Their original grid x sports watch, which took a lot of technology that was found on the advantage series line of multi explorer watches and put it into a lot more rugged case. That was clearly aimed at the outdoor adventure crowd and today, polars launching the grit x. Pro, which has all the features found on the original grid x, as well as the features found in the vantage v2, but also add some new routing and navigation features that are definitely going to be useful for those of you, adventuring outdoors, so were just going to Go ahead and get straight into this review so for the hardware, theyve updated the look and feel of it with some new accents around the stainless steel bezel, which helped differentiate it from the original and theyve also added. What i think is a very needed feature when it comes to a watch thats intended for all those rough outdoor activities and thats, a sapphire glass lens which im particularly happy to see – and this is also supposed to have military grade durability. The gridx pro comes in three different color options, and this is the black dlc version that i have in front of me today and theres also grit x, pro titan, which costs a hundred dollars more, which uses titanium in the construction to make it 12 percent lighter And the titanium version also comes with a leather wristband. In addition to this floor elastomer, i think what they call an fkm wristband, which is basically like a rubbery silicon like wristband, its a its a good wristband and then for weight.
The gridx pro comes in around 77.5 grams, at least on my scale, which is actually a bit heavier than the original grid x, and then the grid x, pro titan, has an advertised weight around 73 grams. So not exactly a massive difference in terms of weight savings with that titanium version. The grid expert also uses the same transfective type display that looks great outdoors in direct sunlight, but when youre indoors its a bit more challenging to see, but it does have a backlight that you can enable. But what is super nice is that they also added some backlight display options, so you can actually now adjust your backlight brightness settings so thats the new hardware, but now lets talk about the new software features so lets. First start out with two new watch face dashboards, which you can kind of think about as little widgets, that you can access from the watch face without having to start an actual activity. So the first new dashboard shows the sunrise sunset and twilight times and indicates this with a colored ring around the watch face, and i think this is a pretty cool looking dashboard. So when you click into this dashboard, it just shows the same information, but just a little bit larger and then the other new watch face is the location based watch face. That shows your current altitude compass as well as orientation, and then, when you click into this dashboard, it displays an elevation graph of your elevation over the last six hours.
Your last node coordinates as well as a bigger compass, and i have to say that those two new dashboards are pretty nice and i especially like that new sunrise and sunset, one especially around this time of year, where daylights getting shorter and shorter. Its just nice. To have the information right on the watch face, oh and really quick before i forget, if youre finding the information, this video useful. Do me a favor and just hit that, like button down below its a small little thing that you can do to help this video and the channel a lot quite a bit, and i appreciate it: okay, so now onto the routing and navigation features and theres. Actually, quite a bit to cover here so first up with navigation, theres, a route selection page within the activity settings where you can choose from a list of your preloaded routes like from commute and when you click into one of these routes. Itll show the distance a map of the route, an elevation graph of the route and whats nice is that you can also access the fuel, wise nutrition and drink reminders directly from the screen, which i find to be a lot more convenient. And then, when you choose the route, you can either start the route at the actual start point or you can start mid route now during your activity, when youve chosen a route you can zoom in and out of your route, you can end the route if youd, Like but you can also reverse the route, which is basically reverses your loaded predefined route, and they also have a couple ways to get you back to your start location if youre just done and want to get back home where the first option is a b line.
Option which, as you can imagine, is just the shortest distance possible back to your start, location, which is essentially a straight line, and the other is the ability to go back via the same route that you took or basically backtracking your actual route. Whether or not you would load it in a route in the first place, going back along the same route definitely makes a lot of sense, but the bean lot option is a little bit interesting. Considering the fact that the grid x pro does not have full blown mapping so b line just kind of points you in the general direction of where you need to go, and you kind of have to figure out which trails or streets will get you back to Your start, location and another new feature when you load in a route is a new data page that shows you an elevation profile of your route, and this is definitely super handy where it shows your current grade current altitude, the amount of ascent and descent that youve Covered as well as the ascent and descent that remains, and if you do have a route with turn by turn, navigation like from commute itll overlay and still prompt you for those turns at the top of the screen and whats cool. Is that this elevation graph data page is also available, if you dont even load in a route at all, where it will show your elevation graph over the course of your activity, along with the current grade current altitude, as well as the total ascent and descent that Youve already covered, so those are all the new routing and navigation features on the grit x pro.
