Welcome to the Polar V800
The Polar V800 is Polar's flagship multisport watch. This means it's a more complex and beefy version of its little brother the Polar M400, built to compete head-to-head with the Suunto Ambit3 range, TomTom Multisport Cardio and Garmin Forerunner 920XT and 620. Do feel free to click on those links, now!
Rather like Garmin's omni-competent Forerunner 920XT, though the Polar V800 is mainly aimed at triathlon types - it has both pool and open water swimming modes, as well as run and cycle tracking, it's also a very competent running watch.
Although beefier than the M400, the V800 still needs a standalone chest strap to monitor heart rate, in this case the Polar H7. Although initially at the absolute top end of running watches price-wise (£400/$520 with HR strap), it's now available online for around £260/$340 with the H7 heart rate strap, and even less on its own, making it a much stronger proposition.
Oh, and as a final deal sweetener, a recent firmware upgrade means it now boasts smartwatch-type alerts when synced with an iOS device.
Screen and battery life
The Polar V800 has many aspects in common with the M400, and the screen is one of them. A backlit monochrome dot matrix LCD number, which according to Polar is a "high resolution display" – though at 128x128 pixels, you might beg to differ on that. It's clear in most lighting conditions, and has a small range of different watch faces to suit your taste.
Although the actual display unit is indistinguishable from the M400, the V800 has added a nicely bevelled Gorilla Glass cover to the mix, enhancing both waterproofing – it's good to a depth of 30m – and toughness. It does add a premium feel, befitting the higher price point.
Battery life is strong, barely being dented by consecutive days tracking 4-hour cycle rides and 10km runs. Garmin claims it'll power along for 13 hours of training time, with no fewer than 50 hours in GPS low power mode, and 30 days in GPS-less "time mode" with daily activity monitoring – ie, if you use it like a step counter.
The long battery life is good for two reasons, the second being that the clothespeg-style USB charger clip is on the irritating side. Getting a good fit on the rear port shown above requires practice, and usually a bit of wiggling to make contact. If there was one thing we'd change about the Polar V800, this would be it.
Build, design, look, feel and strap
The build of the Polar V800 is robust. VERY robust. On this overtly macho watch, the Gorilla Glass screen is bounded by aluminium, with alloy buttons, which then merge smoothly into a stainless steel back. As such, it's a clear step up from the M400, and delivers a pleasing feeling of permanence and heft, though at 12.7mm thick, not so much heft that it gets in your way.
Admittedly, the weight IS increased by the more solid build, up to a solid 79 grams. This reminds you you're wearing it, but isn't excessive.
I got the pleasingly retro blue-red strap version to test, but there's a more muted all-black version for stealth triathletes and special forces members.
The strap conceals the bespoke charge/sync port and features a double-buckle, in the same vein as the TomTom Cardio. It's comfortable and solid, which is a must if you're swimming in open water.
Exercise tracking and heart rate monitoring
Run, bike and swim tracking
The V800 is simplicity itself to drop into tracking mode. Just toggle the red-anodised right hand button, pick a sport, wait for the GPS to lock on and heart-rate strap to sync, then one more press and you're off.
Although the screen size is the same as the M400, the larger case of the V800 spreads the buttons further apart, in a way that's ideal for gloved fingers.
The triathlon-focussed sports on offer include running, cycling, and swimming, of course, but there's also an actual triathlon mode, as well as "other outdoor", "other indoor" and 'free multisport".
The V800 shows screens with heart rate, laps, distance and pace as standard, and you can create new, bespoke screens, or "data pages", in the Polar app.
GPS lock initially took just over a minute, but once the V800 has worked out where you are this drops significantly to more like 20 seconds, which is an acceptable speed. It's pretty accurate, capturing my meandering urban-test routes with accuracy most of the time. Only once did it report that I was running in the Thames, which is much better than some.
It's very much the same experience as the cheaper M400 while in motion – the screen is clear, the information well laid out, so you know what you're doing and how well. There are a few little extra perks as well, though.
Firstly there's a vibrating zone alert, so when you're training to heart rate zones (fat burn, cardio, near death experience, etc) there's a physical reminder as well as a spoken one, so you can keep those training-aiding "power tunes" at full volume.
Secondly there's a useful training load scorer, which not only gives you a cheering summary of just how hardcore you are – a 10km run flipped me into 'Strained', oooh yeah – but also then tracks your recovery status, in tandem with the activity tracker, rather like the Suunto Ambit3 Run – that's a nice touch.
There's also a wider range of tests on the Polar V800 than on the M400, with Orthostatic, jump and RR recording racked in alongside the M400's VO2 Max test. These are all useful metrics for tracking/showing off about your fitness.
The jump test requires the V800 to be synced with Polar's Stride Sensor, which will also track cadence when attached to your trainers, though it's not the smallest on the market. However, other Bluetooth Smart sensors will do the job too.
Then there's the tri-focussed tracking. For cycle events you've got the option to pair with Bluetooth-compatible bike pods, including a Keo cleat power-meter, which paired with the altimeter makes for a decent setup. The only snag is the need to buy an additional bar mount for the watch, which is otherwise hard to read on the move, especially on less than pristine road surfaces.
