Monday, November 09, 2020

Suunto 7 In-Depth Review: A Wear OS GPS Sport & Adventure Watch with On Board Hi Res Maps

Article by Jeff Valliere and Sam Winebaum

Suunto 7  ($500)



Introduction: 

Jeff: The Suunto 7 is Suunto’s first real foray into the smartwatch realm, cleverly combining smartwatch allure and functionality by utilizing Google Wear OS in a sport watch with most (but not all yet) essential training features and hardware.   

It’s key defining feature is on the watch mapping (and routing) with different map styles for multiple selectable sport modes and even for "Winter".


As a Wear OS watch you have access to a multitude of apps from the Google Play store you can load to the watch and use.


While not marketed toward the hardcore, endurance sports crowd or mountaineers looking for maximum battery life, it rides the line for those looking for a classy, functional smartwatch with accurate GPS, on board detailed maps, exercise metrics/tracking and a rugged, yet refined outdoor look.  

The Suunto 7 box sums the product’s focus well.


Sam: Jeff describes the focus of the S7 well. I will get to the bottom line right away. 

Consider the S7 if  you are looking for a sports watch that has:

  • Deep connection to a full array of non sports related “apps” from the Google Wear OS ecosystem and mostly regardless if you are on iPhone or Android. We only tested with iPhone. Proprietary system watches such as Garmin, Polar, and Sunnto’s other watches don’t go nearly as far.

  • Customizable run and multi sport data field availability (recent update) as you would expect from a dedicated sports smart watch, and analogous to other sport dedicated watches. In our experience superior data field availability to any Apple Watch or Android app approach, although our experience with these is limited..

  • An outdoor adventure focus with truly spectacular very detailed maps with almost every trail or road imaginable in sharp view and able to be created on routes  on a vibrant 540x540 screen, almost double the resolution of dedicated sport watches such as Coros Apex Pro, Polar Vantage V2, Garmin Forerunner 945 or Fenix 6 Series. This is the highlight feature.


What the S7 won’t get you compared to dedicated sports watches:

  • While perfectly adequate and now optimized with a Good GPS mode with Fused Track to admirably fill in the “gaps”, you will not get a long battery life. Details below but you will see a maximum of around 12 hours in Good tracking mode and a touch more than 2 days of battery life in everyday mode with no workouts tracked, This everday battery life is generally similar to the Apple Watch and other AMOLED display watches which require far more battery use to “light” the screen outdoors.

  • You will also not have the ability to set up and use workouts, intervals, etc.. as of yet anyway
But I am optimistic about the future here. When the S7 launched it had no data field customization and a very limited number of fields and fixed and no extend Good battery mode. The first update completely changed the picture from about what you would expect from a platform watch but with great maps to a true multi sport watch with better if not yet competitive to dedicated OS sport watches.

First impressions:

Jeff:  Out of the box I am struck by the look and feel of the watch.  I normally prefer black, as it blends in with everything, but the Sandstone/Rose Gold is very classy and elegant looking, a welcome departure from my conservative color choices.  Powering the watch on, the Amoled display is very sharp and vivid, the touch screen is fast and responsive and the depth of the menus/apps/features alluring and the possibilities of Wear OS are intriguing.  The touch screen is responsive and easy to use, while the silicone strap is soft, supple and comfortable.


Sam: My version has an all black watch case with a black top of band with lime yellow under at the wrist side. As Jeff says above you will be immediately struck by the vibrant screen and the excellent reliable response of the touch swipe screen, mostly used in everyday mode as there is a full complement of buttons to use during training.


There are 4 standard watches faces built in.

You can “fill the circles” with basic data from any of the apps you have on board. The signature heatmap watch face (top left) can show the heat or community use of roads or trails for any of the sport profiles and can be zoomed in and out. I do not see a way (as of yet) to change the colors of watch hands, etc… My personal favorite is the Marine theme (top right).  Not only does the second hand move but 3 other quarter minute hands also move in sync with the second hand.


Specs/Fit/Feel/Finish:


Jeff:  At 70 grams, the Suunto 7 is not the lightest GPS watch out there, but it feels light in the hand and more importantly, on the wrist.  The bezel is stainless steel, the case is made of glass fibre reinforced polyamide, the screen is Gorilla glass and the band is a very soft, stretchy and comfortable silicone.  


