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A CHANGE OF HEART!
Ok, so I started having problems with the wired Polar Power unit on my
5200, so I finally took the plunge and decided to fully switch over to
the CS600. After using the S710i for so long the interface on the CS600
takes some getting use to. I still believe Polar took a huge step
back in flexibility by locking what you can see on the 6 available
screens. But once you get use to which screens have the data you
want to see, it’s not that bad flipping back and forth between them. So
on the positive side, the CS600 has:
- way better sensors (I have my speed sensor mounted by the rear wheel
so I can use it on a trainer, nice)
- faster sensor detection (almost no delay in starting recording and
adjusting real time readings)
- real-time incline reading (I’ve got this on the “main” display w/
speed, HR and cadence)
The only real negatives are the change from the watch form factor and
the inability to change screen settings while riding. It’s taken me
quite a while to get over those two changes, but all in all, the CS600
really is a much better device.
Older notes on the CS600 below:
________________________________________
5/5/2007
Ok, so I had the following email exchange and decided it would be more
fair to preface my review with that discussion verbatim. The
bottom line is that I think, after using both the S710 and CS600 at the
same time during the Grand Canyon 600k, I think Jeff may be correct and
it may just be a matter of getting use to the change. Change is
hard. There must be something I like about the dang thing because
I haven't posted it for sale on ebay yet! ;-) So here's the email:
________________________________________
MessageType: General Comment
Subject: CS600
Username: Jeffh
Date: 03 May 2007
Comments
I have a few comments regarding the CS600. I too had an s710 and it does
take a little getting used to the cs600, but overall it is better. Once
you have the power sensor Cadence is always displayed in the bottom
right corner. In essence you get 4 pieces of information that you can
display at any given time (or you can view it as 3 + cadence). I
generally use the "speed" view which shows by default, Heart rate,
power, speed and cadence. The other big improvment of the CS600 is
electromagnetic interference. On my S710 I always got data spikes at
various points in my ride. The CS600 uses 2.4Ghz and binds with specific
devices and to date I have not gotten 1 data spike from interference. I
also like the new form factor better. I always found putting the s710
into the mount to be a real pain. The new twist on design for the cs600
is much much easier and quicker. Auto calibrate doesn't do what you
think it does. It's designed to reset the current altitude to a specific
value, such that if you always ride from the same place you will always
have the same starting altitude. Altitude unfortunatly is only as
accurate as the barometer, but that accuracy hasn't really changed from
the 710 to the CS600. What I don't like about the CS600 is that the
battery in the speed sensor is NOT user replacable. That is a pretty
poor design choice. I also agree with you about the ird issue. It was
not obvious that it wouldn't work with the old polar ird dongles.
Fortunatly my laptop had a built in port that worked with it.
________________________________________
From: mike@mikeerides.com [mailto:mike@mikeerides.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 1:08 AM
To: jeffh
Subject: RE: MikeERides Feedback
Thanks for the email Jeff, do you mind if I post it as a counter point
on my review page? Also I still don’t understand what auto-calibrate for
altitude does or how it works. My home altitude is 1680 feet. When I
started the CS600 next to the 6000 ft sign, it prompted me to change the
altitude to 3240, not 1680 and not 6000. Why or how did it decide that
the altitude should be reset to 3240 (not my “home” altitude and not the
altitude I was supposedly at)? While annoying, the occasional spikes on
the S710 don’t bug me too much, I’d rather have the flexibility to
change my screen displays.
So you are happy with being locked into screen display settings and not
being able to see some of the data that you know could be available?
That’s my biggest complaint/gripe about the CS600. Works ok as an
inclinometer when used in conjunction with my S710 though ;-)
Mike
________________________________________
From: Jeffh
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 11:47 AM
To: mike@mikeerides.com
Subject: RE: MikeERides Feedback
Sure np, feel free to post it.
Sometimes it’s hard to understand what the Polar folks are trying to say
in their manuals. I’m guessing it has to do with their translators. The
way I interpreted autocalibrate, It was supposed to reset you to the
same starting value at the beginning of every ride (for those that start
all their rides in the same place). The way their altimeters work is by
air pressure so it will be affected by temperature. If you calibrated it
to say 1600 feet on a 75 degree day, stored it overnight, and then went
out the next morning and it was 60 degrees, it’s going to read something
other than 1600. With the autocalibrate, if you started all your rides
from your house, I believe that it will let you set up the starting
altitude and it will automatically set it to that whenever you start. I
usually don’t start at the same place and I’m usually more interested in
my total ascent and decent so I just set mine up once and don’t
autocalibrate. I’ve seen it vary by about 200 feet by my house, which is
close enough for me.
From your description of what happened with the autocalibrate, I’m not
really sure what it was trying to do but I am pretty sure there is no
way for them to figure out the altitude without some starting value from
you. Shifts in temperature, without changes in altitude (like putting it
in a warmer or colder car at a given altitude) would definitely throw
off its calibration. That’s why I’m pretty sure that feature is only
supposed to work when you start at the same altitude for each ride.
