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Polar Street X: One minute review
Polar has released its latest sports smartwatch, the Street X. With a brief to create an ‘urban sports watch for those who live, work, and train in the city’, Polar has produced a chunky G-Shock-style watch that is tough, lightweight, and ‘always ready’ to go.
The rather basic design and poorly implemented user interface stand in contrast to gorgeous and sleek alternatives such as the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8. The Street X might offer a 50m water rating and military-grade durability (perhaps a little redundant for city dwellers), but this comes at the expense of a design that is properly thought through and finessed.
Thankfully, there are no issues with the bright 1.28-inch AMOLED display that’s covered by tough Gorilla Glass or, indeed, GPS accuracy that keeps up with more expensive smartwatches, including the Garmin Tactix 8.
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Solid performance continues with mapping tools that allow for route navigation and mixed-terrain training, although GPS tracking often takes upwards of a minute to lock in. In a day and age when we expect instant results, this is frustrating.
Based on our experience with the Street X, we don’t expect it to feature in our best smartwatches guide. Accuracy aside, its running features can’t keep up with Garmin’s dedicated offerings.
Polar Street X: Specifications
|
Component |
Polar Street X |
|
Price |
$249.99 USD / £219 UK / $429.99 AUS |
|
Dimensions |
45mm wide, 13.8mm thick |
|
Weight |
48g with strap. 28g without strap |
|
Case/bezel |
Bio-based plastic |
|
Display |
1.28-inch AMOLED Gorilla Glass |
|
GPS |
GPS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS |
|
Battery life |
Performance training mode: 43 hours. Smartwatch mode: 10 days |
|
Connection |
Bluetooth® LE |
|
Water resistance |
WR50 |
Polar Street X: Price and availability
- $249.99 USD / £219 UK / $429.99 AUS
- Pricier than expected, given the materials and specs
- Cheaper alternatives exist from more established brands
The Polar Street X sits alongside the Finnish brand’s cheaper Pacer range, rather than the more expensive Vantage and Grit series’. . At $249.99 USD / £219 UK / $429.99 AUS, it is significantly cheaper than the Pacer Pro and only a little more expensive than the Pacer. The watch ships in three different colors: Night Black, Snow White, Forest Green.
One of the best alternatives, also boasting an AMOLED display and onboard GPS, is the Amazfit Active 3 Premium. Priced at $169.99 / £169.90, we were so impressed that we awarded it an incredible five-stars.
If you’re a Garmin fan, then the slightly pricier Forerunner 170 at $299 / £259.99 / AU$479 is worth a look. We found it to be “extremely accurate” during treadmill tests “despite packing Garmin’s older heart rate sensing technology.”
Polar Street X: Design
- Chunky shockproof design with a budget feel
- Fiddly strap but a comfortable fit
- Very poorly designed user interface
The Polar Street X boasts a classic shockproof design with a five-button configuration similar to the best Garmin watches. They are chunky and clunky, and accessing the top left side button to go backwards through menus is incredibly awkward for a right-hander wearing the watch on the left wrist. I also wasn’t a fan of the long button presses that were required to avoid accidental presses. In practice, these were a second or two longer than they needed to be.
Both the case and bezel are made of ‘bio-based plastic’, which means renewable biomass sources were used rather than petrochemical alternatives. It’s also robust enough to protect the internal components from damage even when dropped. Durability credentials include a 50 meter water resistance rating and MIL-STD-810H testing that demonstrates the Street X’s ability to withstand high and low temperatures, rain, sand, dust, and vibration.
The AMOLED display isn’t huge; in fact, the 1.28-inch diameter felt a little restrictive, especially considering the poorly designed user interface, which fails to take advantage of the full screen. Menu items are also curved at the bottom of the interface, but they don’t follow the circle shape of the case, which is rather jarring.
The 416px resolution delivers a clear image and is protected by Gorilla Glass, which is ideal for users who are prone to dropping their smartwatches. The screen is touch-enabled, features ‘always on’ functionality, and features an ambient light sensor.
I often think one of the most overlooked elements of a smartwatch design is the strap, and Polar has fallen foul of that too. The strap includes an awkward catch design, which I found incredibly fiddly. That said, once the watch is securely positioned on the wrist, it is comfortable to wear, even for long periods of time.
