TomTom Spark Cardio + Music

DITCH THE PHONE AND GO WIRELESS.

THIS BASIC-LOOKING SPORTS watch packs in a lot of big features at a tempting price. If you frequently go swimming, cycling and running, but don’t tie all three sports together, the Spark range of watches are for you. For the money, you get a GPS watch with an optical heart-rate monitor on the back of its snug, well-fitting body. While the unit isn’t exactly sleek, it’s understated and easy to use, with a large, easy-to-read monochrome LCD screen backlit by LEDs. That’s the ‘cardio’ part of t he title, and the ‘music’ refers to 3GB of storage pre-loaded with music from Ministry of Sound. While it may not be to your taste, it’s been picked to get you as motivated as possible, and you can add your own using the included USB cable with your PC or Mac (any set of Bluetooth headphones are compatible). A four-way button layout under the screen makes navigating through the menus simple, and from the get-go, you can pick from the usual array of outdoor- and indoor-based cardio exercises, plus ‘freestyle’ for gym work. Although the GPS can take a while to find satellites, it’s accurate, and like the more expensive Suunto, it leaves digital breadcrumbs so you can retrace your steps. This tester sometimes struggled with results in the pool, as the Spark would sometimes under-represent laps taken. A firm push at the end of the lane sometimes fixed this. Battery life is low in this category — expect roughly five hours with GPS, or a week of general use. The accompanying app deserves praise for its ease of use. You’ll only need to do some shallow digging to get a good idea of your metrics, rounding this out as a perfect intermediate package.