Almost precisely 18 months back
(in April 2020) Polar introduced well build watch with nice design intended for
outdoor and trail enthusiasts - model Grit X. That time I was very excited
about the watch (review
in Czech here ). And I wasn’t the only one. Lot of other potential buyers
has been excited. Nice design and functions fit for sports were what we only
need. However, the excitement didn’t last long. Just until Polar Vatnage V2
was introduced pretty shortly after Grit X. More functions that were not meant
to reach the outdoor predecessor.
These days, Polar will disappoint
a little bit its users again. Why? Thing is - many have purchased Grit X, great
upgrade from Vantage V, however, in short succession the users were facing
dilemma - shall they rather go from fresh Grit X back to Vantage V2 that
completely took over all functions and added few more on top? And yet today -
these days … here we come again. Those who were looking for features of Vantage
V2 and had to sacrifice rugged design of Grit X, they are being offered Grit X
Pro, watch with all great features’ Polar offers in a rugged well designed
body. On top of it - a sapphire lens and premium bezel materials.
Grit X Pro is not replacing the
former Grit X model and is adding up to the product line of last 2 years. Pro
version is more rugged version of Grit X for outdoor enthusiasts, travelers and
explorers. But there’s fact that with Vantage V2 and Grit X Pro on the market
people won’t be keen to buy the former Grit X model anymore, unless there’s
interesting price drop for new piece of Grit X (not likely to happen).
Features summary
- Color touch screen
- Altimeter, barometer, compass
- Battery duration of 30+ hours in 1 sec. GPS reading
- Replaceable watch bands
- Full metal bezel
- Hill splitter and smart reminder based on energy consuption
- Strava Live Segments support
- Weather forecast through Flow
What’s new on Grit X Pro?
- New watch faces with altimeter and compass
- Sapphire lens
- New materials (including titanium)
- Music controls (not playback from watch, but remote control for mobile player)
- New physical tests - same like in Vantage V2 (leg regeneration, cycling test, running test, orthostatic and test of physical condition)
Design
In opposite to Vantage V2 the
Grit X Pro are not that lightweight. Thought, it’s not that bad. Grit X Pro are
as heavy as any other competitor in this category. Fenix 6, Suunto 9 baro. You
can feel the watch mass on the hand, however the watch is placed on your wrist
safely without much movement around your hand. Compared to Vantage V2, the
Vantage case is bit sleeker.
However, design wise - the Grit X
Pro is simply beautiful, especially the copper version. The bezel has been
updated and instead of 4 marks there’s full compass degree scale with N/S/W/E
marks. Looks “cool” and I like that :)
The copper bezel kind of reminds
me of Suunto Kailash copper. But the Kailash model wasn’t that successful like
Grit X Pro will be.
The display is still same like
with Vantage V2 or Grit X. The active part of the screen is same size and
pretty large passive portion of the screen is not the best you can get in
today’s world. Polar is just utilizing same parts to get most of the platform
for latest products. I feel the Grit X Pro is on the edge and new Polars shall
have definitely larger active screen area than the latest model.
The lens on Grit X Pro is made of
sapphire. I believe it’s first time in history. The contrast of the screen is,
however, not much impacted by the sapphire. Like with Garmin where you can see
clear difference in contrast between sapphire and gorilla glass lens. Grit X
Pro is well readable under most of the conditions and even in water during swim
sessions.
The bands of the Grit X Pro have
been redesigned and today, the bands are easily replaceable for any bands with
width of 22mm. Basically any band you get from e-bay, aliexpress or so, you can
most probably put on the watch.
Anyway - the new band material
used on Grit X Pro is different from the watch bands used previously on any
Polar watches. It’s sturdier, slightly heavier and is very stable and durable
when comes to exposure to bad weather conditions or chemicals.
Heart rate sensor
The only thing I’m missing in Polar product range is the SpO2
readings. On the other hand, all measures that current Polar watches provide
are good enough to provide you feedback on sleep, regeneration, health status
and training load.
GPS accuracy
Despites the current pace might
not be spot-on at all the times (sometimes higher, sometimes lower), still it’s
very close to the Garmin FR745 or Suunto 9 Peak and slightly better (more accurate)
than Polar Vantage V2.
