Polar Grit X2 ZDNET's key takeaways The Polar Grit X2 is available in Night Black for $800
The rugged MIL-spec build, vibrant AMOLED display, accurate location tracking, and advanced training tools make this a great watch for outdoor adventures
Smartphone syncing is a manual process, the smartphone app is somewhat stagnant, and the watch is expensive. View now at Polar
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Polar has some of the most powerful and capable training tools in its Polar Flow software that is available online and in smartphone apps. Its newest watch, the Polar Grit X2, provides a robust wearable that captures all of your key health and fitness data to feed into the Polar Flow ecosystem so that you can measure your performance and track trends to help you achieve your goals.
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Whereas Garmin has been expanding into the smartwatch space with features such as speakers, microphones, payment systems, subscription music support, and satellite services, Polar (like Coros and Suunto), continues to focus primarily on health and wellness. Polar's rugged watches are built to withstand the rigors of an active lifestyle while providing some basic smartwatch functionality, such as app notifications.
I tried out the Polar Grit X2 Pro in 2024. The Grit X2 provides the same experiences, but in a slightly smaller and sleeker package, priced $200 less. (The Grit X2 Pro increased in price by $250 to $1,000 since my 2024 review.) The $800 price point of the Grit X2 remains rather expensive for a GPS sports watch with limited smartwatch capabilities.
Garmin's Venu X1 is normally priced at the same $800 level as the Forerunner 970 $50 less, and both of these watches offer much more than Polar does with the Grit X2. Suunto's new models, the Vertical 2 and Race 2, are more closely aligned with the Grit X2 in terms of features, but are priced at $600 and $500, respectively.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
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