Customer Reviews

Polar CS400 Cycling Computer

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I really like the CS400...I have had the unit almost a year now and use it almost daily. The first unit I had died almost immediately but Polar sent me a replacement promptly which has worked perfectly to date. I really like the ability to commute for a week, ride a mountain bike trail on the weekend and then download all of the data to my computer to see the weeks activity. Perhaps the best feature is the understanding of heart rate to exertion and the personal ability to sustain effort at various exertion levels. I have been able to use the real time heart rate data to grind through long climbs better than any other time in my life...I have enjoyed the CS400 and have recommended it to many people.
I give the CS400 my highest recommendation...I would have given it five stars except a friend bought one shortly after me and it, too, died. Polar, again, replaced the unit and the replacement has performed well.

As a cycling computer with heart rate, cadence and speed, the device works great.

Polar software does not, however, work on a Mac. Indeed even if it did it would still be terrible.

The interface is crude and navigating the menues and configuration options is anything but intuitive. While the display of the cycling computer is configurable, the software does not let you arrange things the way you like as it limits what can be presented with what. For instance, I cannot have Speed, Heart Rate, Cadence and Ride time on the same display. Honestly has anyone at Polar ever time trialed before?

Beyond that, just digging through the menues get to configuration screens is difficult at best. If you forget to click "Send to Device" at any step you must go back and start over (i.e. send to device only sends what you have in front of you).

In my mind it is truly a shame that such a great cycling computer does not have excellent software to configure it.

This is my first cycling computer, having graduated from a Polar heart rate monitor watch. It's a fabulous product - easy to use and read while on a ride. I haven't used the software yet, but the idea of paying nearly $60 to buy an IrDA USB device with the poor ratings received to date is a real stretch. I'll stick to manual data transfer until they decide to use a sensible transfer method and support Mac OS X.

The CS400 computer is easy to use and even allows you to tailor the information it displays for you. The installation instructions that come with the product, however, are absolutely atrocious! If they could spend a bit more time on those instructions and use actual photographs instead of drawings the product would be a breeze to install. A note of caution, the product as described herein already contains a speed sensor and bike mount, so there is no need to purchase those separately. The one option to consider is the cadence sensor.

In summary a product worth buying!

I've used this cycling computer for about 300 miles now and have found it to be both accurate and easy to use. The unit is compact and set-up is simple. This is my first and only cycling computer, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I have been completely pleased with this product.

My recommendation: just buy the cheapest bike compute you can find, and leave it at that. The computer software for this thing is just pathetic, and the fact that they choose to us IRDA as the transport is ridiculous. Everyone pretty much has to plunk down the money for a USB IRDA adapter to get anything into the computer. Granted, given that their previous method was "Sonic Link" which was, no joke, beeping at the mic to your computer to transfer data. I bought Polar thinking it was best-of-breed. Wow, was I wrong.

The main reason I'm giving it a bad review now is it worked for a week or so, then it blue-screened trying to download a workout. Now I can't get it to upload any data any more. No error messages, nothing. It just no longer works. How much time am I expected to devote to getting this to work?

This thing is pretty much going to turn into a speedometer and a stopwatch.

Does not come with wrist band nor USB IR connection device. That would be helpful.