5/19/2012 Update
The manual said its waterproof up to 10 feet deep. It died in 1 foot of water.
Plus it was gaining 1-2 seconds per day.
-------------
This watch offers features at a fraction of the price of much more expensive watches (costing 50 - 100% more). My old heart rate monitor watch (Sports Instruments) broke and I spent hours looking for a replacement. The batteries can be replaced by the owner rather than having to send it back or take it to a jeweler.
I recommend this watch for someone willing to spend the time to go through the somewaht complex menu process.
Negatives
- No day of week. My old watch had the day of the week (i.e. Monday). This watch displays the model type (Onyxy Fit) and the the owners name. Why do I need to have my battery used up to display the watch model when the name SIGMA is stamped on the top? And why do I need to have my name displayed, low self esteem, or as a pick up line? Having the day of the week would have been a minor nice thing instead of the useless "ONYX Fit" that is displayed by the LED. Also, there are no seconds displayed as part of teh time. You have to go to a separate screen for that (navigating a few screens) and then you no longer have the time. Is it that much to ask to have the seconds displayed, and day of teh week, instead of "Onyx Fit" and my name?
For this I deduct a fraction of a star.
- the menu navigation is not as clearly explained as it should be. Its not that the menu is ridiculously complex, but I think the manual does a poor job explaining some things resulting in the user having to spend extra time. If you want to review several sessions to compare them, or look over several weeks of data, the user interface is somewhat annoying. [In fairness, its a watch, and what else can they do? ]
For this I deduct a fraction of a star.
- Its uglier than my prior heart rate monitor watch. Maybe the viewing angle from the bottom isn't so good, meaning I can't just rotate my wrist, I need to bring the watch closer to see the values clearly. And I think they could have increased the size of the text in some modes. For this I deduct a fraction of a star.
- My old Sports Instruments watch (5 years old) had similar functionality, plus time above and below the zone, so this watch despite 3 zones doesn't really have much more functionality.
Overall its a pretty good watch and worth buying. Good value for the money.
But if the display and explanations were better it would be an easy 5 star watch. In fact, forget the explanations of the menu system, you can figure that out with several minutes effort. But not having the day of the week or seconds for a digital watch (and including "Onyx Fit" and my name) is annoying to me.
P.S. I've never had a problem with it being unable to read my heart rate.