Actually I think they mentioned something about it only working if it’s
within 250 feet of the preset value (thus in your case you were at 6000
and it was set to 1600, so it got confused).
As far as the display goes, I would of course like more information to
be displayable, but for 90% of the time, the speed view gives me what I
need. With the power meter hooked up, the speed view gives me heart
rate, power output, speed and cadence. Cadence is shown in the bottom
right corner no matter what view you are in and this can’t be changed.
With the S710 my top row was always taken up by cadence and I would have
speed and heartrate (I didn’t have the power option) in the other two
columns. Whenever I needed to see the time or distance I would just
scroll out the top column for a few seconds. Unless I’m forgetting
something, I’m pretty sure you are getting 1 extra data item in the
CS600, but one is always cadence.
With the CS600, you get 1 more item you can view at all times. In my
case it’s power, but I think you could get the time or distance in there
if you wanted to. I do agree that the buttons took a little getting used
to, but unlike the S710, the buttons scroll in opposite directions. Thus
if I want to see the incline, I hit the bottom right button twice, then
hit the top button twice to switch it back. Overall I think it’s one of
those things that after you’ve used it for a while it will start to feel
natural. I’ve had mine for about 2 weeks now and I’m starting to get
good at quick swaps to the display that I need.
So far in the 2 weeks I’ve had it, I haven’t gotten any data spikes. I
also found it’s responsiveness to be much better than the S710. When I
first got my S710 I had it as well as my old (also wireless) computer on
my bike and I had noticed that the S710 was delayed by about 2 seconds
compared to my other computer. To me it was very noticeable after
starting from a light and other rapid accelerations. After a while I got
used to it, but for some reason that always bugged me.
Overall I do have to say that I am pleased with it. I do however have 2
big gripes. The lack of user changeable battery in the speed sensor (The
power sensor uses 2 AA batteries) and the fact that they only allow 1s,
5s, 15s and 60s recording intervals. Many of my rides are around 3 ½
hours which puts it just past the 2:50 that it will record at 1s
intervals. They really should have provided a 2s interval recording
option – or better yet 4 or 5 hours of recording at 1s. I know the
powertap offers 2s recording options.
I just reread your comment about the inclinometer and I do have to agree
that it would have been nice to have an extra line to display that at
all times.
________________________________________
Original Review (posted on 4/12/2007)
I have to preface this by pointing out that I have been a strong
advocate for Polar products for quite some time. My Polar S710i is
the best cycling computer I've used and is my benchmark for any other
computer. I tried a HAC4 once, but it didn't even come close to
the ease of use and intuitiveness of the Polar S710i, so I quickly went
back. A few months ago Polar released news of a new cycling
computer that had many of the features I wished I had in my S710i.
Specifically:
- More reliable wireless interface (my S710i occasionally gets
electrical interference while riding)
- Cadence targets so I know when I start slacking off!
- A speed pointer showing where my speed was in relation to my
overall average speed
- An incline measurement that shows real-time grades
- More recording memory so I can use a lower recording interval on
longer rides
Yep, the new Polar CS600 had all that and more! Wow! I
called Mike Cox and asked him to keep an eye out for when it got
released, because I REALLY wanted a CS600! I wanted the one
with the Power option, like I have with my S710, but Mike's
distributor sent the version that just had a speed sensor.
Hmmm... a dilemma. I could wait for the one with Power to come
in, or just take the one he had. I wanted it right away and
didn't want to wait any longer.
The first disappointment was opening the box and seeing the form
factor was changed. The CS600 is a dedicated cycling computer,
not a watch. Oh well, I can live with that I suppose, even if
it is quite a bit bigger. I mounted it on my Trek 5.9SL and
took it out on a Sunday for a trial 44 mile ride (two Bush highway
loops going through Las Sendas). The next disappointment was
that it was hard to work the buttons while riding. They are in
an awkward position on the device. Then I noticed the upper
right button functioned differently than the S710i. On the
S710i, the upper right button scrolls through different values in
the top part of the display, but leaves the rest of the display
alone. On the CS600 the button scrolls the ENTIRE display.
I also didn't see the "speed pointer" that was advertised. The
incline measurement was cool and the real-time graphs of altitude
and heart rate were kind of cool too, but then I noticed that I
couldn't find the current Temperature, something I love having on my
S710i. I started getting more and more frustrated as I cycled
through the displays trying to find the readings I wanted to see.
They just weren't there. Crap.
So, I got home, installed the Polar "ProTrainer" 5.0 software and
try to transfer my ride data using my Polar IR Interface from my
S710i. The CS600 wasn't detected. Tried my S710i and it
worked. Tried the CS600 again and it failed. The CS600
works with a standard IrDA interface, not the proprietary Polar IR
Interface that's used with the "S" series. CRAP! Luckily
Annette had a meeting across town the next night so I asked her to
stop by Fry's electronics and pick up an USB to IrDA interface for
my desktop. When I opened the package, the driver disk was
missing and the driver that was on the manufacturer's website didn't
work. My frustration increased. I went to Fry's the next
day, returned the IrDA interface Annette bought and got another one,
this time verifying the CD was in the package. That night I
installed the IrDA interface and tried to connect the CS600.
