I've never had a Polar, but I can tell you I have had good luck with my Cardisport. We have sold many of them and their quality is very good. I have a basic model myself that I have had for several years. No problems mechanically, and when I need to change the batteries, I just pop off the back and put in a two dollar watch battery.

Hope this helps.

Hmmm. I've had good luck with Polar. Are you dealing with Creative Health Products? They are the best. They sell all brands too. I stopped selling HRMs when I saw what a good job they do.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I use the Timex Ironman and it works well. The chest strap is slightly larger than the Polar but it was never a problem.

 It's more then slightly larger !

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Slowtwitch bitchist place on planet earth

OK, I just looked at the Timex and Polar chest straps and the Timex ranges from 1/8 to 3/8 wider and 1/16 thicker. It is definitely bigger but it has never been a problem.

Timex - had much better luck with it than the polar. Strap is larger but I don't notice it. It is much easier to use than the Polars I tried - very straight forward. New models coming out this year will have a smaller strap.

JA

I just installed a Polar S710i with the power meter option on my bike. It is a pretty amazing piece of equipment. The altitude function lets me graph the hill profile on my runs and rides and the power measurement is reasonably close to my Computrainer.

I couldn't imagine something better. For rides I graph out cadence, wattage, altitude, and heart rate at five second intervals. For runs I graph out altitude and HR. It interfaces with my computer and I upload my workouts onto my trainingbible.com training log.

Call me a geek, but I freaking love the tool. It's user interface is also much improved over the Protrainer XT it replaced. If I were you I'd reconsider the Polar units. Here is a sample of the data collected during my first ride. It was on my Computrainer so the altitude is of course constant. During this interval segment I had my Computrainer running in ergometer mode with 300 watts resistance.

Time - HR - Speed - Cadence -Altitude -Power Watts
1:04:00 - 154 - 15.5 - 76 - 235 - 291
1:04:05 - 154 - 17.4 - 86 - 235 - 289
1:04:10 - 155 - 17.4 - 84 - 235 - 308
1:04:15 - 155 - 16.9 - 84 - 235 - 291
1:04:20 - 156 - 16.8 - 81 - 235 - 298
1:04:25 - 156 - 16.3 - 80 - 235 - 289


Anyway, if you want more than basic HR I'd consider Polar.

-MK

I've not been happy with my 710. Yes, it collects all the right data and is a step in the right direction, but I've got complaints about quality.

First of, would it kill them to make the watch into a nice unit?? It's not like we're not paying for it. The thing is huge, the strap is cheap, the plastic scratches easily, and I've had problems with buttons sticking and becoming unusable.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I get "phantom" stops all the time. Where the watch will just stop recording data. Initially it would happen on rides when I would ride near power lines or alongside a car/or truck for too long and would get some signal interference. So when I run, I make sure the speed sensor is off. Even so, on some long runs where the watch will beep like I've hit the "stop" button. I start it up again to have it stop again 5 seconds later. Last weekend this happened about 15 times in a row. So in the middle of the run I exited from that "workout" and started a new one which completed without incident. (I was not out of memory, nor was I running near power lines, nor were any of the sensors on.)

I'm really bummed b/c the 710 is so close to being such a great tool. If something is not reliable, then in my opinion it's crap. I wish Polar and Nike would work together where Nike would provide the design/cases and polar would provide the HRM and electronic features (provided they get them right).

I've got a Timex too. No problems with batteries or the strap. I'd recommend it although I've never used a Polar.