UPDATE: In PCMag's full review, we found that the Polar Grit X is a best-in-class multisport GPS watch with a rugged yet attractive design, good battery life, and a wealth of useful outdoor-specific features.

Original Story:

If mountain biking or running on trails is your thing, Polar has a new multisport watch you might want to check out.

Announced today, the Polar Grit X is specifically designed for outdoor athletes, with a rugged design, big battery life promises, and a new Hill Splitter feature that automatically detects uphill and downhill segments to report on your ascent and descent performance. The Grit X is available today for $429.95 in black and green in size medium/large and white in size small/medium.

The company is launching this new outdoor multisport watch in the cloud of COVID-19 with optimism that athletes are gearing themselves up to get back outside when coronavirus restrictions lift, Polar USA President Tom Fowler said during a call with reporters.

Grit X isn’t just a respawn of the Vantage, another Polar multisport GPS watch, he added. It has everything people like about the Vantage — including FitSpark indoor training guidance, Polar’s Running Power measurement, sleep tracking, and the Training Load Pro feature — plus outdoor-specific features like Hill Splitter.

To help you prepare for your outdoor adventure, Polar has partnered with third-party mapping and route-planning provider Kamoot to bring route guidance to the Grit X. Fowler says you’ll be able to go to a new area you’re not familiar with, find a suitable route according to your ability and available time, then follow route guidance on the watch.

The Grit X also features an integrated compass and displays a two-day weather forecast.

A new feature called FuelWise will remind you when to eat and drink, and tell you the optimal composition of your caloric intake, based on your height, weight, exercise intensity that day, and activity. If you’re training for three hours at a low intensity, your nutrition needs will be different than if you’re training for 10 hours at a high intensity, and FuelWise recommendations will reflect that.

Thanks to a suite of power-saving features, the Grit X can last up to 100 hours on a charge, Polar says. With the GPS running, you’ll get up to 40 hours of battery life.



“The world’s best recreational and pro athletes across endurance and team sports trust Polar data and insights to drive high performance,” Fowler said in a statement. “With Grit X, this capability extends from the asphalt and athletic field to the trails, slopes, mountains, and rivers. Our goal is singular: to help outdoor athletes optimize every aspect of their outdoor performance.”

Stay tuned for PCMag's full Grit X review in the coming weeks.



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