The watch face is 50mm with a watch thickness of 15.3mm, which in comparison to the S9 Baro is the same size face at 50mm and 1.5 mm thinner than the 16.8mm of the S9 Baro.  The Suunto 7 weighs 11 grams less.  Both have the same bezel and case materials, though the S9 Baro has crystal sapphire lens.



While the Suunto 7 is a large watch, I find it to be very comfortable to wear, not at all heavy feeling and reasonably thin enough to fit under a sleeve and not bump into everything during day to day life.






Left to right:  

Suunto S9 Baro, Suunto 7, Garmin Fenix 5X, Coros Vertix, Garmin Fenix 5 Plus, Garmin Fenix 6S Pro


Sam: I agree with Jeff the S7 is comfortable to wear but it is not as comfortable as it is thicker and heavier than some its most direct competition. We have both found that watch size, weight and thickness can affect wrist heart rate on skinny runners’ wrists such as Jeff and I have.. 


While the weight and thickness may be an issue in comfort and heart rate accuracy for some what you get is by far the largest, highest resolution screen of any direct competitors to admire and to use with those incredible maps. You will also get a thinner and lighter watch than Suunto flagship S9. And to power that screen battery life is lower than the competition 

There are always tradeoffs... 

Links to RTR Reviews

Weight

Case Dia.

Screen Resolution and Dia.

Thickness

Battery Life Hrs /Mode

Mapping

Price

Suunto 7

70g

50mm

454 x 454, est.1.4”

15.3mm

8.25 Best, 12.5 Good

Many Map Styles: Outdoor Roads, Winter, Sport Specific

$499

Suunto 9 Baro

81g

50mm

320 x 320 

15.8mm

25 Best, 50, 120 


$600 (now $499)

Polar Vantage v2

52g

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13mm

35 hrs Best 

Breadcrumb, Turn by Turn Directions

$500

Coros Apex Pro

59g/ 49g nylon band

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13.4mm

40 hrs Best

Breadcrumb

$500

Garmin Forerunner 245

38.5g

42mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

12.2mm

23-24 hrs Best

Breadcrumb

$300

Garmin Forerunner 945

50g

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13.7mm

22 hrs Best

Full Topo and Roads, turn by turn on roads

$600


Google Wear OS and Overall Smartwatch Functionality:

Jeff:  Google Wear OS has a wide range of apps that you can upload to the watch through the Google Play store over WiFi such as weather, news, stocks, fitness, watch faces, Google wireless Pay, etc…  Downloading them is easy and many of them are free of charge, but like with the entire world of apps, many are teaser apps with basic offerings and an opportunity to upgrade to paid versions.


The top left button accesses all the apps and settings. A swipe right during a workout will also access them.


I find many of these apps and features to be fun to play with and handy as to not always have to pull the phone out of my pocket and the utility will ultimately boil down to the individual and what you are looking to get out of a smartwatch.


Sam: The apps are neat but as with Jeff,  I didn’t find many personally useful beyond the weather and the highly legible message notifications. If you have an Android phone you should be able to reply to messages via the phone but not with iPhone. You will have access to voice search for example in the Google Play store. Apps need to be downloaded via WiFi. I voice searched and downloaded the Wear OS Strava app and found it very, very basic in comparison to the Suunto run app. Clearly Suunto did a tremendous amount of work to create such a customizable multi sport app before even getting to the maps.


Maps:

Jeff:  The maps here are spectacular and present in vivid detail on the 454 x 454 resolution screen, about twice the resolution of competitors.  The 1.4” display is also an added bonus, which is also larger than most other GPS mapping watches and equal to the far pricier Garmin Fenix 6X.  


Maps are automatically downloaded to your watch when you charge and are connected to WiFi, covering a 40 square mile radius of your location.  You can also download additional, but a limited number of maps if you plan to travel outside your current location and downloads happen when you create a route.  There are pros and cons to this method however with the pros being that the maps are very well detailed, are free and present on the screen vividly and with great detail.  


The drawbacks however are that if you are travelling, you really have to plan ahead if you will be off the grid.  You can download over your mobile data, but that requires reception (and a robust data plan) and also a lot of time.  In fact, it takes so long, so many hours as I tried to test, that I just simply give up and question whether or not it really even works or not.  I have attempted this with an iPhone 11, with good reception and an unlimited Verizon plan, but have not yet had success.


