Customer Reviews:
 Not so much poor documentation as no documentation April 18, 2008
One of the reviews I read of this product on another site is that 'you need a PhD to understand the instructions'. Well, I've got one and I'm here to tell you that it didn't help. All the instructions say is 'see diagram 7a' or 'see diagram 8f' and so on, and the diagrams are tiny and incomprehensible. After several weeks of experimentation I found that you really can get the device to give you a figures for calories burned (the trick is to tell it how hard you intend to exercise in the initial set up (??) and not use the stopwatch).
It has some good points. The unit works OK although it is very sensitive to the position of the chest band - you constantly have to check the wrist unit to see if it is registering 0, double or your real heart rate. The stopwatch is useful (unless you want a calorie count) and the wrist unit easy to read. But I have to say that I bought this as a cheap alternative to the Polar F4 and, on the whole, I wish I hadn't been so cheap.
 Entry level product January 4, 2008
For the price, this heart rate monitor is pretty good. With an easily readable display and adjustable target levels, it's fairly straightforward to get going with a bit of prodding and poking. The manual isn't the best, but the functions are not wide ranging, so it doesn't take too long to get a feel for the watch. The transmitter strap does have a tendency to slip and slide a little, and the readings stop as it does so, but if firmly attached and comfortably positioned, then normal function is wholly adequate.
Basic price, basic functionality November 27, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Have had this watch for several months now and it is just gathering dust.
I found the sensor quite intermittent when doing exercise (despite moistening repositioning)
I found the buttons counter-intuative and therefore was forever resetting etc. So much so that I lost faith.
all in all not one of my better buys.
 Bad documentation November 11, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This might be a good piece of kit, but it is badly let down by the documentation, which borders on the unintelligable.
What I wanted was a heard rate monitor that would tell me my pulse while training, and tell me the total number of calories consumed in a session.
So far I've yet to get a meaningful calorie figure: I've just come back from an 8 mile run and it claims I have burnt 397 calories, which doesn't sit well with the figure of 340 calories on a 3 mile run a few days ago.
At the front of the documentation are a series of diagrams. The rest of the booklet has information in a succession of languages. This comprises some general fitness information, and then specific instructions for different functions which each refer to the iagrams at the front. Alas there are mistakes: page 15 refers to a diagram "11c", but there are only diagrams "11a" and "11b", and where the diagrams are there, I found that the pattern of responses to buttons pressed was not always the same as the diagram implied.
The problem may well be the documentation rather than the kit, so one answer may be to be patient and continue fiddling, but I am tempted to throw this out and buy another.
Basic heart rate monitor that does the job October 19, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Despite the almost indecipherable instructions with over complicated diagrams that force you to flick back and forth, this is a fairly basic heart rate monitor that does the job for a reasonable price.
That is to say it lets you know if the cardiovascular work your doing is likely to make a real difference by allowing you to set targets and monitor progress. If you're working out in a gym, you probably don't need your watch to guide your programme as each machine will do that for you. And most cardiovascular gym equipment will read your heart rate direct from the belt, which almost makes the watch itself redundant.
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