After bad experience in a Half-Ironman this past July, a heart specialist suggest I start training with a HRM…go figure 
Anyways, I found this s510 on sale and was wondering what people think of it? Any pros/cons?
Thanks,
TriG33k
Don’t bother with it. Skip past the S5xx series and go with a S7xx series.
510s use SonicLink to download data via your PC’s microphone. The emitt a white noise like creeping sound. My experience with a polar Coach HRM ( the first sonic link enabled HRM) is that SonicLink is very temperamental.
THe IR interface of 7XX series is 100% more stable, consisitent, and faster.
SonicLink aslso had a real workout storage limitation. End a workout and start another before downloading the first and you lose some of the data. I’ve read a bunch of complaints here on ST about inadvertently hitting the lap button and starting a workout.
I replaced my Polar Coach with a S710 back when them first came out and still couldn’t be happier.
Jim
yeah, gotta agree to skip the 510/520 and go for a 720. I sell a lot of these and think the 720 is a lot better value. I have a lightly used one for sale… PM me if you’re interested.
Small caveat:
The night before my big race, I purchased a polar watch (610i) to go along w/ my swanky new glasses. Long story short, it turns out that reading the polarized watch display through polarized lenses does not work so well. It was a bit like watching picaso porn; I could never be sure exactly what I was seeing… but I kept on-a-look’n.
Polar-ized… indeed.
Picasso porn noun. The scrambled signal of a pornographic cable channel as seen by a nonsubscriber.
for a long time I used a Polar M52. I always thought it is good enough. I have recently visited Germany and found a Polar S520 for sale. Just finished a long race the week before, I decided to treat myself for a present. I was very happy with my new gadget and impressed with its features until…
I did a mistake and typed into Google the words Polar S520 and review. I had to read how everyone else think it is rubbish because it has SonicLink and also logs into the file infrequently etc., etc.,
I think that the S520 is great and it is already loaded with more features that one needs. But, then you may say I paid for it, so I need to justify the cost. Either way, this is not what will make a difference to my race results.
my girlfriend just had the same problem with her 610, and then my sponsor gives me a nice new pair of polarized m-frames and I have a 720… Thank god the 520/720/625 watches don’t seem to suffer as much. Thier display gets a little distorted but it’s still very readable.
BTW, if anyone is looking for a very lightly used (less than 6mo) S720 let me know. I picked up a S625X today and the 720 has to go.