You can also create or import routes very easily within the Suunto app, creating freehand routes, or using heatmaps to assist.  Loading and following routes is very easy and accurate, however there are no turn by turn directions. You can download routes and adjoining areas and rapidly while not on WiFi but not the large off line area maps





The additional offline map area is shown below.  You can drag the box over an intended area and download one additional map to be stored internally on the watch for a detailed map view when out of your home area.  This works great if you plan ahead, but it is not ideal if you are on a long trip with minimal WiFi access. 



Heatmap Night View

Suunto 7 (left) Garmin Fenix 6S Pro (right)


Sam: The maps here are spectacular with a far easier to navigate pan and zoom (touch screen and buttons) than on the Garmin with mapping (945 and Fenix Pros) which are all button based.

Name that peak. Easy Reids Peak!

This said there is no turn by turn directions feature as the Garmin have for roads and Polar (with Komoot) as for both roads and trails have although keep in mind Polar uses breadcrumb style routes so no topo or roads in view.


After you create the route in the app it will rapidly download to the watch unlike the slow experience when you define a larger area without routes and then download and then only via WiFi. And you can do the download of a route when off WiFi.


Route Following

Sam: You create your routes in the Suunto phone app and then transfer to the watch. I found the Suunto route creation excellent in its ease of use with most every trail available for selection. I did find a potential bug in more zoomed out views which put my taps on trails off trail into strange places but a quick zoom pinch snapped them into place. Below is an example from one of my favorite local trail complexes.


You can create your routes using heat maps created by the community. As shown below I generally use mountain biking if I know the trail complex focuses on that sport as more trails tend to come in view on the heat map. As you zoom out you will discover other hot spots in orange for your chosen sport some you may not be aware of. Touch the sport and change the heat map for other adventure options. Neat!

Or select your own trails and roads as available in the map data. I generally create routes this way after a glance of the area heat map.

As you tap the segments the app keeps track of key data. Once done and saved sync to the watch and follow. 


There were a few exceptions of marked Forest Service trails shown on paper maps but not in the app and for those when comparing to Garmin and Polar map databases, I found they didn’t have them either.

Above a view of distance and elevation remaining on a hike in the high Unitas of Utah we loaded to the S7. I appreciate the data overlay over the map. As of yet it is not customizable as Garmin's overlay is but the key basics are here: vertical and time to go, distance to go, and when refreshing also time elapsed. If memory serves the white label at the bottom is the name of the end off summer now dry lake seen. By swiping the screen down a bit we would see the full name of the peak seen above.

And above the view of Jupiter Peak above Park City with the ski lifts also indicated during a trail run where we were not following a loaded route. Note that there are many map styles available including winter, cycling, road and trail running, hiking and walking, and many others.


While on a loaded route, the watch will alert you if you go off route as shown below.

The return to route is at the tan horizontal area showing just to the left of the end of the sidewalk. I found the alert to be at at least if not more than100 meters off track, whereas both Garmin and Coros generally alert at about 70 feet (20 or so meters)  That is a big distance and could be improved. in my earlier testing. Jeff has seen alerts at around 30 feet more recently for his Garmin Fenix 6S.



Optical Heart Rate Accuracy:


Jeff:  HR accuracy and usability have not worked well for me during testing.  24/7 tracking is only 15 minute sampling and thus somewhat irrelevant and you have to dig deep through the watch menus to get a glimpse of the reading in real time (where with the Garmin Fenix series, you can see HR in real time on the watch face).  Additionally, HR data over time is not shown in the Suunto app, but instead in the Google Fit app and even then is only a very minimal overview.


Accuracy while running has been mostly off by at least 20 beats, often more, confusing HR with cadence, reading very low on steep uphills (90’s even though my HR could easily be in the 160’s), then higher on the downhills and sometimes seems accurate when HR happens to coincides with cadence.  To gauge accuracy, I have always compared with a Garmin Fenix 6S Pro paired with a Garmin chest strap which is very accurate.


