From DCRainmaker:
Running – Sub-$200 Watch
There’s a lot of great options in this range. I’d look at the Polar M400 or Garmin FR35 as your best bets. I’ve been wearing the FR35 the last month and it’s a very solid little watch. The M400 is older, but Polar has mostly kept it up to date with various firmware updates. The FR35 has optical HR, whereas the M400 doesn’t. You could look at the Polar M200 for optical HR inclusion, but honestly it doesn’t do 24×7 HR (though it does do structured workouts). To me that’s still a really big gap in the Polar lineup, compared to almost everyone else out there now (Fitbit, Garmin, Apple, TomTom, etc…).
What about the TomTom Spark watches? Well, I’d look at the next category. In many cases you can get them for sub-$100. Though the ones with optical HR are in the sub-$200 range, and those do include optical HR. In some ways TomTom has more features than the base Polar units do. Yet in other ways, Polar has more features (again, structured workout support).
So, to summarize, I’m good with: Garmin FR35, TomTom Spark (1 or 3), and the Polar M400. I’m not fully sold on the Polar M200.
Running – Best Sub-$100 Watch: TomTom Runner
TomTom continues to nail this category. With their original TomTom Runner watch often sub-$100, it’s a no-brainer. It usually floats in the $89-$99 range. It’s got GPS, a few different running modes, and some might even find the original Spark for that price range as well (which nets you the other sport modes like swimming and cycling). Seriously, it’s an awesome deal.
Sure, there are other cheap no-name GPS watches in that ballpark (usually more $60-$80), but overwhelmingly the complaints I hear from folks is that the software on those platforms is flaky at best, and cumbersome at worst. In my occasional testing of units out there (I buy a lot of random stuff to try out), I find the user interfaces super-old school and support rough. It’s usually just worth an extra Starbucks Frappuccino or two to get a unit from TomTom here. Note that semi-rarely you might find a Garmin FR15 or FR25 sub-$100 on a sale or something. I’d say the FR25 at sub-$100 would be worth it, but the FR10/FR15 at sub-$60 would be more appropriate..