Polar Vantage V, is this still relevant in 2023?

Polar Vantage V on the wrist

Well Polar had an incredible reputation of great lifespan products, right?

Remember the Polar V800, released in 2014 with a support end around 6 years later? Even nowadays I still see a big community using it since many claim it was Polar best watch released ever.

Now back to the Polar Vantage V, released late 2018. Expectations were great after the V800 and as the Vantage V was claiming the top spot in the brand offer, how could it go wrong?

It didn't and when I purchased it in May 2019, I was the most impressed ever. Especially coming from a Garmin Vivoactive HR, it was a good watch for this price point and one of the first affordable watch to track your heart rate accurately but it was lacking open water swimming and power input from my bicycle.

2019 was the year where I decided to be more serious about training and let's be honest, what on earth is better than treat yourself with a nice gift. My retired Garmin made a friend happy and me I had a new watch from Polar that was so well designed and finished that I felt this would last for years.

The watch by itself matched every single expectations I had, while running, swimming in the pool or in the sea, cycling indoor or outdoor, everything just worked. Only thing is the GPS was a little funky sometimes while swimming in open water but hey remember my previous watch couldn't track this so it was good enough for my level and commitment.

I won't go through all the specs as it is fairly similar to what you could expect from a smartwatch and widespread if you do some 2sc research on Google. It tracks your heart rate accurately, your pace and even your recovery (later on, they added sleep tracking that was awesome but I just don't like wearing a watch at night). You can connect any additional sensors that please you by Bluetooth or more commonly used for these, Ant+. The only thing that was missing was broadcasting stuff measured by the watch itself to other devices like when you're at the gym. Sometimes you see a treadmill with diverse connection possibilities to display it nicely while you run or bike but here it wasn't possible.

The design of the watch per say is better than most of all the smartwatches out there. See the pics of the previous Garmin "flagships", they don't age well and for me that was really important to choose something I could keep for years with reliable data logs. The Polar Vantage V after many years is still looking very good, ok it's not mint anymore as I was using it without additional protection but the design of the watch didn't get a wrinkle.

Garmin high end model - did not age well..

Really not well - on a cheaper model

Now back in time, 2020, everything was going great, Polar released regular updates for the watch with some great features like sleep tracking, trainer, Strava live segment, etc. but then...

...

...October 2020 came and Polar announced the release of the Polar Vantage V (@$&#) 2! 

I was stunned and disappointed.

The GPS was not perfect I reckon but when you buy a high end smartwatch when it's out, you expect support to last a tat longer especially from Polar's reputation. The last true software upgrade was actually in December 2019 and since then it was only minor updates, so one could have expected a major upgrade end of 2020, to address GPS issues for instance.. but this?! Well we can argue it's a major upgrade, the only thing you have to do is to open wide your wallet (and 🍑) to get a whole new watch VERSION 2. 

Thanks Polar.

My Polar Vantage V(1) made it through 2021 somehow but it was easy, I got injured at the ankle and COVID hit, so basically no sport for the year. 2022 I was keen to train and used it again, slightly at the beginning of the year and more actively after the first half. This is when I came to realize once again that GPS can even fail during a running session; if it was cloudy and in between high storey buildings (I live in Hong Kong). So many times I was pissed when I saw my exported data from Strava saying (wrongly) that I got a crown (thanks to the faulty GPS data). After reporting my faulty activities on Strava and after trying different things with the different GPS possibilities in the watch settings, I gave up.

2023, I am training with a new watch that match my expectations but that will be detailed in one of the next reviews! Stay tuned.

About the Polar Vantage V(1), would I still recommend it today?

Yes,

IF you don't need super reliable GPS data 

or if you don't run in a very dense city

or if you don't do a lot of open water swimming

or if you value design and build quality more than top notch features

or if you don't care about a watch that is not updated anymore (although all fixes in Polar's hand have possibly been provided already)

RATING: Best build quality, not best in class hardware and software 

Disclaimer: For any avoidance of doubt, this review was not sponsored.