If you want to pair the Suunto 7 with a heart rate chest strap, you are essentially out of luck here as well as there is no current support for such a sensor



Sam: I would tend to concur with Jeff on heart rate accuracy. It is not great. Most of my runs are on more mellow terrain at slower paces and it has been adequate but not as solid as the competition which is lighter and thinner. In all likelihood the weight of the watch at 70g and its physical size are the key contributing factors for our skinny wrists. Recall my analysis of watch size and weights above. The smaller the size and weight generally the better the fit and the more accurate the heart rate. 



Battery Life

The recent update’s official spec with new Good mode and Fused Track is up to 12 hours in training mode.


Sam: After extensive testing in September I reached the following conclusions as to battery life.  Battery mode can be changed during tracked activities at any time. My multiple tests in training modes with GPS and wrist HR are summarized below:  


Best Mode

8.25 hours, with screen always on, wrist HR, no route following

6-7 hours with screen always on, wrist HR, route following


Good Mode

12-12.5 hour spec is met in Good mode with screen always on, wrist HR, no route following

9.25 hours in with screen always on, wrist HR, route following


Mixed Use

37.25 hours to zero with a total of 2.25 hours of GPS/HR use during the period


Everyday Use 

51 hours with notifications, no Google Fit and no GPS activities during the period


Jeff:  I’ll preface my statements here regarding battery life with the acknowledgement that the high resolution AMOLED display is a battery burner and such screens are not known for long battery life.  The default tilt to wake feature in every day mode helps preserve battery life however and it also helps a lot to just not look at the screen that much.  The more you wake, the more battery it uses.


At first because of the obvious reasons, be it excited to play with and setup a new watch and/or review purposes of really digging deep into features and functionality, I would easily rip through a full charge in less than a full day, which included about 90 minutes of GPS use on my morning run, then frequent futzing with all of the screens and settings.


On average, with bluetooth, wrist HR on, tilt to wake still set as standard and in GPS mode, my bread and butter morning runs of about 90 minutes consume 25% battery life, so 6 hours has been about the maximum average time estimate for continual usage.  I rarely run that long, but occasionally on the weekends I’ll run for 3 hours, which with not even looking at the screen more than once or twice, I’ll burn through half of the battery and then the remaining 50% with suffice for the remainder of the day, but that is if I barely touch or use the watch.


Real world use has proven about half of the advertised 2 days general use or 12 hours GPS.


On a recent run, I ran for 3 hours and 23 minutes and that ate up 72% of the battery which indicates less than 5 hours battery life in training Best mode.  Oddly, a few weeks prior, I went on a 3 hour bike ride and only used 30%, but that was a real outlier and have never seen that level of performance either previously or since.


Since typing the above, Suunto has released a software update that improves battery life, mostly in the form of new options to configure tracking rate utilizing their ingenious Fusedtrack technology.  Fusedtrack changes the GPS read intervals from 1/sec. To 1/minute and calculates based on a variety of other watch sensor readings to lay down a surprisingly accurate track while improving battery life.  With this change, one could see up to 12 hours of continuous GPS usage in Good mode.


Charging:


Charging is easy with a 4 pin magnetic charging cable.


Sport Modes:


Jeff:  The S7 has many of the sport modes you would expect on a GPS sport watch, at least all the biggies.  Accessing is easy, utilizing the touch screen and or buttons.  GPS acquisition is quick.

Once in the chosen Sport Mode you can select a loaded route, chose Best or Good battery mode and if you want with the map screen light always on (does it by default in a dimmer mode), type of alert (vibration or tone), your Map options including style, and if need be define an offline area on the watch, understanding you need to be on WiFi to download it to the watch. 

You can navigate the options by swiping the touch screen or via the buttons. You can access all the options including selecting a route except to change sport mode while underway by swiping up.




Data Fields and Data View Customization


Sam: When the S7 originally launched it had fixed data fields and quite frankly was limited as a sports watch. Who relies on Instant Pace, the only Pace shown? Not me. I always rely on Average and lap paces for running while current Speed is fine by me for hiking. 


With the recent upgrades the S7 now has as full a set of available data fields and customizable screens as any dedicated sports watch out there. 

Given the legibility of the screen in bright light I will be sticking to the first view with two large data points and the small fixed one below which shows elapsed time in this view. For slower paced hiking I have had no issue with greater numbers of data elements legibility. 

