heart monitor recommendations?

[Steph_in_TX]

I had to send my Polar in for a new battery several months ago and I got in back in about 10 days. Probably just depends on their workload?

If you wanted to spend another $45, you could buy the new chest strap they've just put out. It's coded and it's all soft except for the very center. You can change the battery yourself and they even include a couple of extra rubber gaskets. It's much more comfortable than the harder plastic ones.

I'll also throw in my consumer notice, the new S725 has what we decided to be a major flaw. My husband just bought one to upgrade from his 410 and took it back for the 720. Polar took off the auto start/stop function on the 725 so unless you wanted to remember to start and stop it everytime you have to stop at a traffic light or whereever, your data will be slightly flawed. He called Polar and no one seemed to know why they removed that function, but said they had tons of complaints.

[ausgirl]

I agree with Steph about the chest strap - it is really comfy! I've only tried the old type when doing vo2 max tests but am not crazy about them. The new chest strap should pretty well be standard on all Polar HRMs - it is in Australia.

As for max HR, if you want it to be really accurate and this is a good idea if you're using the calorie counter part (because the calories burned will be calculated partially on HR) or training to HR zones, you could get a vo2 max test which will tell you this amongst other stuff. Otherwise the HRM often calculates your HR based on the age that you input (220-age) which is often not accurate, mines out by about 15bpm.

[caligurl]

i got the polar s720i. i know it's way more than i need right now... but i already had an a5 that i liked and i really wanted the feature of calories burned.

we just got the cadence IR adapter yesterday and there's all kinds of charts that mean nothing to me! lol!