Verdict
The Suunto Race is a peachy multisports watch with a colour filmdom that comes in tawdry than the competition and evince Suunto is back on track .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Suunto Race is Suunto ’s first true sports sentinel with an AMOLED display as it get together Apple , Garmin and others in moving away from less colourful filmdom technology .
It ’s charge as a performance spotter for racing and training and aims to put a watch on your radiocarpal joint that will accurately track your movements , analyse that training sentence to make better training decisions and also be useful when you ’re not getting all sweaty .
It ’s a watch that comes in cheaper than the excellentGarmin Forerunner 965,Apple Watch Ultra 2and the newly announced Polar Vantage V3 , so should you be bucket along with the Suunto Race ? Here ’s my take .
Design and screen
Suunto has certainly step things up on the feeling front with its watches in late geezerhood , and the raceway is another very attractive instalment .
You ’re pay off a military machine tested , 49mm - sized watch that measures in at 13.3 mm blockheaded and pack a polymer subject with a match silicone polymer strap that can be easy move out . Like Suunto ’s Vertical lookout , you may catch the Race with either a stainless brand or titanium bezel ( envision ) . Going for titanium pushes the price up , giving you a design - dominating bezel that still deal to keep matter down to a accomplishable weight .
Suunto prefer for three strong-arm buttons , including a rotating diadem to scroll through the sentinel software system . Those are flank by flatter buttons , with the top one consecrate you quick approach to the physical exercise tracking sieve and the bottom one getting you to the control panel options menu .
Suunto includes a 1.43 - inch , 466 x 466 solvent AMOLED touchscreen presentation . It ’s a good - sized screen and firm quality AMOLED panel , which can be set to stay on 24/7 . I ’ve had no major visibleness issues with it . It can go dainty and bright and it ’s fundamentally give you a higher resolution venire than the one sport on the Garmin Forerunner 965 .
The lookout carries a unassailable waterproofed rating , letting you take it for a plunge up to 100 metres depth . I ’ve endure it for swims and kept it on in the shower bath and it ’s all still in working order .
Software and smartwatch features
Suunto has looked to vastly improve the software experience on this watch compared to previous watches . It ’s definitely been an area that ’s needed body of work and the Race does signal a footmark in the right-hand direction with some body of work still yet to be done .
hook down from the watch CRT screen baffle you to the workout trailing screen . Swiping the other direction from the same place incur you to your mise en scene menu and to glance at uninterrupted wellness and convalescence metrics . you could also pin some of those metrics and feature as full screen widgets .
It ’s certainly a much more straight Suunto watch to apply than old Suunto watches , but one return unfortunately remains , and that ’s the screen fall behind . It ’s frustrative because everything else Suunto has done here with the software program works well and is let down by that quite noticeable meanwhile when interacting with it .
The Suunto associate app is n’t the most drug user - favorable experience either and feel a bit fussy . You do have access to Suunto ’s SuuntoPlus app storefront , which lets you lend everything from a score comeback for a game of dart to a gym timekeeper . It ’s no Apple Watch app store , but it does mean you may enhance the Race ’s usefulness out of doors of the core sportsman feature .
As a smartwatch , you ’re not getting Apple or Garmin horizontal surface of smartwatch features . you could regard notifications and there ’s some utilitarian medicine playback control while you could view weather prognosis and sundown and sunrise times . What is here work well . It ’s not the richest notification supporting you ’ll discover on a sports scout or smartwatch , but if you’re able to survive with the basics , it does those well enough .
Fitness tracking
The Suunto Race is an all new watch series for Suunto and while its previous watches have leaned on being more focused on venturer , the Race feels more in the mould of watches like the Garmin Forerunner and Polar ’s Vantage series . It ’s a multisports watch with over 95 + sportswoman modes and need to be a watch that accurately traverse your training , offers counseling and analyses your training and will still invoke to your inner adventurer sprightliness .
The core sports tracking experience is solid on the whole . It has the double - ring GPS fashion that Suunto admit on its Vertical vigil and likewise performs well to boost truth in thought-provoking locations , like cut through near marvellous buildings or in highly forested areas . I ’ve been using it against Garmin ’s impressive dual - band mood along with the same style on Polar ’s new Vantage V3 and the Race has take up really well on the accuracy front .
I ’ve used it for swims and indoor workout like rowing and treadwheel runs and the data point accuracy has been very good . It ’s been a moment more of a commixture bag with the kernel rate tracking however . Even for some firm paced workouts the ordinary and maximum heart rate version have not quite been in line with a heart rate monitor chest strap .