Currently available data fields are shown below. 


Note the strong emphasis on vertical data in the view below, adventure and mountains being a clear focus of the S7


GPS Accuracy:


Jeff: I found GPS accuracy to be good overall, on par with watches such as the Garmin Fenix 5X and Suunto Spartan Series but lagging behind the watches I have found to be most accurate such as the Garmin Fenix 6S Pro and Suunto S9 Baro.  The overall distance recorded over a 10 mile run for example it typically within .1 to .25 which I find to be expectedly acceptable when comparing GPS watches, but when overlaying the track of the S7 with the Fenix 6S Pro (S7 is blue in screenshots below), it tracks closely for the most part, but tends to drift more to one side or the other and is more likely to have odd anomalies.


S7 (blue) closely follows the Fenix 6S Pro for the most part, but is not as well aligned with the true track on the ground.

Comparison graphs via: dcanalyzer.com


Below is a more clear illustration of how well the Fenix 6S Pro (purple) tracks over the trail, whereas the S7 (blue) cuts a corner and meanders a bit.


More of the same below.  Of course this is not always the case, but occurs fairly frequently, perhaps half the time on every run.


FusedTrack accuracy:  


Jeff:  FusedTrack is a key feature which debuted on the Suunto 9.  FusedTrack is genius as it extends battery life while maintaining GPS track accuracy. It fills in the blanks in the seconds BETWEEN the 60 second (“Good” mode) GPS ping intervals, where "Best" mode utilizes 1 second pings.  Of course a greater interval between GPS pings helps to conserve battery life, but decreases accuracy. Using the accelerometer, gyro and compass, FusedTrack improves track accuracy over the traditional tracking method, where the gap between the longer ping intervals would simply be blank, a straight line, which may not be an issue if running out and back on a perfectly straight road, but runners make turns, especially on trails, which are prone to be curvy, meant that accuracy was compromised to a greater degree.  When using the “Good” setting, FusedTrack works exceptionally well and I would not hesitate to use and expect reasonable accuracy if I were looking to maximize battery life ( up to 12 hours in Good without route following vs. the 5-7 hours in “Best” again without route following).  


In my tests, I have found that the S7 in “Good” mode utilizing FusedtTack, distance reads on average .05 mile less than my Garmin Fenix 6S Pro in best mode.


You can see in the photo below, that the S7 (blue line) in Good mode parallels the trail reasonably well on average.


The S7 in good mode (blue) tracks very comparably in a straight line.



However, accuracy in good mode degrades on switchbacks (S7 blue)



Altimeter:

Jeff:  The Suunto 7 combines both Barometric and GPS calculated altitude, called “FusedAlti”.  I have found that the altimeter is very accurate and tracks very closely with the Fenix 6S Pro, with only minimal, but occasionally necessary calibrations.



S7 (blue) paralleling closely with the 6S Pro (purple) 


When used in the battery saving “Good” mode however, I have noticed that the altimeter is less accurate, which can be seen in the odd jumps below.




Amoled Screen:


Jeff:  As mentioned, the Amoled screen is sharp and vivid with over 540 x 540 resolution (nearly twice that of competitors.  It is ideal for day to day wear, inside, darker conditions, etc…   But I found it to be a bit dim in bright light.


Comparison in bright sun with Garmin Fenix 6S Pro below


Sam: Depending on light conditions I found the screen adequate and appreciated the new always on mode so no wrist tilt required to light it up when training (but I advise keeping the tilt to wake on in everyday use to preserve battery) but as Jeff says there are times where it is not very legible depending on the sun angles.


As the digits are thin and small I found no more than 3 data fields to be the practical limit, especially with sunglasses on. 

This is the same for me with the Polar Vantage V2. The only screen I find legible in all bright conditions no matter what is Garmin’s fat digit 3 data field view of black digits over white background. 


Garmin, Polar, and Suunto such as the S9 rely on trans reflectivity to boost the viewablity using the sun and reflection. As light dims they are less legible. The S7 essentially uses “bulbs” to light the screen at all times (the reason for its lower battery life than the others) but when light dims at dusk and dawn it has a clear advantage in legibility. 


