The Polar Grit X2 Professional. All photographs courtesy of Polar.
In releasing the Polar Grit X2 Professional ($750) with a launch video this week, Polar goals to discover a place amongst premium GPS watches for ultrarunners and out of doors endurance athletes. This second model of the Grit X Professional mannequin sees the watch get a bigger watch face, a beautiful AMOLED display, longer battery life, extra correct distance and velocity measurements, improved coronary heart charge monitoring, and extra biometrics, amongst different enhancements.
Launched in 2022, the unique Polar Grit X Professional served the same market to the Coros Vertix line, however didn’t land with the identical fanfare that has adopted Coros the final a number of years. Since then, Suunto launched its glorious Vertical, one other very rugged operating and multisport watch, Garmin launched new Fenix and Enduro fashions, and even Apple has grow to be a participant within the house with the Apple Watch Extremely and its replace.
A commonality with these journey watches is the large display dimension. It’s an aesthetic query whether or not you favor it or not, however there is no such thing as a denying it significantly helps with navigating maps — particularly when touchscreen-enabled, which the Grit X2 Professional is — and deciphering the information these watches present. The Grit X2 Professional is 15% larger than the unique. That provides it a display diameter of 1.39 inches. For reference, the Coros Vertix 2 is 1.4 inches, the Suunto Vertical is 1.9 inches, and the Garmin Enduro 2 is 1.4 inches.
Most of those watches, together with the Grit X2 Professional, land round $700, with the Enduro extra like $1,000. That is very costly for a operating watch. However in every occasion, you’re going to get an especially high-performing watch that can work for just about each different exercise kind you possibly can throw its approach whereas being practically unbreakable with sapphire glass and a titanium physique, and very data-rich. And for endurance aficionados, battery life now generally exceeds 40 hours in a high-performance mode, which usually makes use of the very draining trio of dual-frequency satellites, in depth biometric monitoring, and every-second GPS pings.
Nonetheless, in contrast to these different watches on the similar value level (save for Apple), the Grit X2 Professional differentiates itself with its new AMOLED display. Suunto contains a related AMOLED show on its cheaper new Race watch, however the Grit X2 Professional is now the one watch in its class to supply this beautiful show. After experiencing the brightness and readability of an AMOLED display, many will discover it arduous to return to a watch with an OLED display.
The Polar Grit X2 Professional’s display.
Polar claims 43 hours of battery life in efficiency mode, which is on the higher finish of those competitor watches. Compared, the Suunto Race could be the brand new finest at school with round 45 precise hours. We goal to substantiate Polar’s declare within the coming months throughout testing. Not like the Suunto Vertical and Garmin Fenix 7S, there is no such thing as a photo voltaic charging assist within the Grit X2 Professional to increase its battery’s run time barely. In a extra restricted smartwatch mode, Polar says you possibly can count on 10 days of steady utilization. We might be stunned if the battery didn’t final for 30 or 40 days in its most conservative settings, just like the competitors.
The unique Grit X Professional didn’t have entry to all 5 world satellite tv for pc networks and didn’t use a dual-band GNSS chipset. The brand new Grit X2 Professional not solely has twin frequency capabilities but it surely’s additionally augmented by the GPS Sign Booster, a hoop antenna inserted beneath the bezel that helps reinforce the built-in GPS. These upgrades ought to result in extra correct measurement of distance and velocity.
World mapping is on the market by means of separate downloads and turn-by-turn steering is obtainable at the side of Kamoot. It was unclear whether or not the downloadable maps will probably be labeled.
One other have a look at the Polar Grit X2 Professional.
The Grit X2 Professional additionally will get an up to date optical coronary heart charge sensor. With it comes the bio-tracking Elixir tech suite first launched within the Polar Vantage V3, which incorporates biometrics corresponding to oxygen saturation (SpO2), coronary heart charge variability (HRV), and sleep monitoring.
Lastly, it’s notable that photographs of Karel Sabbe have been plastered throughout Polar’s pre-launch video and advertising and marketing imagery for the Grit X2 Professional. Few ultrarunners are as profitable at long-trail quickest identified instances and the Barkley Marathons as Sabbe, so he’s a logical ambassador for Polar to put round its new premier GPS watch.
In sum, the Polar Grit X2 Professional provides one other full-featured GPS watch possibility for runners and runners who additionally ski, bike, climb, swim, and way more.
After testing it absolutely, we’ll goal to share a full evaluate of the Polar Grit X2 Professional within the coming months. Within the meantime, take a look at our in depth GPS operating watch critiques, together with a Suunto Vertical evaluate, and Finest GPS Operating Watches information.
The Polar Grit X2 Professional in motion.