The 1km auto laps are always
marked at the same place with deviation of max.1-2m. The testing devices used
at same moment during same activities were Grit X Pro, Vantage V2, Garmin FR
745 and Suunto 9. Thus, the main competitors of Grit X Pro.
By me, Grit X Pro is very
accurate sports watch in many aspects. Though - Polar is yet missing the multiband
GPS chipset and yet, is one of the most accurate watches today. The forrest
with dense trees or higher hills around me were not preventing the track to be
located properly.
With Grit X Pro you can set at the start of the activity GPS readings by 1, 60 or 120 seconds. Or you can even switch the GPS off completely.
Battery life
Grit X Pro are built to last long, to last the elements. And … they are!
|
|
Run time (hours) |
|
1 sec. GPS reading |
62:25 hrs |
Grit X Pro is the first Polar GPS
watch with such long battery life with GPS reading. Clearly, one and half year
ago Coros started a hunt for extremely long battery life. When Garmin joined
the family of endurance models with their model Enduro,
Polar didn’t want to stay aside.
Sensors/pods pairing
Grit X Pro support a large scale
of external sensors and pods. They can, however, pair only BT sensors. No ANT+
compatibility. That’s one disadvantage out of two, that are crucial for me. The
watch can pair literally anything. From HR sensors through pedal based wattmeters
through smart trainers.
Speaking of bike smart trainers, here
comes the second thing I didn’t like. The issue for me is that the watch cannot
control any smart trainer (in my case Tacx Neo 2T). To keep it simple - if you
pair Garmin to the bike smart trainer, you can control the trainer difficulty
from your Garmin. On top of it - if you upload any route to the Garmin (shall
include elevation profile), you can actually “navigate” through the virtual
profile that’s stored in your Edge computer or watch. The watch controls angle
a resistance automatically based on the route profile. The watch simply don’t
support FE-C protocol.
Another disadvantage is that, if
paired to a power meter or bike smart trainer, there won’t be automatically
added screens with metrics coming from these accessories - not showing speed,
cadence, watts. Anyway - the values are being recorded, not shown however. Simply
no watts on screen, unless you modify the screens in the app and sync it to the
watch. Pretty annoying, considering that Garmin has this already for few years.
Good one is that Suunto does the same. :)
Good about other sensors, if they’re
Polar, they get automatically connected. On top, you can use also Stryd which (for
running) replaces internal power calculations during run session and you get
right away readings from Stryd. Right after connecting the pod in the menu.
Smart energy refueling
For those who can speak Czech or are good with google translate, in my recent reviews of Polar products, you’d know I was speaking about smart energy refuel alarms. These are set based on energy consumption during the activity. Depending on the activity duration and your heart rate, the watch computes your energy consumption. You define how much carbs is in your refueling doses and the watch just tells you when to use them. Good one, isn’t it?
Hill splitter, usage of energy sources, planning
Further, Grit X Pro has (also
like predecessors) a function called „hill splitter“. That’s advanced
statistics on how many hills, what was the incline and duration etc.of your
climbs. It’s good to keep an overview, however, during the activity? I don’t
use it.
What’s bit more interesting - for
post training analysis, is the stats of energy sources used during which part. You
can see graph of split lines where one represents fat and the other carbs
burning.
Planning is another good thing in
Polar Flow and particularly in Polar environment as such. So far the planning
was only good at Garmin and Polar. Later Coros joined and unfortunately -
Suunto dropped from the option of planning training sessions (intervals).
You can have predefined training
plans by Polar synced to the watch for daily trainings or simply create your
own training units for a day.
If you’d like to plan a route, it’s
not as easy as with Garmin or Suunto. You’d need to import routes from other
apps. Easiest is sync from Komoot, that’s directly supported and actually, you’ll
get some maps for free in Komoot environment together with purchase of the
Polar watch. The other option of online sync is Strava. Or … any other routes
in GPX format and import to Polar Flow.
