Get instant training feedback with the RC3 GPS
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
One step forward, a couple of steps back?
By DF
I got this yesterday for Christmas and have been training a couple of times with it. First of all, full marks for a nice looking watch with a GPS built in. Definitely beats having a seperate GPS Sensor as I did with my RCX5.However, there are a few surprisingly bad downsides:1. You can't customise any of the views. This has been on all high end Polar HRM's for several years? What's going on here? I've got pretty used to being able to customise my views?!2. There is no average heart rate during training. The last Polar HRM I had that didn't have this was one that cost £40 about six years ago? This is close to a deal breaker for me as I use it to judge if I'm pushing myself hard enough in training. On variable things like commuting to work on a bike (stop, start, up and down hills etc..) this is really important to me as my current Heart Rate doesn't tell me a lot.3. I haven't found a way to turn on the GPS before my run or cycle. This is particuarly annoying as I often run in different locations and it takes a bit to find a signal. For example this morning I'd run over half a mile before it figured out where it was.My Garmin Forerunner 410 has none of these deficiencies. To be honest, I'd have to recommend that over this. Which is very disappointing. I'm trying to decide whether to send this back or not.7/1/13 - UPDATE - Been using it most days for a couple of weeks now. Its worked fairly well to be fair. I do like the fact its rechargeable. And you can just plug it in to a USB cable connected to a PC, and leave it there after it sync's to charge up. However, unfortunately all of the downsides above are still very relevant, and quite annoying. And I'm afraid that if I knew them in advance I probably wouldn't have bought this model.One final note is that I've found a workaround for point 3 above. I put the watch outside and start to record a training session a few minutes before I'm ready to start training. Then I end that session and start a new one immediately. This does mean you either need to delete this session on the watch or on the polar website after its been uploaded. So still pretty annoying. But at least you get to record your whole route when training!11/2/13 - UPDATE - Thanks for the replies to this review. I have now tried to just press the Start button before you start your workout, it does start searching for a GPS signal. So, that does resolve point 3 above. However, after about six weeks of regular use, points 1 & 2 above are still sources of frustration. And, I'm considering buying a Garmin 910 and putting this one on eBay.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Pretty good
By Ian_Prague
I recently bought the RC3 GPS to replace an RS800G3.I have read that there are issues with the build quality, and the GPS did not work on the first unit I received. I have to praise Amazon's returns procedure though, I received a new one within a week. On my first and only run with the original unit, to have the training message at the end congratulate me on my speed, when the GPS did not work, struck me as gimmicky and pointless.That said, I am pretty pleased with the replacement. The GPS picked up the satellites in under a minute, even though it was snowing. I was a bit disappointed to find it did not have an altimeter, as the RS800 did, but some trawling on the Polar website revealed that, as long as you set the correct flag on polarpersonaltrainer.com, when you upload your run stats to the site the system calculates your run altitude profile from google maps. On the other hand I had always assumed altitude was taken into account when calculating polar's Run Index of a run (basically, how good the run was) . I guess I was wrong on that one, which makes the Run Index just another gimmic: of course you are going to run slower if your run is hilly!I agree with one of the other reviewers that polarpersonaltrainer.com is still a bit clunky: if you add Altitude to the training curve, the speed line flattens to nothing at the bottom of the graph. On the other hand I love the (automatic) integration with Google maps, so you can see exactly where you went.On the views you see when running, I like the fact that you can see speed, time and distance at the same time. The RS800 did not allow that.One major disappointment with polarpersonaltrainer.com is that you cannot upload your training history from Polar Pro Trainer. So my years of history with the RS800 is gone. Maybe they will fix that.Overall though, I am pretty pleased with the RC3 GPS.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Nice product even I had a problem with the heart rate sensor battery
By PEDRO LUIS RIERA CORTES
It's a nice product, great gps signal accuracy, zoneoptimizer and fitness test are very useful. I don't recomend the stride sensor s3+ because it only improves the product by showing the cadence on the web ppt.com.
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