New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for Running

The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running is one of the best running watches available in the market today. It helps runners track their speed, time, distance and heart rate at an affordable price. The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running is designed to suit the training needs of casual runners and athletes. For those looking to re-invent or re-schedule their training session the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch is an ideal companion.

New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for Running - Design

The attractive sleek design is what draws customers to the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running. The sleek design makes it comfortable for running. The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch consists of an easy interface bevel. The bevel is surrounded by five buttons namely, mode, view, start/lap, set/light and stop/reset. The slim bevel and adjustable strap not only contribute to the sleek looks but also make the watch comfortable for wear across various sports.

New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for Running - Usability

Setting the features of the New Balance N8 Trainer  watch for running to your liking takes some time as it requires very specific series of button operations. The instruction manual in such times comes in very handy. The instruction manual of the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch is very clear and precise. Once you have programmed the settings of the watch to your liking changing the display or recording training sessions during a workout and reviewing it later is actually quite easy.

The watch is also water resistant up to 50 meters hence now training in pouring rain will not be a hassle anymore.

The only drawback to the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running is its memory capacity. Since the watch can store only 10 runs at a time you have to manually delete your previous training sessions to be able to store more current ones.

New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for Running - Features

Speed:

The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running helps monitor speed during your runs with the help of a foot pod that straps on to your shoe. The foot pods consist of an accelerometer that records any changes in foot speeds. The watch then adds up the stride distance which is divided by the total time taken to give you the speed.

The downside to the speed function in the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch is that it is not accurate. The speed function works extremely well when used to run in a straight line but does not calculate speed so accurately when you run on a circular path.

The foot pod otherwise accurately measures cadence. Since tracking the cadence allows the runner to monitor any changes occurring in the gait the foot pod helps in maintaining form.

Heart Rate Monitor & Speed and Distance Monitor:

To help casual or serious athletes train better the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running comes with digitally coded heart rate monitors and speed and distance monitors. This prevents cross talks between the two monitors resulting in better tracking of your speed, distance and heart rate.

The heart rate monitor of the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch hence can now seamlessly record not only your current heart rate but also provides you with information about your average heart rate and the maximum heart rate. The data hence collected without any transmission interference helps you design and schedule improved training sessions and also calculates the number of calories per training session.

Target Alarms:

The heart rate monitor of the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch is designed to produce audible and visible alarms that help you achieve and also stay within your training targets. The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch contains a built in target zone that indicates whether your training has been below, above or at par with your training target.

Auto Lap:

The timing functions of the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running works seamlessly to efficiently record time and distance. The Auto Lap feature of the N8 Trainer Watch has a 50 lap/100 hour chronograph capacity that allows you to run a lap and record the time taken to reach the distance set by you.

Memory:

The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running also has a 10 run memory capacity which stores a summary about every run consisting of details like time, distance, speed, cadence, heart rate, total steps and laps/splits.

Auto Power Save:

While indoors the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch can also be set to an auto power save mode where it functions as a normal watch. The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch can be used across two time zones. The watch also has two alarms with an option to choose between 12 hour and 24 hour time-day-date format.

History:

The history mode allows you to review your runs. Each run has a header containing the date of the run and other details like total time, average speed, calories burnt, time in zone, current heart rate and maximum heart rate.

What’s Missing:

Despite the great features that the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running offers it does not allow mapping functions. Though the N8 measures cadence which the GPS watches do not, any other GPS watch would provide the same data as the N8 Trainer Watch while also providing the option of recording and tracking your training sessions on websites like MapMyRun.com or with softwares like Sport Tracks.

New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for Running - Summary

Though the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running was not designed to compete with the GPS watches it does fall short on its own features with inaccurate measurement of speed. Though no running watch provides accurate measurements of speed the watches from the Garmin stable, especially their Forerunner series are quite accurate. However for improving your training sessions by controlling your form you need to monitor your cadence which is not measured by any of the GPS watches no matter how accurately they calculate speed.

Competitively priced between $135 and $150 the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch has maintained its popularity among other watches in the same line like the Timex Ironman Sleek, Garmin Forerunner 60, Suunto T1C Fitness Trainer and the Polar RS300 heart rate monitor wizard. For the price tag the New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running provides the basic information an all in one heart rate monitor would provide to help in better training.

Help support Running Watch Review. The New Balance N8 Trainer Watch for running is available from these online stores:

  • Amazon.com
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