Three years after V2, Polar is relaunching hostilities with its Vantage V3 which impresses with the precision of measurements, a battery of new functions such as dual-frequency GPS and optical sensors for heart rate and eight-day battery life. But at $879.99 with limited phone interactions and an unintuitive interface, it won’t compete with an Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch.
Wearing the Polar Vantage V3 for our two favorite sporting activities, cycling and jogging, offers us a first revelation. This watch is extraordinarily agile in quickly sensing changes in speed and adjusts in one or two seconds, where our Apple Watch takes around ten, when we slow down or accelerate the pace.
The precision is obvious and its dual frequency GPS reinforces it.
You quickly feel that the Vantage V3 is serious during physical activities. It can record up to 150 different activities, for which you can infinitely program the information that will appear. Aquatic activities, among others, do not scare it with a WR50 classification, or a theoretical capacity to withstand 50 meters of depth. However, this is not a diving watch. The default screens are more than enough for us, with the four essential pieces of information, pace, distance, time and, most importantly, heart rate in an arc going from gray to red.
We appreciate being able to decide for each sport whether the screen will remain on permanently or will only wake up when you raise your wrist. Its 47mm diameter AMOLED display has a resolution of 462ppi; it is vivid, bright with a peak of 1050 nits. The processor has been upgraded compared to V2 and now reaches 275 MHz, 129% faster, Polar says.
Its storage capacity increased to 32 GB notably allows the downloading, with offline reading, of topographical maps, ideal for hikes or long runs.
The great quality with which Polar has established itself since its beginnings, battery life, is still there. It took us eight days of daily use, interspersed with two jogs and six long bike rides, to get through it.
If you have the patience to wear it every night, the Vantage V3 will also give you a check on your skin temperature. This is a measure that is not intended to be medical and gives an indication of your “overall sense of well-being.” In addition, one can obtain a blood oxygen reading in 45 seconds and draw an EKG graph.
On the navigation side, we have a vast battery of data that can be consulted by sliding your finger on the touch screen or by using one or more of five buttons. Let’s mention the most useful: swiping down we have three shortcuts for the most useful applications, such as the timer or activating Do Not Disturb mode. From left to right, we control the music, we take a look at the weather, the sunset and sunrise times, we have a compass, a report on the sporting activities of the week or the day. All of this is obviously infinitely configurable.
This is our fifth or sixth Polar tested, and we are still perplexed by the navigation. Perhaps this is due to the array of functions, undoubtedly the interface would benefit from being simplified. We identified a problem: the role of the five buttons is not obvious. For example, the big button in the center right, all in red, should be the most important. This is not the case: it mainly serves as a confirmation command. It is the discreet button at the bottom left which is the most important, it which triggers the workouts, allows you to change the settings and starts synchronization.
At $879.99, this watch is expensive.
Everyday smart functions are limited. We see notifications and incoming calls in the phone, but little interaction is possible. The only obvious one is music control. No way to answer the phone or text on the watch.
It’s big, this Vantage V3 measuring 50.8 mm for a total weight of 57 grams.
We quickly understand that the Polar Vantage V3 is not an affordable smartwatch designed to replace your phone from time to time, like the watches sold by Apple, Samsung and Google, for example. It is intended, especially at this price, for seasoned athletes who want precise measurements, a wide range of activities, in water and up to temperatures of -20 degrees, and who want to count on unparalleled autonomy. And the Polar Vantage V3 is clearly one of the good high-end models available in this market, which does not have to be ashamed of the other leader, Garmin.
