The Polar Grit X2 Pro is a smartwatch that seems adrift

Polar makes good multisport watches. They’re just not particularly smart. That wasn’t always a problem because there used to be a clear line. Athletes went with Garmin and Polar. Casual users went with an Apple Watch, Fitbit or Samsung smartwatch. Things are less clear today. There are more casual and stylish Garmins, while Apple and Samsung have their own models clever multisport watches — and that leaves the $749.95 Polar Grit X2 Pro stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The Grit X2 Pro is designed to be a premium outdoor watch. It improves on the previous one Grit X Pro with improved sensors (e.g. heart rate, skin temperature, etc.), larger display, dual-frequency GPS, EKGs (no atrial fibrillation detection, just more accurate heart rate data), offline maps, and USB-C. These types of updates are generally good. The problem is that everyone else has made much greater strides in the last two to three years. The Grit X2 Pro feels a bit stuck in time.

As far as fitness tracking goes, it’s a solid watch with plenty of battery life. (I got about eight to 10 days on a single charge.) But for $750, it’s got a lot to live up to. can’t do on this watch. For example, you get notifications and alarms, but that’s about it. If I want to leave my phone And I can’t listen to my music through the watch. Offline playlists aren’t a thing; the best you can do is use your Grit X2 Pro as a media controller. Let’s say I want to pay for a Gatorade after a long run at my local 7-Eleven. No, no contactless payments. If I want to make a phone call, use a voice assistant, or be assured that someone will be notified if I take a hard fall, it’s not going to happen.

Five years ago, this wouldn’t have been an issue. But in 2024, I can pay $800 for a Garmin Fenix ​​7S Pro Solar — a fancier model than the standard — to get pretty much everything the Grit X2 Pro has, plus solar charging, offline playlists from Spotify and YouTube Music, Garmin Pay, safety features (though these require your phone), and ECG tracking that do have AF detection.

An $800 Apple Watch Ultra 2 gets me a much better ecosystem of third-party apps, LTE connectivity, crash and fall detection, music streaming, EKGs, and much better integration with my smartphone. When it arrives this fall, watchOS 11 Samsung will offer a workout charging feature that, while less robust than Polar or Garmin’s, gets the job done in a digestible way. Samsung is rumored to be launching a Galaxy Watch Ultra this month — and I’d bet big that it’ll offer a similar experience for Android users. The point is, if you’re planning on spending money on a premium fitness smartwatch, you have plenty of alternatives that offer better value for money.

You could argue that Polar isn’t trying to fix what isn’t. It made its name on deep fitness metrics, great GPS, and long battery life, much like Garmin. As long as it does those things well, who cares? That’s a fair point. If those are the only things that matter to you, I have few complaints about the Grit X2 Pro, other than that it’s expensive and a bit heavy for my tastes. In testing, GPS and heart rate accuracy were on par with my Apple Watch Ultra 2, a few Garmins, and a bunch of other Android smartwatches. Sleep and recovery metrics were roughly on par with my Oura Ring. The most innovative metric was Sleep Boost, which predicts when you’ll be most alert during the day. (In practice, I have a hard time trusting it because it’s so hit-or-miss.)

Whatever statement Polar is trying to make with the Grit X2 Pro, it’s just window dressing. You can give it a more premium design and upgrade a few sensors, but the Grit X2 Pro doesn’t meaningfully improve the things that have always been annoying about Polar watches. The Polar Flow app still feels horribly cluttered and stuck in 2016. It’s not easy to digest. On the wrist, Polar’s ​​interface is still clunky with finicky swipes and too many button presses to get what you want. It’s a matter of taste, but the Grit X2 Pro’s watch faces are average at best, don’t make the best use of the OLED display, and don’t convey the elegance that this price tag warrants.

Considering what’s out there, I think only Polar fans would seriously consider buying a Grit X2 Pro. And even then, I’d go for the $599.95 price tag. Vantage V3. It gives you about 95% of what the Grit X2 Pro does, but trades the tougher materials and luxurious look for a lighter, more portable design. Frankly, I think that’s something most athletes (Polar’s target audience here) would prefer.

Unfortunately, the Grit X2 Pro’s disparate parts aren’t enough to make it the premium watch Polar hoped it would be. To do that, it needed to be smarter or add something Polar had previously lacked. As it stands, it’s a competent watch. But for $750, competent just isn’t enough.