Another day, another test on the new Polar M600. Despite a relatively nice day outside I settled down to watch the newish ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ movie…on the bike, in the shed. It was either that or the ‘Unbearable Lightness of Being’ but I thought I just might understand the former and could pedal a bit harder whenever an alien appeared.
The Edge 820 was VERY unresponsive to reason and touch but I won’t go into that right now. It did eventually decide to work.
Instead let’s look at the test which was essentially all I could manage today with a warmup and then some short 1 minute intervals. They were Z5 intervals but felt quite hard even though I did seem to recover form each one quite quickly.
For the purposes of this test I did it on a road bike and purposefully change hands position quite a lot to try and throw the M600 off the scent.
A couple of problems re-emerged. You might notice, at the top of the image, the need for a 50 second offset to align the two tracks and you wont notice but, again, there seemed to be an issue where the display ‘froze’ at 116bpm, That MIGHT have been the bit around 30 minutes. If that is the case then maybe the display WAS aligned with what was recorded (previously it was not).
Despite the ‘freeze’ there was a wobbly bit at 48 minutes and a mini-wobbly at 14 minutes. Still quite good I suppose but not as good as the excellent run results I’ve had.
For loyally following the M600 tests (I’ll probably save the rest until the review next week) here is an interesting graphic I stitched together of the various in-exercise screen displays on the M600.
These are all visible during a single workout.
Here I configured 4 displays in Polar Flow and ALL FOUR OF these are shown in the first proper COLUMN. Well, I thought it was quite cool 🙂 Non-Polar users note that Polar has automatic laps AND manual laps unlike Garmin where a manual lap advances the athlete on to the next autolap.
Last Updated on 16 January 2026 by the5krunner
My favourite kit and nutrition
- Maurten — the race nutrition trusted by elite athletes. Gels and drink mix engineered to be easy on the stomach.
- Garmin 90-degree charging adapter — the small adapter that keeps your charging cable tidy at the stem. Essential for race day.
- Garmin charging puck — the fastest and most reliable way to top up your Garmin before a session.
- Ravemen FR300 — front light that mounts directly under your Garmin or Wahoo head unit. Keeps your bars clean and your beam pointed where it matters.
- Garmin Varia RTL515 — radar rear light that alerts you to vehicles approaching from behind. Pairs with your Edge or Garmin watch.
- Stryd — the footpod that brings running power to your Garmin. The single most useful running upgrade I have made.
- Favero Assioma Pro RS2 — the power meter pedals most serious cyclists end up choosing. Accurate, easy to move between bikes.
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
the customizable watch faces and lapping is pretty cool in polar
some competing androidwear ‘apps’ do the LAP from a screen tap. oh dear. when you have a sensitive screen that’s an issue.