Several reviewers complained about the chest strap. I don’t find it to be a bother and in fact, after a while, I don’t even notice it’s there. I don’t cinch it down very tight and it works just fine. The monitor seems to be rock solid. I really like the large readout since I don’t wear my glasses while exercising. Even without my glasses, the numbers are clear (to me). I also keep the beeping option ON so that the monitor beeps when I’m above or below my target heart rate. The beep is soft enough to be background noise, but loud enough to let me know that I am not within my targeted range.

When first beginning an exercise session, the monitor will read zero for a short while, until it has collected enough data to accurately show your heart rate. After a minute or so, the numbers don’t jump around, except as one might anticipate with changing exercise levels.

This monitor tells the time, length of exercise session, average HR for the most recent session, and your current heart rate. Not a lot of other bells and whistles, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Overall, for the price I paid, it’s a good product. It does what it’s supposed to which is tell me my current HR and the target zones can be set so the watch beeps when I stray out of them. It is useful to see that I normally run at around 155 bpm and that this equates to approximately 75% of my Working Heart Rate. In many ways having the HRM has encouraged me to learn a lot about proper training techniques via the internet. I’ve also enjoyed examining my resting heart rate (which indicates general levels of fitness), heart rate recovery times (a good measure of cardiovascular health and heart attack risk), and figuring out my anaerobic threshold to tailor my workouts.

However, the watch also has its flaws. First, the single button on the front does NOT make it easier to use. At the very least, it should have a second button: one for ’set’ and one for switching between each menu or function. Second, Polar decided to withhold basic settings like ‘max heart rate’ and ‘time in each zone during workout’ from the lowest priced FS1. The max heart rate feature is only useful 1 time for calibrating the target zones, so paying more for this feature to me is unjustified. I can just run a few fast laps while looking at the display to get this information, but it’s less convenient and it feels like frivolous price discrimination. On the same note, the ‘time in target zone’ feature would be welcome (and is featured on higher end models), however, the actual target zones that Polar recommends are wishy washy because they use an older simpler formula to calculate HRmax and hence each target zone. Also because individuals vary so much, even more modern formulas would reduce the variance in the estimates fractionally (and not enough to be usefully accurate). Just because the thresholds aren’t accurate though, doesn’t mean that the feature isn’t useful. Shame on the marketing department for gouging the consumers for such simple features that could be incorporated at little to no additional production cost.

Lastly, don’t bother using Polar’s exercise zone chart, it’s way off and could cause overexertion. Just use the HRM to gauge what feels natural and use that as a baseline. Or do the research to calculate the thresholds correctly.

I’m happy with my purchase though, as I think it is a useful tool. I look forward to fine tuning my workout regime with the added assistance of the FS1, simple as it is.