In swim mode the H7 will track your pulse in the water, while a new open water setting will clock your progress via GPS when you're getting serious. In the training pool you can analyse your technique using stroke rate per minute or pool length and use SWOLF scoring (sum of time and strokes per pool length) to get a more accurate picture.
The V800 can't quite compete with dedicated bike computers or the Garmin Swim, but its versatility is impressive
Heart rate monitor
The bundled HR belt is Polar's Bluetooth H7 pod, which I've always found accurate enough. There are horror stories about it bricking and failing to pair, but that's not happened to me before, and it didn't happen with the one that came bundled with the Polar V800.
The H7 is a larger unit than some – notably Suunto's micro HR strap – but it does the job.
Step away from running into multisport, and a lesser-known feature of the H7 comes into play: because it transmits on two frequencies, one of which is 5kHz, you can track your pulse underwater. That immediately puts it above sports watches with a light-based pulse monitor built into the wearable itself, such as TomTom's Cardio range.
App, notifications, additional features and verdict
The app
The Polar app world is a slightly confusing one, as there is a small range of apps available rather than just one. In this case you could use Polar Beat with the H7 strap alone, or Polar Flow if you'd like to sync the watch data, but let's assume the latter.
Once you've set up your account on Flow.Polar.com you're prompted to download the smartphone app and sync via Bluetooth. I tested the Android version, and it's a fairly fluid experience. Bluetooth sync is easily activated by opening the app, triggering Bluetooth on the phone then hitting the back button on the watch.
After a minute or so, you'll have synced your session stats with Polar's servers and will be able to browse to your heart's content. Top tip for existing Polar device owners: a long press on the product in the menu brings up an option to toggle between your devices.
If you're looking for desktop data then it's a case of downloading Polar FlowSync, which bridges between the watch's USB charger and Polar. The major downside of the V800 is revealed here, and again it's the charger clip.
It's a proprietary attachment, that's designed like a clothes peg, which clips across the watch's top strap. As noted, this requires concerted wrangling to make contact on each use.
Once synced and online you'll get a comparable dataset to Suunto or Garmin – ie, there is a LOT of data to dig into – allowing you to visualise your training load, set new goals and share your sessions with your peers.
This is also where you can set training targets, which are pretty comprehensive. You can create a variety of sections in each target, or different ones for different sports, then repeat them as intervals if you wish. Favoriting workouts is intuitive, and a handy addition is a 'race pace' setting, where you can specify the distance and time you want. The V800 will then keep you updated as to how well you're doing.
Step counting, sleep tracking and notifications
The Polar V800's '3D accelerometer' is on hand to track your daily activity, and also sleep if you wish, although for the latter this chunky wristwatch isn't the easiest bedfellow, so not a key USP, I'd suggest.
The V800 sets your daily step goals based on global movement recommendations and your training history, so whether you're an office drone or a velodrome instructor it'll pick a good level for you. There's an optional handy bar on the main watch display to indicate progress, and more detail is a click away in 'Today's activity'.
Here, you'll get a breakdown of Active Time, Steps, and finally Calories. The latter is more sophisticated than most step counters, using a mashup of training and active time calorie burn but also factoring in your heart rate (your basal metabolic rate or BMR, to be specific) to give as accurate a figure as possible.
With results synced to your Polar Flow app and also viewable on the watch, this is a useful adjunct to specific training features, but not the key reason that anyone should buy this watch, of course.
There are also smartphone alerts, currently only for Apple users. Polar claimed alerts were coming for Android in Q2 this year, but that seems to have passed without it actually happening; we'll update when they appear.
On iOS, you currently get alerts from social media, email, texts and phone calls, and in a considerate touch Polar mutes everything but calls when you're training.
We liked
The Polar V800 has excellent build quality, being both chunky and confidence inspiring. For such a sophisticated training aid, it's also impressively easy to get up and running, and it gives you useful data straight out of the box.
The app gives you plenty of data to dive into, and the V800 offers any number of excellent motivational and testing tools. It's a real Grade A fitness device.
The very strong battery life is another major plus point, which is just as well as…
We disliked
…That charger clip really is a pain in the ass. Its terrible design means it's hard both to locate and to use, and creates a fragile connection for such an otherwise robust device.
The design overall will not be to everyone's taste, of course. It's big and chunky and not really suited for daily wear, unless you're built like a bouncer. The heft of it also limits the Polar V800's usefulness as a sleep tracker.
Finally, it's not cheap. Yes, little in this tech area is cheap, but Polar has a specific problem of its own making here, in that the Polar M400 does the same job as a running watch (though admittedly nothing like as much in other sporting areas) for considerably less money.
Verdict
I love the Polar M400 running watch, and the Polar V800 is basically the same thing but better made and fuller-featured. With the recent price drop it's well worth checking out if you're into triathlons or multi-sport training.
However, running remains the world's number one fitness activity by some margin, and if you're all about that, the size, cost and feature set of the Polar V800 do seem a little like overkill. Oh, and I hate the charging clip. Did I mention that already?
Even so, it's your money, your choice, and the Polar V800 is an excellent device.
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