The Polar Grit X Pro may be over a year old, but after an extensive six-week testing period, I believe it to be a worthy contender among sports watches. With a durable design, long battery life, and an impressive range of sports and health tracking features, this underrated wearable is definitely worth a look, despite its $529 price tag.
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Polar Grit X Pro Review – Video
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Polar Grit X Pro: Design
The Polar Grit X Pro sports a subtle and rugged design featuring a stainless steel bezel, though one can opt to spend more for the “Titan” version, which uses titanium. It’s not flashy, but it is built solid.
Either way, both versions come with a premium sapphire glass lens, making the watch face highly durable and scratch-resistant. And for swimmers, the Polar Grit X Pro is WR100 water-resistant.
Display and Battery Life
The 1.2-inch Memory-in-Pixel (MIP) display offers great outdoor visibility but is definitely not as vibrant indoors compared to others like the Apple Watch. An always-on display option can be enabled or disabled, depending on how much one cares about extending the battery life.
The battery is pretty solid and allows up to 40 hours of GPS use and around seven days of general use. I prefer to use the always-on-display, and the watch would still last well over four days per charge.
Sports and Health Tracking Features
The Polar Grit X Pro offers a wide range of activity-tracking options that can be customized via the app. As someone who prefers power zone training while running, I was happy to see power being natively available here, with a variety of supported metrics.
In terms of accuracy, I found the heart rate tracking to be quite good. It would, however, occasionally falter for a brief minute or two during workouts. I also found the GPS tracking to be reliable, although it is limited to single-band GPS rather than the dual-band offered by many higher-end sports watches.
Workout Builder and Route Guidance
The Polar Grit X Pro supports an online workout builder, which can be hard to find, but I really like using it compared to many others. Though unfortunately, it cannot be accessed via the Polar app.
Routing and turn-by-turn guidance is supported here through an app called “Komoot.” Since there is no internal map storage, you won’t be able to access a full map or topography, but the routing still works well.
You can also start any route at the beginning, end, or anywhere in the middle. Additionally, even if you don’t start with a route, there are several options to have Polar Grit X Pro reverse your course and guide you back to your starting point.
Connectivity and Music Control
Unlike some watches like the Apple Watch and Fitbit, the Polar Grit X Pro can broadcast heart rate data to other devices and receive heart rate data from Bluetooth-enabled straps. However, it does not support ANT+ connectivity, so those like cyclists who need it may be out of luck here.
The Polar Grit X Pro can also control music playback on a connected smartphone. While this can be useful, most of this can be done more easily with a good set of earbuds. There is unfortunately no internal music storage, which means you will need to take your phone with you if you want something to listen to.
Fitness Tests, Sleep, and HRV Tracking
On the watch are numerous fitness tests, including a VO2 max estimation, “Leg Recovery Test,” and an orthostatic test for more accurate heart rate variability (HRV). The Polar Grit X Pro also automatically tracks HRV at night, which I personally found to be much more accurate than other sports watches from Garmin or Apple. The sleep tracking is also very good (as far as watches go) and seems at least close to other high-end wearables such as Oura.
Final thoughts
The Polar Grit X Pro may be a bit pricy, considering the absence of dual-band GPS support and internal music storage. But given its well-built design, reliable performance, and excellent HRV and sleep tracking, there is still a lot to make it worth considering. If you can find it on sale, I would say it’s well worth picking up!
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