Review of Polar CS400 Cycling Computer

Polar CS400 Cycling Computer
By: Polar Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 5
More Information

cycling heart monitor

On: 2008-08-27

Does not come with wrist band nor USB IR connection device. That would be helpful.

Great upgrade from the CS200

On: 2008-07-01

I first purchased the CS200 and tried it for 3 weeks and upgraded to the CS400 [...].

So this review is somewhat a comparison of the two.

The biggest difference is that the CS400 records information every 5 seconds such as speed, cadence, HR, and altitude. While the CS200 only stores the trip information, max/min/avg speed, max/min/avg cadence ...

For HR monitoring the CS400s every 5 second recordation (this can be adjusted to every second, or to longer intervals) allows me to see visually how long I lasted at peak output as well as a visual graph of escalating HR in comparison to speed and cadence. The CS400 has 5 HR zones. The CS200, on the other hand, records the amount of time in 3 zones (above target zone, target zone, below target zone).

The CS200 only stores its limited amount of information for the last 7 rides. The CS400 stores up to 99 rides worth of information or 14 hours of information when recording every 5 seconds. I commute to and from work and often ride at lunch, so I was having to be sure to upload the information every 2 days or lose the data. With the CS400 i do not have to upload except every 14 hours of riding ( for me thats every other week or so).

The polar personal trainer 5 software that comes with the CS400 is far superior to the webtrainer that comes with the CS200. There are visual graphs, excellent calendering, and the information stays resident on the local computer instead of polars servers (which makes the whole process slower).

Additionally, I found the IR method of transfering information from the cyclometer to the computer much better than the sonic system used by the CS200. After trial and error I found the "sweetspot" of angle and distance and settings to get the sonic system working - but I would say it was only successful 75% of the time, and then I would have to retry. (the sonic system passes information only in 1 direction cyclometer to computer, so if the computer misses the start of the transmission you have to restart). The CS400s IR method is 2-way so if the Computer misses the start of the transmission it sends a restart command to the cyclometer.

Installation of both products on the bicycle was exactly the same. In fact I left the sensors that came with the CS200 on my bike when I upgraded and only replaced the cyclometer.

There are many other differences, most did not matter at all to me.

I would note that I have not found the altimeter of the CS400 to be very accurate, for instance if you ride a loop you will find your start and stop points to have different altitudes even though it is the same spot. But it does allow you to see relatively that you were climbing or descending and track the correlative speed HR and cadence related to the ascent/descent.

I installed the Polar IR USB module and the polar personal trainer 5 on both XP and Vista computers with no problems.

So. In summary I found both products worked as advertised. But I found the features of the CS400 worth the extra expense.

CS400 as a mountain bike and commuter bike computer

On: 2008-03-30

I really like the CS400...I have had the unit almost a year now and use it almost daily. The first unit I had died almost immediately but Polar sent me a replacement promptly which has worked perfectly to date. I really like the ability to commute for a week, ride a mountain bike trail on the weekend and then download all of the data to my computer to see the weeks activity. Perhaps the best feature is the understanding of heart rate to exertion and the personal ability to sustain effort at various exertion levels. I have been able to use the real time heart rate data to grind through long climbs better than any other time in my life...I have enjoyed the CS400 and have recommended it to many people.
I give the CS400 my highest recommendation...I would have given it five stars except a friend bought one shortly after me and it, too, died. Polar, again, replaced the unit and the replacement has performed well.

Not working; Polar not responding to my emails

On: 2007-12-03

This device wont report speed properly, and transmitter works find (as confirmed using my Polar CS200). Too bad Polar customer service is unresponsive to my request for help. Ill mail it back and see what happens.

Nice unit; but poor customer support and limited memory

On: 2007-12-03

After this device wouldnt report speed properly (speed would be reported inaccurately or would not exceed a certain too-low speed), I contacted Polar customer service by email, but they were unresponsive to my request for help. I eventually fixed the problem myself by removing the battery for 30 seconds or so and then placing it back (in effect rebooting the unit). That did the trick; so Id raise my review to 3 or 4 stars, but Amazon doesnt let me corect that rating. This computer works fine, and I like the enhanced features (altitude, degree of ascent, temperature, etc.), but its inability to store multiple long rides is a real downside, as I often dont have time to download one ride before proceeding to the next. The CS200 stores at least 5 rides (but with less data than the CS400). If this downside is not a concern, then this unit is a nice upgrade of the CS 200, but with memory so cheap, Polar needs to really needs to provide more memory for the CS400.

Easy to use and accurate

On: 2007-11-09

Ive used this cycling computer for about 300 miles now and have found it to be both accurate and easy to use. The unit is compact and set-up is simple. This is my first and only cycling computer, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I have been completely pleased with this product.