Heart rate monitors

Which ones are the best.  Polar F6 and 11 are the two most popluar on here.  But is there any others that are just as good.

Like:
~Timex
~Garmin Forerunner 50 Sports watch with HRM, Foot Pod and USB ANT™ Stick
~Ironman Bodylink System and Watch - HRM/GPS
~MF-180 Finger Heart Rate Monitor

What makes polar the best? 

Really want to get one but I want to research what the best and most affordable.  What I can live without and what I absolutely need in a model.

I dont want to waist my money, but I want something accurate.  I want to work on getting back into running and work on my times and just to know the basics on how I am really doing.

Any advice would be helpful. 

I bought the New Balance N3 a few weeks back and it's horrible. It doesn't work half the time and was very difficult to set. The only thing it's good for at this point is the band shows up on our precor elliptical's heart monitor.

I would splurge on a decent one if you're in it for the long haul.

I bought the Polar f55 a few weeks back and I love it so far. I haven't used all the features yet but was able to program it easily w/o much help from the manual.

The chest strap is really comfortable, I love that it shows how many calories burned, and it beeps when I need to speed up or slow down it's like a personal trainer. (you can turn the beep off of course if it bothers you).

You can get it for $160 on Ebay.