more usage, I’ll change this review.

Mike

Rating:

The other issue I found is that the reception range is not very good, so the unit won’t work well mounted on a bicycle.

Finally, Polar has decided to arbitrarily remove the % fat burn function from some of its watches. This watch does not have it, so keep in mind you will not know what % of your calorie burn was fat.