Fun & Fitness over 50

My wife gave me a heart rate monitor for Christmas. A Sports Instruments FIT3. I love my HRM! This is a good quality entry-level device. The two things I like most about it is that it is simple to use and the zoom display. I'm not sure what the price is but it's on the low end of Sports Instruments product line. You can probably get one for about $30.
It comes with an instruction manual that includes a starter training plan (which I am currently using) developed by Sally Edwards of heartzones.com fame.
The device uses a wireless chest strap transmitter.
Some of the notable features are: keeps up to 7 workouts in memory in which you can view total time spent in each training zone, average heart rate and calories burned; a fitness test – the Rockport 1 mile walk test; zoom display with backlighting; displays real-time heart rate in % MHR.
The FIT3 also has an alarm which lets you know when you are outside of your selected workout zone but it doesn't do me any good because my high frequency hearing is shot. I can only hear it barely if I put my ear right up to the watch never mind on a bike ride with all kinds of ambient noise. I wish they had adjustable volume on those alarms.
The other minor gripe I have is with the documentation. When I initially setup the watch, I was able to enter my weight in pounds. Later when I went back to change it as my weight changed, I could only enter it in kilograms! What's up with that? Every time I wanted to adjust my weight I had to convert it. Finally after poring over the manual and looking online I found this little gem in the programming instructions: (NOTE: When the unit is set to
24 hour time, all User data will be set to metric units). I had set the time to 24 hour after I initially entered my weight. This may seem clear when I point it out here but what I was looking for in the instructions was something like How to set weight in pounds or kilograms.
But that's really not a show stopper. The other feature I would like to see is 5 training zones rather than the 3 broad ones they use. The watch is pre-programmed with Health zone: 50-70% MHR, Fit zone: 70-80% and Performance zone: 80-100%. 50-70% is pretty broad. I'm over 50% just getting up out of my chair. Nevertheless, it's still workable as I can read the actual percentage right off the display. The only drawback is the five zone detail isn't recorded in the logfile. I just have to keep track of it manually. Another convenience feature I would like to see in the recorded data is maximum heart rate for a workout. As it is, I have to take a look at the watch when my perceived rate of exertion is maxed out. I suppose those are features of more advanced level HRMs.
All-in-all I'm very pleased with the FIT3. For a starter unit, it's affordable, easy to use, reliable and can provide the core heart rate data to support an ongoing and successful fitness program.