Training recommendations
I believe it’s Polar who started first training recommendations
ever in a sports watch. So is now as well. Grit X Pro will offer you training
recommendations based on your fitness, recent training load and regeneration.
The full insight on how this works is worth of standalone article … which I
wrote, by the
way - but it’s in Czech … feel free to use google translate :) That article
is about overall usage of training watches for injury prevention and is based
on general info.
However and specifically to Polar - Polar is the only brand
that gives you daily training advices on what/how to exercise to compensate swim,
bike and run activities … of course it gives you the running/bike
recommendations too, but it gives you also cardio recommendations, core
exercise, etc. That’s making Polar among the others.
Navigation
Unfortunately, the navigation
features of Polar are not evolving much or even at all. It’s not bad, but
eigher not perfect. Could be way better. If only Polar copied few functions
from Garmin at least. Not speaking of maps of course. But what makes it impossible
to provide me with estimated arrival time? What prevents Polar from
implementing feature like climb pro? Copying between brands is anyway daily
routine in this world so … who cares? It’s about customers buying the watch. Such
small nice features are making navigation lot better, comfortable and user
friendly.
Anyway - it has nav features, they work, they work well and that’s what you need in the end. :)
As additional feature I’d suggest for “local heroes” using the free voucher in Komoot to unlock local region. For world travelers 20 Eur on top for lifetime whole world unlocking in Komoot is just pie nut and is worth of it. You’ll get full routing including turn by turn navigation.
Running power
As mentioned briefly earlier in
the review, the Grit X Pro, like predecessors, does support running power
readings from the wrist. The data are consistent at various scenarios; thus you
can drive training by the watts for sure. However, it works only where is the
GPS signal.
The running power is by default
one of the data screens available. If you pair Stryd sensor, the power will
automatically go from the Stryd. So just in case, you’d be training by power,
make sure you will change the power zones once you attach Stryd to the watch -
the power readings have different levels from the Polar watch and Stryd.
Smart functions
Grit X Pro support notifications
and events displayed from mobile. The messages from mobile notifications center
are all displayed on the Grit X Pro. You can chose whether to allow being
disturbed during activity, or not.
Polar lately introduced “quiet
hours” mode during which are the notifications purged and you’r enot disturbed
by watch light and vibrations while you sleep.
With the Grit X Pro, like with
Vantage V2, you can control playback of any media in your connected phone. The
playback controls are on one of the watch faces and also displayed during an
activity on one of the “data screens”.
Sleep tracking
Despites the size of the watch on
my relatively small wrist, the sleep tracking is OK and the watch is noticeable
on your wrist, however you can quickly get used of overnight wearing it.
The accuracy of the measurement
is good. Unfortunately it happens that even if you follow Polar’s instructions on
fastening the watch on your wrist, the measurement fails.
Grit X Pro and recovery
measurements can be select to either one of following: Recovery Pro or Nightly
Recharge which is also advantage against the model Grit X.
Summary
Good news is that even owners of
Vantage V2, who started to be jealous about new features of Grit X Pro, are
already getting all those features and functions through the firmware update.
Thus there are two identical watches on the market - in terms of functions, in
two different housings.
One is sleek, light, made for athletes,
the other rugged, durable, nice looking watch made for explorers and outdoor fans.
By me, personally, the Grit X Pro
is again well build watch. I like the design, the idea and all promotions by
Polar. However I’m afraid, still they cannot beat the technologies and
functions built into Garmin watches. Also the price point is on one hand
reasonable (for Polar) but on the other hand is as high as Garmin Fenix 6 Pro or
Fenix 6X Pro watches, where you’re getting superb navigation functions and maps.
And payments. And on-board music.
If only Polar introduced all their
watches 1-2 years earlier, they’d be great competitors. However introducing of
Coros Vertix 2 with multiband chipset, expectation of new series of all Garmin
watches, including next generation of Fenix family … those are unfortunately
factors speaking against otherwise very nice watches.
As sports tracker and training
partner, however, is the Polar Grit X Pro sufficient enough for any of your
adventures or training targets for next couple of years.
I’d say - if you’re fan of Polar,
or you like for some reason this watch, go for it. It won’t disappoint you.