It was a like narrative for continuous heart rate data , where the Race typically send high readings than Garmin ’s dependable continuous monitoring support . you’re able to at least pair extraneous ticker rate proctor to remediate that truth military issue and I ’d advise on doing that base on my experience .
Another enceinte feature here is the mapping and navigation backup . Again , this was a feature that debuted on the Suunto Vertical and now it also have a splashing of coloring material for those free mapping . To get those mapping you ’ll call for to download sections of map you want on the Suunto companion app and then sync them over to the spotter via Wi - Fi once you ’ve fell it back on the charger . Downloading and syncing a portion of a map can take a while . It took over an hour when I had to do it , just to grab London off the available realm .
The mapping and piloting mode works well . you’re able to use the touchscreen and rotate crown to zoom and move around mapping and the colour does add a raw dimension in term of pick out detail like greener areas or bodies of water that are in the vicinity . If you want to put the seafaring feature of speech to use , you ’ll require to create a route in the Suunto app and activate the navigation support before it starts usefully pointing you in the good direction outside .
Suunto ’s training and analysis features are intertwine with the Race ’s fittingness and sleep tracking features , which arguably are n’t this watch ’s greatest strength . This is led by Recovery HRV , which requires two week of sleep tracking data and suggests you track slumber at least 3 times a week to verify those retrieval insights are insightful . During that sleep Suunto is capturing heart rate variableness measuring to better sympathise your recovery in between preparation .
I used it alongside Garmin ’s HRV status fashion , which perform in a similar fashion and HRV averages were generally in line of merchandise . The Suunto Race sleep trailing , however , was n’t hugely true . While it captured similar sleep periods as theOura Ring Gen 3 , the actual sleep time recorded was importantly shorter at fourth dimension . in the end , it feels like a recovery metric that in isolation feel a bit complex to take on board and put to really respectable use .
There ’s a Suunto Coach that look at your grooming load and how you ’re feeling after a workout to point your fitness level and how you ’re adapt to grooming . Again , it does n’t feel like it ’s a very engaging feature article on the Suunto Race . I would n’t say Suunto quite mate what Garmin and Polar offers on the training and analysis front just yet , but there ’s vindicated room for advance .
Battery life
The Suunto Race anticipate some pretty impressive battery number and the assault and battery operation on the whole is impressive for an AMOLED display - packing sentinel .
Suunto says you could get up to 12 day in smartwatch mode , which means displaying notifications and using the activeness tracking features . That jumps to 26 days if you use the more restrictive basic watch mode .
I used the Suunto Race with a mix of bear the screen set to always - on mode and also using the raise to wake motion support , along with even exercising tracking and using the bodily function trailing and notifications enable . I establish that in more intensive use , day-to-day battery drib - off was on average 10 % . That still entail you could get a good week out of this picket .
When you need to lead off using the GPS , in top GPS accuracy mode you could wait up to 40 hours and that goes all the way up to 120 hours if you reduce the sampling of GPS and trench heart pace tracking . In that top , threefold - stripe GPS mode , battery fall - off for over an time of day of use was typically just less than 5 % . So , it ’s contain its own against watches like the Garmin Forerunner 965 .
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Should you buy it?
The Suunto Race offers a sports trailing experience on par with pricier multisport watches from Garmin and Polar .
The Suunto Race wo n’t give you things like payments and a euphony player , with computer software that leaves you with that laggy feeling . hold in out ourBest Smartwatchlist for honest options .
Final Thoughts
Suunto was fall behind the competition and with the arrival of the Vertical and now the Race , it truly has a multisports watch that can unfeignedly be consider with the rivalry . Crucially , it also comes in tatty than similarly specced vigil from Garmin , Polar and Apple too . condition out ourBest Running Watchguide for alternative options .
Trusted Score
How we test
We soundly screen every smartwatch we review . We utilize industry - standard examination to liken feature article properly and we habituate the watch as our chief equipment over the recapitulation period . We ’ll always narrate you what we find and we never , ever , accept money to refresh a product .
FAQs
Yes , you’re able to view maps on the Suunto Race once you ’ve downloaded and synchronise map files from the Suunto phone app .
Yes , the Suunto Race is waterproof and has a 100 thou water resistance evaluation , make it safe to be submerge up to 100 metres deepness .
