Sports Watches: Top 10 GPS Performers going into 2018

Here we are looking at JUST the GPS performance of the sports watch. Not only how it reports distance but also how well it tracks your route. So it could be the worst ever sports watch in terms of user-friendliness, but if it tracks a route well then it scores highly here

These are performances over a specific test route I have. Generally that route throws up good and useful results. I’d say that the Top10 table, above, is a very useful pointer to GPS accuracy. Even if something is 5th then maybe with more extensive testing it would come out 4th or 6th…but it wouldn’t come out 24th, if you get my drift. So if you think the Polar V800 is uber-wonderful; then maybe it is, don’t worry about it being in 6th. 81% is a GREAT score.

The only cautionary note is the Polar M200. It is NOT that good. It had a really, really, really good day. (Did I say ‘really’?)

Another cautionary note is the SPARTAN ULTRA. In my experience it did not perform as well as the other SPARTANs (I had 3 of them). So do NOT extrapolate good GPS performance from that of the other SPARTANs, shown above.

I would also add that if you use a properly calibrated footpod for speed and/or distance then you don’t really need GPS for that much else. Nearly all sports watches will produce a post-workout GPS track that tells you where you went to a satisfactory degree, even the Ticwatch S will do that (test result here)

The full test files, methodology and table of results are here, link to the5krunner.com. OK, you can go off and buy a Garmin or an Apple Watch now.

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