The Polar Vantage M3 has launched and it’s an AMOLED sports watch packed with features to help you track your activity and workouts. With its attractive design and features like offline maps, multi-band GPS and ECG measurements, the Polar Vantage M3 could shake up the mid-range market, with the Apple Watch Series 10 and Garmin Forerunner 265 among the watches it will compete with.
Costing $399.90 in the U.S. and £349 in the U.K., the Polar Vantage M3 comes in significantly cheaper than Polar flagship AMOLED watches — the Polar Vantage V3 and Grit X2 Pro — while offering most of the key features you can get from the brand. It's available from today in two colors — Night Black or Greige Sand.
The more expensive Polar watches do have more durable designs and longer battery life, but the Vantage M3 will still last up to seven days in watch mode, and offers 30 hours of workout tracking. It has a Gorilla Glass screen and a steel bezel, and a 1.28-inch AMOLED display that’s a little smaller than the 1.39-inch screen on the Vantage V3.
It’s a major upgrade on the Polar Vantage M2, which didn’t have an AMOLED display, maps or dual-band GPS, and while the price of the Vantage M3 is $100 higher, it’s a fair given the new features you’re getting and the fact the Vantage M2 launched back in 2021.
Polar has lost ground in the mid-range sports watch market to several brands in recent years, with Garmin’s watches offering more attractive designs and sports features. and Apple and Samsung offering great smartwatches with capable sports tracking.
The Vantage M3 could make Polar competitive again because it’s offering some key features you don’t get on Garmin watches at this price — most notably offline maps, which aren’t available on the Forerunner 265 — and it will deliver a better sports tracking experience than smartwatches like the Apple Watch 10 thanks to having buttons, longer battery life and dual-band GPS.
In my experience of testing their watches over the years, Polar also excels when it comes to sleep tracking and the Vantage M3 will offer insights into your training load and recovery, and suggest workouts each day.
One area where the Vantage M3 will still lag behind rivals is smart features. Polar watches do offer notification support and music controls, but they can’t store music and there’s no NFC payments or app store.
I’ll be testing the Vantage M3 out as soon as possible to see if it lives up to its promise as a competitive mid-range AMOLED sports watch, but for now it’s just good to see Polar offering premium features like maps at a lower price.
