Polar heart rate monitors come in various price ranges. The price of a Polar heart rate monitor is very indicative of the functionality you will get.On this page I will talk you through a range of different models.
The Polar Easy 1 Fitness Computer is a basic Polar heart rate monitor. You can pick it up fairly cheaply. Despite of this the Polar Easy 1 covers a few basics :
heart rate
target zone
stopwatch
large digits
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After a very basic heart rate monitor? Then the Polar Easy 1 could well be the one for you.
The Polar F4 is great for the female athletes. It has got a slightly smaller wrist, so great for the ladies.
It provides heart rate, target zones, average heart rate and a calorie counter.All in all, this means quite a good value-for-money Polar heart rate monitor !
Polar RS100 : Great Entry Level Heart Rate Monitor
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This is where we get serious. A five gold star-rating for the Polar RS100. This Polar heart rate monitor is very complete with a target zone with visual as well as audible alarm, a current, maximum and average heart rate as well as acaloriecounter. Useful is the "Polar OwnCode" which prevents cross-talk from other heart rate monitors (which would then lead to someone else's information being displayed on your screen). For its price definitely a good buy.
The Polar RS200 is a bit more expensive than the Polar RS100 and delivers a little extra functionality. The extra thing you can do with this heart rate monitor is pre-program your training session with variable heart rate limits for certain amounts of time. Hmm, considering we spend most training sessions in one heart rate zone, this is not a very necessary addition.
A reason to still be interested in the Polar RS200 heart rate monitor is if you wish to upgrade to the RS200 SD later on. This model seems to show reliability issues though...
You do decide to get the RS200 ? Then watch out : the RS200 normally comes to you configured for the footpod included in the RS200 SD model. Turn this functionality off or your RS200 will continuously play up. So, on itself, I find it questionable to justify the extra expense for what you get, but hey, I am not you. You might be doing multiple speed training sessions all the time and really need this extra feature !
For over US$200 you may expect quite a bit. And true, the functionality of this Polar heart rate monitor is mind-blowing. The extra footpod gives you the ability to not only measure heart rate, but also distance. So this device will be able to track the distance you have run, the average and current speed etcetera. Great stuff, however, reliability seems to be lacking a bit with many users not happy because of inaccuracies orproduct failures. Hopefully Polar will come with some improvements to this model to make it work, because if they can deliverreliability, then the price for all this functionality is pretty darn good !
Just name something and this Polar heart rate monitor will do it. Well, apart from making you a nice latte to enjoy after your workout. It has got all the features you want of a heart+distance running monitor. Plus it gives you Polar ProTrainer 5 functionality which isadvanced training software to plan and analyse your workouts.
If you are after a top-end heart rate monitor, then this the one for you. Five stars, no less !
Summary
I can imagine you are a bit dazzled after going through all this. A quick summary :
Polar Easy 1 -- Basic, good, but too basic for many