The connection button would grey out then come back, with no
indication that anything happened. What the... I did
that several times before I noticed that my ride data from Sunday
had silently transferred without any notification, but at least it
was there!
Then came the next disappointment. They changed the chart
display to show "Pace" instead of "Speed"! I don't care if my
pace was 2:15, how fast is that in MPH?!? It never prompted me
to select a sport and defaulted to running. I looked around
for a bit, but got frustrated, sent Polar a nasty email about how
disappointed I was in their new product, posted a few flames on a
couple cycling forums about my disappointment and went to bed --
tired and frustrated.
I left it sitting for a few days since I'm still using my trusty
S710i on my Trek 5200 commuting bike. But finally went back to
try to customize the displays to at least get it to show what I want
it to display. I have to point out here that even though this
has an "oversize" display, a lot of it is wasted space. I
think I get more information displayed on my S710i than I do on the
CS600. Then I found that you are restricted to a total of 6
different displays that can be customized. It is not possible
to configure the displays to show all of the different functions
available. So you have to decide, in advance, what functions
you REALLY want to see when you are riding. Good thing I
didn't get the Power option, because I wouldn't have been able to
see half the stuff I would have wanted to! WHY WHY WHY would
Polar change the interface functionality so much between the tried
and true "S" series??? I did finally figure out how to
customize the sports in the Polar software to reflect mph instead of
pace for cycling, so you can change that, but it doesn't change my
overall disappointment.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is compared to the Polar S710i,
the new CS600 just plain sucks. If you have an "S" series and
are considering moving to the CS600, prepare yourself for
disappointment. Expect to see my CS600 on ebay if I can't get
it returned since I used it once...
04/15/2007 UPDATE
Someone on Cyclingforums.com completely disagreed with my assessment
and that got me thinking that maybe I was too harsh. After all, my
first post was pretty emotional since I expect so much from Polar.
So, I decided to give it a second try and took it out again this morning
for another spin. I remain disappointed. To be more specific:
- The CS600 allows you to see a max of 18 viewable readings (3 "fixed"
readings on 6 displays). But the CS600 has ~25 available readings. The
CS600 has everything I wanted in a new cycling computer, but about
1/3 of those things aren't displayable AT ALL when riding! Choose
your favorite features (the new real-time "incline" reading is
particularly nice) and forget the device has any more than that
available. Unless you carry a laptop around on your bike so you can
change your displays to show what you are missing out on...
- More specific on that "Fixed" issue... I'm an ultra distance cyclist,
with many rides during the year exceeding 24 hours. On any given long
ride I may want to look at my speed and cadence, then later speed and
watts, speed and time or speed and distance if I'm getting close to a
checkpoint. On the "S" series, the top button cycles through almost all
available readings (and all readings are viewable either by scrolling
with the upper left button or on one of the main display screens), so I
can customize the Speed display as I want it on the fly while riding -
again with all possible readings available. This kind of on-the-fly
screen customization is not possible with the CS600.
- On the "S" series, Heart Rate is always in the lower left corner, the
lower right corner has another reading (like temperature or bike
number), the middle changes between the main displays and the top is
variable. So I actually get to see up to 4 readings per display. The
CS600 is reduced to 3 readings per display. Less information on a bigger
screen with more wasted space (blank parts of the screen).
- This is a $400-650 cycling computer (depending on if you get the power
option). Do you really want to leave it on the bike for any extended
period? Maybe I'm just not trusting, but I found the watch form factor
to be extremely convenient. Even if I left my bike for more than a
few minutes, I know someone would have to spend a little time
unstrapping the watch from the mount. With the CS600 it's a quick twist
and it's gone.
Don't get me wrong, if I wasn't comparing the CS600 to the Polar "S"
series I'd say it was a pretty good cycling computer with excellent
features. But I still stand by what I said before... Compared to the
Polar S710i, the CS600 just plain sucks. In my opinion, Polar took a
HUGE step backwards with the flexibility of the interface.
04/30/2007 Update I decided to take the CS600 with me on my
Grand Canyon 600k this weekend along with my trusty 710i. I remain
disappointed. The "auto-calibration" feature for altitude was WAY
off. I tried to auto-calibrate at a sign that showed 6000 ft.
The CS600 wanted to auto-calibrate to 3240. The incline display
also seems to be affected by fluctuations in speed. As I went up
long hills that didn't visually appear to change in grade and didn't
physically feel like they changed in grade, the incline measurement
would shift in 1-2% differences. If I maintained a constant speed
it seemed to be ok, just minor changes in speed seemed to affect what it
thought the grade was. I've always trusted my Polar S710i for
accuracy based on Polar's reputation, so the CS600 is a real
disappointment. Hopefully they will come out with a model that is
based on the watch form factor with accurate features that are on
the CS600, but the button functionality of the Polar S series. But
that's just wishful thinking...
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