Conclusions/Recommendations:


Jeff:  I am really excited with where Suunto is going here with the Suunto 7.  This is not a typical GPS sports watch with some smartwatch functionality, nor is it a smartwatch with rudimentary GPS sports watch functionality, but does a great job at combining the two.  


The Amoled display and resolution is stunning to look at and the wide variety of apps is appealing for anybody with high expectations for a smartwatch.  I do however feel that the Suunto 7 would benefit greatly from further improvements in battery life.  6-7 hours in best mode, or up to 12 hours in good mode while good for such a display is below average in comparison to its competition. This said it should satisfy the casual user who is leaning more toward the smartwatch functionality and less toward the hardcore outdoor athletic use.


Heart rate and overall fitness tracking also needs improvement, as I am getting inaccurate activity accuracy and find 24/7 tracking to be nearly useless with its sampling of HR every 15 minutes.


While the Amoled screen is vivid and bright, it is geared toward indoor use and can present as somewhat faint outside and especially in bright, direct sunshine, which somewhat inhibits the beauty and functionality of the maps.


I also struggle a bit with the tilt to wake feature.  While meant to conserve battery life, it is a bit slow sometimes or requires a second deliberate tilt.  


The ability to pair a chest strap with the Suunto 7 would be a nice touch.


And of course there is the Suunto app which is improving incrementally and while not a direct reflection of the Suunto 7, still falls behind Garmin, Polar and even behind Suunto’s own and now discontinued Movescount app.  Additionally, the Suunto app is only available on a phone and there is no way to access it data on PC (though you can log into SportsTracker to see your activities).


So who is the Suunto 7 aimed at?  Suunto says it is not necessarily aimed at the hardcore base endurance sports, outdoor ultra athletes who typically considers a Suunto product, but rather toward somebody looking for a smart watch with rugged outdoor looks and map use and a more than decent base level of GPS sport watch functionality similar to dedicated sport watches and well beyond the usual run "apps" on Wear OS or Apple Watch

Sam: I will end by repeating my introduction. 

Consider the S7 if  you are looking for a sports watch that has:

  • Deep connection to a full array of non sports related “apps” from the Google Wear OS ecosystem and regardless if you are on iPhone or Android. Proprietary system watches such as Garmin, Polar, and Sunnto’s other watches don’t go nearly as far.

  • Quite vast an customizable run and multi sport data field availability (recent update) as you expect with a dedicated sports smart watch, and analogous to any other sport dedicated watches. In our experience superior data field availability to any Apple Watch or Android approach although our experience with these is limited..

  • Outdoor adventure focus with truly spectacular routing and very detailed maps with almost every trail or road imaginable with sharp viewing capabilities on a vibrant 540x540 screen, almost double the resolution of dedicated sport watches such as Garmin Forerunner 945 or Fenix 6 Series. This is the highlight feature.

What the S7 won’t get you compared to dedicated sports watches:

  • While perfectly adequate and now optimized with a Good GPS mode with Fused Track to admirably fill in the “gaps”, you will not get a long battery life. We saw a maximum of around 12 hours in Good tracking mode and about 2 days of run time in everyday mode this last with no workouts tracked, the everyday battery life generally similar to the Apple Watch and other AMOLED display watches which require far more battery use to “light” the screen outdoors.

  • You will also not have the ability to set up and use workouts, intervals, etc.. as of yet..


Suunto has achieved what it set out to do here: create a modern, extensible Google Wear OS watch with a strong sports tracking component which is focused first and foremost on outdoor adventure through the inclusion of a spectacular screen, beautiful maps, and easy route creating features. 


I am optimistic about the future here. When the S7 launched it had no data field customization and a very limited number of fixed fields and no extended Good battery mode. The first update completely changed the picture from about what you would expect from a platform watch, but with great maps, into a true sport watch with better if not yet competitive performance to dedicated OS sport watches on the battery front.


All that Wear OS, screen and map goodness does lead to the watch’s key weaknesses. It is heavier than many of its competitors with a lower than the competition battery life which will barely get you through a full day in motion be it hiking or running and it has not particularly good bright light legibility (but superb low light legibility) a tradeoff given the nature of the beautiful screen. 