Polar Street X: Features
- Extensive training and health tracking
- Navigation features including route guidance
- Smart features and utilities for a broader smartwatch experience
At the heart of the Polar Street X is a set of tracking tools for training, including Training Load Pro for making sure your body doesn’t become overstrained. For runners there is a Running Program feature where you can select one of four running events: 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon, and get a personalized, adaptive training plan that fits you and your goals. This is a simple but well-implemented solution for keeping you on track.
The Street X offers all the health tracking that you would expect, including continuous heart rate, step count, and calorie burn. Beyond this, Polar has packed the watch with a skin temperature sensor for early indication of fever, inflammation, or impending illness. Polar also says that “women can use these skin temperature insights to better understand which phase of their menstrual cycle they are in.” Skin temperature sensors are common in wearables now, as devices like the Apple Watch and Oura Ring use them to calculate cycle tracking and help predict illness.
The features that set the Street X apart from super-budget alternatives relate to mapping and navigation. With built-in GPS, users get the benefit of route guidance, breadcrumb trails, and elevation profiles. The ability to return back to your start point either by the same route or beeline means you can pick whichever option suits you when you get to your end point. There’s also a built-in LED flashlight, altimeter, and compass.
Polar Street X: Performance
- Accurate GPS, but signal lock-on takes far too long
- Extensive metrics help athletes improve
- Training features are nice to have, but serious runners will want more
My experience of the Street X smartwatch was a bit of a mixed bag, with some elements performing brilliantly but others struggling. There’s no denying that it offers a solid set of features that go beyond some budget alternatives, but the implementation of these is far from perfect.
Take the onboard GPS as an example. Given the price, I wasn’t expecting incredible things, but having to regularly wait over a minute for a GPS lock left me underwhelmed. That said, once the GPS signal was found, it was as accurate as one of our trusty benchmarks, the Garmin Tactix 8.
The watch offers over 170 sports and activities as well as the ability to manage training loads, strain and tolerance. I primarily used running, cycling, and walking modes, and even though all the required data and functionality were present, I found it difficult to navigate around, even after a number of times using the watch.
The Street X features basic maps with a range of navigation tools. I was impressed by the inclusion of ‘Back to Start’ navigation with the ability to choose either ‘Via Beeline’ or ‘Via Same Route’. The maps clearly display the necessary turn-by-turn directions, so getting lost is next to impossible.
After exercising, an extensive set of metrics, including energy used, pace, cadence, and speed zones, can be viewed on the watch, although they are far easier to digest in the Polar Flow app. It’s also possible to choose from a drop-down list of options to record how the exercise felt, but you can only add more detailed notes using the app.
The Street X offers optical heart rate measurements as well as heart rate zones and heart rate variability. Heart rate readings matched my dedicated heart rate tracker.
In terms of smart features, the Street X packs everything you’d expect from a mid-range smartwatch, including notifications, weather, Find My Phone, and music controls, although for the last, it is only controlling your phone’s music, not anything loaded on or streaming from the watch itself. The only smart feature I was left craving was the ability to reply to texts.
The watch has a built-in LED flashlight, which I used to navigate around my poorly lit neighbourhood, although it wasn’t really bright enough to light my way. And in reality it was no stronger than the torch on my iPhone, so the watch’s flashlight was surplus to my requirements.
The battery performance sits at 10 days for general use and 43 hours for constant GPS. This is reasonable for a sub-$250/£250 smartwatch. Recharging from empty to full took me 70 minutes, although 0-50% took only 30 minutes.
Polar Street X: Scorecard
|
Category |
Comment |
Score |
|
Value |
A little overpriced compared to the competition but still relatively good value. |
4/5 |
|
Design |
A G-Shock-esque design with robust credentials. Unfortunately, it lacks finesse. |
3/5 |
|
Features |
A solid set of features including dedicated running tools and onboard GPS |
4/5 |
|
Performance |
GPS accuracy is a standout, but signal lock-on takes longer than it should. |
4/5 |
Polar Street X: Should I buy?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
How I tested the Polar Street X
I wore the Polar Street X smartwatch almost continuously for a month. During this time I went on a number of runs, cycles, and walks while comparing the unit to the Garmin Tactix 8 and Huawei Watch Ultimate 2. I also compared the heart rate measurements with a dedicated heart rate tracker.
First reviewed: September 2026
Read the full article here