But what is nice is that if you do own advantage v2, they will be porting. Those features to your watch via a firmware update, i believe, around october 20th. So its kind of nice that you can have those navigation and routing features on a more rugged watch like the grid x, pro or morse felt watch like the bandage v2, but, along with those new routing and navigation features in the grid x, pro the grid x. Pro also does get some features that were found on the vantage v2, as well as the vantage m2 and the first of which is the grid x. Pros get heart rate broadcasting which allows you to broadcast your heart rate to other devices and apps like if you want to broadcast your heart rate to zwift. It also comes with music controls to control the music playing on your phone, but just note it does not have any on board music storage or playback. It comes with recovery pro which comes on the vantage v2 and then also comes with the entire suite of fitness tests like the running test. The cycling test the leg recovery test, as well as the orthostatic test again found on the advantage v2 and ill have a link down in the description below where i have the details about all those fitness tests that i did already in the vantage v2 in depth. Review and then in terms of sensors, the gridx pro uses the same gps chipset as the original grid x and in terms of gps performance id, say its decent, where for the most part, its in line with other test devices.
But i did notice on some corners that it had a tendency to swoop around just a little bit, nothing too bad by any means, but it was definitely noticeable, and this was for both high speeds, while biking as well as slower speeds, while running the grid x. Pro has the same precision prime heart rate sensor as the original grid x, and i wasnt necessarily ever super impressed with the heart rate sensor and the original grid x and id probably have to say the same thing about the grid x pro where its just not Quite as accurate as id like it to be like on this bike ride, it was just kind of jittery throughout the entire ride and then on some occasions. It had some major dips like at the end and then for running about the same deal, but even less accurate were on this rom. It came out quite a bit short, and this always surprises me, especially considering polar makes. The phenomenally, accurate, verity sense optical arm heart rate sensor, as well as their very accurate chest, heart rate sensors, but the great x pro will be able to collect running power from the wrist itself. Itll also get polar sleep tracking, which i find to be pretty accurate and ill also get polars fit spark training guidance which gives you workout suggestions based on your training history and then for battery life. Thats going to be the same as the original grid x, where the grid x pro will get up to about 40 hours of standard gps battery life, with heart rate, recording when thats pretty decent and then about seven days as just like a regular watch.
And then you can get up to about a hundred hours of gps recording time if you enable some of the battery saver settings so thats everything that you do get with the grid x pro, but lets talk about some of the things that you dont get with. The gridx pro so i already mentioned that you wont, get full blown maps and you also wont get music storage or playback. But i do have to mention that, although the gridx pro can pair to bluetooth external sensors, it cant pair to amp plus sensors – and this can be a big issue for cyclists, especially if youre training indoors, when your bike trainer only has one bluetooth connection. So what happens when youre training indoors is that youll be pairing? Your bike, trainer to your lets, say ipad or apple tv via the one bluetooth connection? At that point, your watch wont actually be able to collect the power data thats being transmitted from your trainer, because that one bluetooth connection is already used up. However, your bike trainer will likely be transmitting and plus, which the gridx pro wont be able to pick up, and the other issue is with polars own cycling test where, if you do have a bike trainer, that only has that one bluetooth connection, you actually wont be Able to perform the cycling test with just your gridx pro youll actually have to have another device thats able to control the resistance on your trainer via and plus.
So your watch can actually collect the power data and i doubt puller will ever shift in the stance of not including amp plus on their watches, but it just seems confusing to me considering that polar does transmit, amp plus with their verity sense, optical arm, heart rate, Sensors, as well as their chest, heart rate monitors, but just be aware of this limitation. If youre, a cyclist anyhow now lets talk about price, so the grid x pro comes in at 500 and then the grid expo titan comes in at 600. The original grid x is 430 dollars, so for 70 dollars more you get a sapphire glass lens and for me, thats actually worth it, but for 500 for the feature set thats, maybe a little bit harder to sell but for durability. I do think that this is a pretty good option. Overall, i like this new update with the grid x pro, especially with the new routing and navigation features and the sapphire glass lens, although i would have maybe like to see a larger display ditching, some of the bezel that surrounds it, as well as some improvements to The heart rate sensor, but for the outdoor adventure crowd. I think this is going to be a pretty interesting option.f6i8hA6MmBk
