Polar M450 GPS Bike Computer

Further testing needs to take place, but so far (about 3 weeks of use), I wanted to share that this is a great GPS bike computer. Personally, I wanted something simple and easy to use. Especially at this price point, this one checks all the boxes and passes with flying colors. Contrary to some of the reviews I read, these are some of the highlights:- Easy to set up.- Acquires signal quickly.- Seem far more accurate than my iphone 6 just using starva both in milage and elevation gain.- Integration with the Polar App is smooth; the unit syncs with my iphone via bluetooth flawlessly (even with the screen off / phone locked).- Polar's flow (their own progress / health tracking framework) syncs flawlessly with Strava.

We have both the Polar V650 and this M450 GPS bike computers. The M450 is less expensive, and has a smaller body and smaller display. My wife likes the M450, as she likes the smaller size. Even though the M450 is smaller and less expensive, it is pretty capable and records temperature during the ride, which the V650 does not. Both bike computers are pretty good with each having their pros and cons.The M450's display is black and white, but is very visible in bright sunlight. The M450 is better than the V650 as far as visibility in bright light - however the V650 is not bad.The M450 works with speed and cadence sensors and heart rate monitors. We use the Wahoo Blue SC speed and cadence sensor and the Polar H7 heart rate monitor. (I have another bike with the Polar speed and candies sensor, which I like better than the Wahoo Blue SC, as the Wahoo can get knocked out of position too easily.)We find the GPS locks on super fast with the V650, and the M450 takes a half minute or minute longer to lock on. We find the GPS for both the V650 and M450 works flawlessly. In fact, you can use either bike computer without a speed and cadence sensor and the GPS will give you very accurate speed and distance traveled data. You need the speed and cadence sensor to get "incline" (slope of the road grade), but we found the incline measurement is not very accurate, so we don't bother with it. Both bike computers record elevation with a barometer. We find that elevation data is pretty accurate as long as you calibrate before each ride. with eh internal barometer, you are able to track how many feet of elevation you climb or descend.We sync the M450 to Polar Flow online and record all of our bike rides. We find Polar Flow to be excellent and have tracked hundreds of rides and workouts in Flow.Bottom line, get the M450 to save money. It can do just about everything the V650 can do. Get the V650 if you want a bigger, less fiddly device that is easier to set up and change settings.

I really wanted to deduct a star. After all, the rubber mounting bands don't fit my handle bars, and I don't see how they would fit any standard size handle bar. The shortest band was too long, and the longest band was too short for a double wrap. I had to shorten one band with a cable tie.And it's not a big deal, but it seems to have all the quality feel of a McDonalds happy meal toy. Maybe it just seems that way because it's so light weight. I suppose most serious bikers want very light weight devices. Or maybe I'm just used to iPhones, and heavier devices.But I gave it 5 stars. I love all the features. It synch's easily with my iPad to Polaris website, and that automatically transfers to Strava. You can build custom displays to show up to 4 different stats. I use it for both running and bicycling.The heart rate sensor works great. For the price, the M450 and H7 sensor is a bargain.I use mine with the Wahoo Blue SC speed and cadence sensors. They connected easily, and work great.

When I bought this computer in November 2015, I was also considering the  Garmin Edge 25 . It's a similar price, but the M450 appears to be superior. I now realize that the choice I should have been making was whether I wanted to get the M450, or spend considerably more to get the  Garmin Edge 520 .I have just bought an Edge 520, and will be selling my M450.The reason I am selling the 450 is entirely because of problems with Polar's software.Let's start with syncing. Whether I use Bluetooth or USB, it takes a ridiculously long time, regardless of how short a ride is. When I ride in the evening, I don't even bother syncing until the next day, because I don't want to stand around in my garage for several minutes (or walk around my house carrying the 450, just waiting for it to sync).There is a serious bug with exported files (GPX, TCX) that offsets my rides by one hour. So my process for exporting to Strava is: Download the TCX file; open the file in a text editor; search/replace to knock all the timestamps back an hour; manually import to Strava. Wow! So seamless! The weird thing is that the timestamps are all in UTC. How is it so difficult to convert timestamps to UTC? In fact, why isn't Polar storing the timestamps in UTC internally anyway? It's things like this that help to explain why Polar were so late with Strava integration, even delaying the go-live date. They most likely have a lot of what the industry calls "technical debt", and they're not willing to pay it off. Anyway, I reported this bug to Polar, and they basically said, "Oh yeah, we know about that. Sorry - no idea when we'll get around to fixing it."When I ride alone, I ignore the above bug; it's not a big deal if Strava shows me riding home from work an hour later than I did. Unfortunately, though, Polar isn't done with me yet. Especially if I have more than one ride to sync, Polar sometimes doesn't bother syncing with Strava. At other times, it will sync, but several hours later. (Note that the sync delay is between the Polar servers and Strava; the rides are already synced with Polar Flow at this point.)Auto-pause sometimes works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it does work, the ride (when exported) ends up being compressed in a way that I never bothered troubleshooting. The end result, though, is that Strava sees me riding off immediately whenever my riding companions regroup at the top of climbs. Strava thinks I ride alone.I don't want to review Garmin here, but I will say that I am seeing none of these problems with their software.

Très bon produit et excellent service du vendeur.