Polar CS400 Cycling Computer

by Polar

Product Features

• Handlebar-mounted cycling computer for advanced riders with included heart rate monitor
• Measures incline with uphill or downhill steepness in percentage or grades
• Cycling Economy/Intensity enables you to predict your calorie expenditure
• Wireless cycling measurements: speed (current, average and max); trip; distance
• Estimated Time of Arrival feature based on your cycling speed

Product Description

The CS400 is the choice for the cyclist with the competitive attitude. Track your ride with wireless sensors, prepare your detailed training program with the Polar ProTrainer 5¿ software and use the Incline measurement to adjust your cycling effort accordingly.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 2 x 2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000OMPZEU
• Item model number: 90026433
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great upgrade from the CS200, June 30, 2008

By 

K. Lyon (california) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Polar CS400 Cycling Computer (Sports)

I first purchased the CS200 and tried it for 3 weeks and upgraded to the CS400 [...].

So this review is somewhat a comparison of the two.

The biggest difference is that the CS400 records information every 5 seconds such as speed, cadence, HR, and altitude. While the CS200 only stores the trip information, max/min/avg speed, max/min/avg cadence ...

For HR monitoring the CS400's every 5 second recordation (this can be adjusted to every second, or to longer intervals) allows me to see visually how long I lasted at peak output as well as a visual graph of escalating HR in comparison to speed and cadence. The CS400 has 5 HR zones. The CS200, on the other hand, records the amount of time in 3 zones (above target zone, target zone, below target zone).

The CS200 only stores its limited amount of information for the last 7 rides. The CS400 stores up to 99 rides worth of information or 14 hours of information when recording every 5 seconds. I commute to and from work and often ride at lunch, so I was having to be sure to upload the information every 2 days or lose the data. With the CS400 i do not have to upload except every 14 hours of riding ( for me thats every other week or so).

The polar personal trainer 5 software that comes with the CS400 is far superior to the webtrainer that comes with the CS200. There are visual graphs, excellent calendering, and the information stays resident on the local computer instead of polar's servers (which makes the whole process slower).

Additionally, I found the IR method of transfering information from the cyclometer to the computer much better than the sonic system used by the CS200. After trial and error I found the "sweetspot" of angle and distance and settings to get the sonic system working - but I would say it was only successful 75% of the time, and then I would have to retry. (the sonic system passes information only in 1 direction cyclometer to computer, so if the computer misses the start of the transmission you have to restart). The CS400's IR method is 2-way so if the Computer misses the start of the transmission it sends a restart command to the cyclometer.

Installation of both products on the bicycle was exactly the same. In fact I left the sensors that came with the CS200 on my bike when I upgraded and only replaced the cyclometer.

There are many other differences, most did not matter at all to me.

I would note that I have not found the altimeter of the CS400 to be very accurate, for instance if you ride a loop you will find your start and stop points to have different altitudes even though it is the same spot. But it does allow you to see relatively that you were climbing or descending and track the correlative speed HR and cadence related to the ascent/descent.

I installed the Polar IR USB module and the polar personal trainer 5 on both XP and Vista computers with no problems.

So. In summary I found both products worked as advertised. But I found the features of the CS400 worth the extra expense.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult setup but complete data, July 9, 2009

By 

H. Brittmann "AlpinRider" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Polar CS400 Cycling Computer (Sports)

I just recently got the Polar CS400 as an upgrade for my CS200 and was quite curious since I had read some reviews prior to buying it...Being normally gifted I was sure I would get around it though, yet it took me a good two hours before I could see the speed showing on the screen!!! and that wasn't thanks to the user manual delivered in the box. First bad point is that speed and cadence were disabled by default on my unit, and there are two setup menus you can access (one before you start a training session / one after you have pressed the start button), but only one will let you enable speed and cadence (guess what? that procedure is not in the user manual). Once I had figured that much, I did not have to touch my speed and cadence sensor and the rest was just fine. So if you buy this unit be sure to do the following:
1. Buy the USB IRD adaptor that is not included in the box and without which you won't be able to upload your data in the training software.
2. Install the manual from the CD and read that one, the one provided in the box is pretty useless.
3. Once you have entered the wheel size and the rest. Before you start a training session. Press the down arrow on the right side of the unit to access the settings menu, go to the bike menu and make sure that speed (and optionally) cadence are enabled - otherwise this unit won't do you too much good.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nice unit; but poor customer support and limited memory, December 3, 2007

By 

DSE (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Polar CS400 Cycling Computer (Sports)

After this device wouldn't report speed properly (speed would be reported inaccurately or would not exceed a certain too-low speed), I contacted Polar customer service by email, but they were unresponsive to my request for help. I eventually fixed the problem myself by removing the battery for 30 seconds or so and then placing it back (in effect rebooting the unit). That did the trick; so I'd raise my review to 3 or 4 stars, but Amazon doesn't let me corect that rating. This computer works fine, and I like the enhanced features (altitude, degree of ascent, temperature, etc.), but its inability to store multiple long rides is a real downside, as I often don't have time to download one ride before proceeding to the next. The CS200 stores at least 5 rides (but with less data than the CS400). If this downside is not a concern, then this unit is a nice upgrade of the CS 200, but with memory so cheap, Polar needs to really needs to provide more memory for the CS400.