Polar Ignite 3 Titanium review (2023) is it worth the price?

The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is the sequel to the amazing Polar Ignite 2, which came out in 2021. In the fast-paced world of smartwatch technology, two years is a long time, so Polar has changed the style of the Ignite, which was already great and very attractive. The good news is that it still has the same value draw and fits nicely into the mid-price range. This makes it a good choice for people on a budget who want one of the best running watches.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Description

The Polar Ignite 3 is the first Polar watch ever to have an AMOLED screen. This is a big change from the brand’s usual black-and-white screens, which make the watch really shine. The watch also has a cool set of exercise features in a small, light package. Having used several Polar trackers before, this made me sit up and pay attention.

The Ignite 3 has both a tablet and a single button. Most of the time, you’ll use the touchscreen to move around, but if you hold down the button for a long time, it will start a ‘back’ sync. Even though Polar’s Ignite line has had this one-button design for a long time, many one-button watch companies added more buttons in 2022. And even touchscreens with only two buttons got more buttons. I think Polar might have missed the chance to ride that wave because he waited too long.

In any case, the AMOLED touchscreen looks great and is by far the best monitor Polar has ever used. The glossy, rounded sides look great in person, and the size of the screen is comparable to many devices with bigger screens. By making the monitor curved, they are able to hide the bezels well. Something like what we see on the Google Pixel watch, but done a little bit better.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Pricing

The Polar Ignite 3 is now available from Polar or from a number of famous online stores, such as Amazon. It costs $329.95 in the United States, £289 in the United Kingdom, and $428.67 in Australia.

Specifications Table

The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is mostly about the titanium bezel, since the extra software functions have been moved back to the cheaper Ignite 3.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Design and Build

The Polar Ignite 3 is a very simple watch. It has a circular touchscreen and just one button on the left side to open and close apps, pause and stop workouts. It can be black, brown copper, sand, or purple. Strangely, all of them have different casing styles, such as grooves, lattices, smooth, and scored, so be sure to see which one you like best.

All of the straps are made of silicone and have a standard buckle and a loop to tuck the end into. The inside is smooth, but the outside is patterned, which I don’t like because it feels rough and catches dust and (sorry) skin particles that make it look dirty. They are 20mm in size and easy to switch out if you want to use other ones from Polar’s online shop. I looked at the black model, which is very simple but the best choice for a low-key look.

The Ignite 3 is so light that, with the strap, it only weighs 35g. This is very amazing considering the watch has a heart rate sensor and GPS built in, and it’s one of the main reasons to buy it because you can forget you’re wearing it. It’s the most comfortable watch I’ve worn to bed to track my sleep, whereas other, bulkier smartwatches are a pain (literally). It’s one of the smallest GPS watches on the market.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Display

The 1.28-inch screen is probably the best thing about this model. Once it’s turned on, it’s beautiful to look at with crisp, clear, and very bright colors. The edge of the bezel has a nice pattern of vertical lines, but it looks and feels like these grooves could get marked or scratched over time. The 1.28-inch AMOLED screen has a resolution of 416 x 416. During my time with the Ignite 3, the display on the Ignite 3 Titanium never got scratched.

If you’ve been looking for a Polar watch with a colorful screen like most smartwatches have these days, the Ignite 3 Titanium is a great choice. The case of the watch only has one physical button, so there’s a lot of focus on using the touchscreen, which I’ve found to be very fast. This case is paired with a 20mm silicone watch strap that can be taken off and has a classic watch buckle. Then you’ll have to pay more if you want to add leather.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Performance

At first glance, both the way the Polar Ignite 3 looks and the list of features look good. However, once you start using it, some holes start to show up. After loading the Polar app, setting up the watch was fine, but not as easy as with some other watches. Since then, the Polar Ignite 3 has also seemed less than eager when it comes to syncing. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the process going. But what’s more annoying is that this watch isn’t easy to use every day.

It often seems like it’s not doing anything, which makes it hard to tell if it is or not. That means hitting the back button on the left side of the bezel or touching the screen more than once. On its own, this seems stiff and insensitive. It makes sense to have a button that can’t be accidentally hit, so that workouts and other things don’t get canceled, but it’s a little too strict for its own good. There’s no way to keep the full display on all the time, this is even more annoying when you’re working out.

So, when you are running, for example, you have to raise the watch to your face to see your time, pace, and other useful information, but the watch either doesn’t notice that it has been raised or takes a while to turn the screen on. Compared to other running watches that either show stats all the time or respond quickly, the Ignite 3 is hard to use because it can’t keep up with even my most basic requests. It only has a 192MHz CPU and 5MB of RAM, which is the bare minimum.

This is enough for watches with lower resolution screens, but it’s not enough for the Ignite’s bright AMOLED. When you play music or a podcast, audio controls show up on the watch so you can change what you’re listening to from there. However, you can’t put tracks onto the watch itself; it can only act as a remote for your phone. If you run to music, you’ll always have to bring your phone with you. Overall, the Polar Ignite 3 has problems with how well it works and how easy it is to use, which is a shame because it looks so good.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Health and fitness tracking

The Ignite 3 doesn’t work like a smartwatch. It’s a fitness tracker with GPS tracking, a good set of health features, and nice-to-haves like customizable watch faces. It can track specific activities like running, walking, cycling, HIIT sessions, swimming, indoor cycling, treadmill running, strength training, hiking, and mountain biking. If what you’re doing isn’t listed, you can choose general indoor or outdoor exercise. This will still make sure that your heart rate and GPS moves are recorded, if needed, so you can log that exercise.

I wore the watch every day for a few weeks and used it to keep track of my walks, long hikes, and runs. Aside from the speed problems I’ve talked about, the Ignite 3 does a good job tracking. But when I zoomed in on the GPS trail overlay for some of my runs, the route cut turns, making it look like I ran over greens I hadn’t, or that I had gained the ability to run through walls.

The Polar Flow app, which you can use to connect the watch to your Android or iOS phone, isn’t the easiest to use, but when you look at your workouts, you can see a lot of useful information, like your heart rate and zones, pace by distance, elevation change, calories burned, and a full GPS map with distance markers.

I found that the GPS locked on well and almost never lost connection. When I look at the results in Polar Flow, I know that the Ignite 3 is accurately tracking what I am doing. This makes me want to keep wearing it and trust the data it gives me.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Battery Life

The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium’s battery life hasn’t changed from what was promised for the first Ignite 3. You’ll get up to 5 days of normal use, with 30 hours of GPS battery life and a power-saving training mode that lets you track workouts for up to 100 hours, though you won’t get heart rate data or GPS data as often.

I found that those numbers match up again, and this is a watch that can last just under a week with daily use of features like notifications and music controls while also tracking workouts. You can set the screen to stay on all the time, which again drains the battery and gives you just over a day’s worth of use. A GPS-based hour of running used up 8% of the battery, and Polar’s sleep functions still use up a bit of power, draining the battery by 5% overnight.

Polar Ignite 3 Titanium: Pros and Cons

The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is a stylish fitness and wellness watch that can help you live a more energized life. It keeps track of your sleep, activity, and heart rate so that it can give you advice that fits your body and way of life.

Final Words

The Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is the brand’s most attractive watch to date. Its slim, sleek form and bright AMOLED screen make it stand out. Even though the app isn’t very easy to use, it gives accurate information and has good battery life. Because it doesn’t have any lifestyle features, this is more of a fitness and health tracker than a full-fledged smartwatch, and the slow touchscreen makes it hard to use when you’re on the go. If you’re just starting out with fitness, a generic smartwatch may give you all the information you need.