A watch used to be for telling you the time, now lots do far more. This top of the range one from Polar does so much that there are no less than ten screens on the watch and when you sync the data you realise that what you saw on the watch was only a small proportion of the data it is keeping.
Buy Now...
click image to enlarge
Let’s start with the watch as a timepiece it has one centimetre tall numerals in the centre of its always on display. In low light you may need to tap the display to get the backlight to show the result, you can also turn your wrist to activate the backlight.
The first thing I liked was the fact you do not have to sync it with a phone you can do so and this will enable it to display the latest weather details. I choose to sync it with a PC and while that may initially seem less convenient it enables you to get a full screen display shown by default as a monthly calendar (diary) with each day having the amount you have walked of a standard 10000 steps as a percentage, this can also be shown as a day or week view as well and you can annotate with any training sessions that you do.
I found that syncing every ten days was enough to make sure its battery kept power in hand and a full charge was well under an hour.
Training history is another tab as is activity and finally a very detailed sleep history which again can be displayed by day or week.
There is also a range of training programs available still from the diary screen on different tabs.
While the same data is probably available on your phone the size of the phone screen must limit that displayed at any one time.
The watch is 51grams in weight and the circular screen is 4.5cm across and it is quite chunky at 1.5cm thick. It is available in two sizes and three colours. The strap is silicone and adjustable for an exact fit.
There are three buttons on the right side and two on the left side.
While other watches will display a heart rate this is the only one that I have seen that displays it constantly and even shows a screen on the watch with high and low figures for an immediate display.
While it has specific cycling and running tasks it actually supports up to 130 sports.
For those syncing to your phone there is a Polar Flo App available from the Apple or Google Play store.
There are video tutorials available to get you started and the website has information to cover Introduction, Setting up the watch, Button Functions, Watch Faces, Quick Settings, Pairing a mobile and Updating the Firmware.
This is serious watch for those wanting to train for a sport and it is certainly not cheap.
The Polar Vantage V2 Multisport Watch is available directly from the Polar website for £489 they also do other watches from £134.
At the time of publication the Polar Advantage V2 is also available from Amazon for £451.99 including free delivery.
!!
