Polar FT40 VERY GOOD.

Polar FT40 VERY GOOD.
This is my first Polar. I have been using it for two weeks and is doing it job. I feel more confident when doing my cardio exercises and i began to track my performance.

Polar FT40 Everything you need in a heart-rate monitor.
I am already very familiar with the men's FT40 heart-rate monitor by Polar. As a woman, I used to own the women's version. There are only 2 very minor differences between the men's and the women's version. The men's wrist band is wider and longer, and the face of the watch is slightly bigger, but it's barely noticeable (see the photos I've posted).

PROS:
Basic Settings:
You can enter and save your weight, height, date of birth, sex, and activity level.

Fitness Test:
For more accurate workout readings, you can perform a fitness test to create a baseline. The fitness test result helps you compare your aerobic fitness level with those of others of the same age. You can retake the fitness test at any time and save the result to track your aerobic fitness.

Fitness vs. Fat Burn levels:
This is a smart watch. It can detect your body's daily state from your heart rate and heart rate variability. So, depending on the type of day you've had before working out, the watch will set a Limit Heart Rate value between the fitness zone and the fat-burning zone. This allows you to adjust the intensity of your workout. The limit heart rate value will vary depending on how active you've been during the day. This helps you gauge your activity level, and to not overdo it. Cool, huh?

Keeps track of your workouts:
You get a training summary after each workout: Calories burnt, fat percentage of calories burnt, average heart rate, maximum heart rate, time spent in the fat-burning zone, and time spent in the fitness zone. It also gives you weekly summaries. The watch keeps up to 50 training sessions, which can be viewed at any time. You can delete any session or all of them. Once the watch starts running out of space, it will erase the oldest training session in order to save your latest session.

CONS:
I wish the heart-rate monitor could keep track of every heart-beat during the workout so that I could graph and see the various levels of my workout intensity. But that would probably require a LOT of memory. I don't think such a watch exists. I could always see a cardiologist.

A word of advice:
I seriously recommend you have the battery changed at a qualified watch repair shop. When I changed the battery in the women's version of the FT40, it didn't get a good seal. Consequently, whenever I washed the watch with soap and water, the buttons malfunctioned. The watch display faded, and the numbers became difficult to read. No matter how much I tried to dry the watch, it never worked properly again. That cost me a new heart-rate monitor. Lesson learned.