Not as concerned about charging or used to charging an Apple Watch or other Android watch and want a broader more open app platform approach such as Apple and Google provide (and even more particularly if you are an Android phone user), then the S7 is a great alternative to the often limited sports functionality of apps on those platforms as the Suunto portion is in fact a Wear OS app and a really good one.  For others not in the world of Apple and Android watches it can be a solid, stylish, and functional new GPS sports watch option with Wear OS apps the bonus whose clear highlight is its on board maps on a very high resolution large screen.


Comparisons


Links to RTR Reviews

Weight

Case Dia.

Screen Resolution and Dia.

Thickness

Battery Life Hrs /Mode

Mapping

Price

Suunto 7

70g

50mm

454 x 454, est.1.4”

15.3mm

8.25 Best, 12.5 Good

Many Map Styles: Outdoor Roads, Winter, Sport Specific

$499

Suunto 9 Baro

81g

50mm

320 x 320 

15.8mm

25 Best, 50, 120 


$600 (now $499)

Polar Vantage v2

52g

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13mm

35 hrs Best 

Breadcrumb, Turn by Turn Directions

$500

Coros Apex Pro

59g/ 49g nylon band

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13.4mm

40 hrs Best

Breadcrumb

$500

Garmin Forerunner 245

38.5g

42mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

12.2mm

23-24 hrs Best

Breadcrumb

$300

Garmin Forerunner 945

50g

47mm

240 x 240, 1.2”

13.7mm

22 hrs Best

Full Topo and Roads, turn by turn on roads

$600


Suunto 9 Baro review
The Suunto 9 is 10g heavier and thicker yet at 15.8mm so small wrist be aware. Its GPS and wrist HR is more accurate all around including in battery saving modes,  it can pair to a chest strap and other sensors which the S7 currently can't, its screen resolution is second only to the S7 and its battery life is far superior (25 hours best and 50 up to 120 hours in extended modes) although its mapping is breadcrumb based.  Clearly it is a better choice for ultra length or multi day efforts and if you can't stand charging but for day to day use it is dated in comparison and it is heavy.  It is currently at the same price as the S7.


Garmin Forerunner 945 review

Sam: For $100 more the, the all plastic and not metal bezel as Suunto 7 has and 20g lighter 945 has a far deeper training platform and options, a more cohesive overall training and recovery platform on watch, in app and on web pages, all kinds of sensor support , longer battery life, a more legible screen but far lower resolution. The 945 has on board maps but  with no need to load out of your home area which the S7 requires. The Garmin map view is very detailed but harder to navigate and use on the watch on the go and its route building is not as polished but you do get turn by turn directions on road which the Suunto does not offer. Suunto clearly wins for map usability and routing with a modern very well designed approach. Not a more “open” platform for apps as the Wear OS has the Garmin apps are more sports focused, good thing but not as everyday useful.


Garmin Forerunner 245 review

Sam: I include the $300 Forerunner 245 as everything said about the 945 holds true for the 245, basically, with the exception that its mapping is breadcrumb based with no turn by turn directions and it has a fewer more esoteric performance metrics and no pulse Ox SO2 sensor. The thinnest and lightest watch in the comparisons, these factors make it a good choice for thin wrists seeking greater heart rate accuracy than the bulkier S7 will deliver. It has clearly superior battery life to the S7 with a far lower resolution screen but has a more sunlight visible trans-reflective display as the 945 has. 


Polar Vantage V2 review

Thinner and lighter, elegant, forget on the wrist comfortable the new Vantage v2 and its back end sets the bar very high for a complete sports training and recovery system with superb battery life with breadcrumb mapping but..which beyond basics of notifications and music control is not that smart an everyday watch, being a proprietary platform.


Coros Apex Pro review

Sam: The identically priced Coros gets you a titanium bezel and sapphire crystal and far superior battery life. Although it is app only, as the S7 is, it has more than adequate data to analyze on your phone, and as with the S7 data can be easily and automatically exported to other platforms such as Strava. It uses breadcrumb route following which is well implemented and includes info on overall climbing and each hill, and if routes are created, via its mapping partner Komoot you get turn by turn directions for not only roads but known trails (and they have as many as Suunto) the turn by turn on trails something no one else has as far as we know. As a proprietary platform it lacks the everyday use flexibility and apps of the S7 and the gorgeous screen.

Read reviewers' full run bios here
The product reviewed was provided at no charge for testing. The opinions herein are the authors'.

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