POLAR M430

£199.50 Worthy upgrade to the already impressive M400

We tested the M430’s predecessor, the M400, in the summer and it scored impressively. The M430 comes with a few modest upgrades but is over £40 more expensive. Part of that price increase comes down to a new six-LED optical sensor, which is similar to the one used on Polar’s M600. And like the M600, results are relatively impressive, matching our benchmark chest-strap model accurately with the odd skew, probably down to higher-intensity efforts; that said, readings were great on the bike. Like the M400, it’s not designed for the swim.

The other significant tweak is sleep tracking. Like all the features on the M430, it’s easy to use and access the results. Simply keep it on at night and Bluetooth transfer to the Polar Flow app on your phone or laptop in the morning to get a load of data, including sleep time, actual sleep and interruptions. It’s a worthy performance upgrade, but accuracy’s hard to gauge and we have concerns unless you’re tapped into an EEG headset.

The battery life’s greater than the M400, ticking off up to 30hrs with GPS on. Also impressive is the GPS, which connects and maintains pickup. You can also download training plans from the Flow site; connect to TrainingPeaks and Strava; and monitor daily steps. The only moot points – the strap isn’t the most comfy and, at £200, it’s near full-on tri-specific territory. JW polar.com