timeless fashion, infinite battery (overview)

As we transfer into summer time it’s the proper time to take a look at the most recent health watch from Suunto. At a look, the Suunto 9 Peak Professional seems nearly an identical to the bottom model, the Suunto 9 Peak. Nevertheless, the refined variations on the skin are in stark distinction to the key variations inside.

An enormous overhaul of the consumer interface, new sensor capabilities, lengthy battery life and plenty of different options all pack into this modern, aesthetically interesting watch. I spent a number of weeks with the Suunto 9 Peak Professional as my each day driver and health tracker to check out its seemingly infinite vary of recent options.

Particulars: Suunto 9 Peak Professional

Value (RRP)	AU$759
Producer	Suunto
Product web page	Suunto website
Guarantee	2 years

Appear and feel

I used to be immediately taken by the 9 Peak Professional and its simplicity. Its monochromatic, all-black chrome steel bezel and show paired with the all-black silicone strap appealed to this reviewer’s design background. With the speedy evolution of GPS sports activities watches over the previous 10 years or so, not often does a tool seems simply pretty much as good – if not higher – than it performs. The 43mm show seems moderately streamlined on the wrist but the 22mm extensive band is comfy sufficient however notably not as comfy as a few of the alternate options. All of this does, nonetheless, pair nicely with the black buckle for a constant, well-considered Suunto watch you may put on on any event.

The watch within the chrome steel mannequin is available in All Black, Ocean Blue, Pearl Gold or Forest Inexperienced for $759. Alternatively, there’s the titanium possibility in Titanium Slate or Titanium San for $959. There may be additionally a customise-your-own characteristic that allows you to pair any watch mannequin with any strap together with silicone, microfibres and leather-based choices, all having a variety of colors and kinds. Constructed with high-quality supplies like sapphire glass and examined to US navy requirements, you gained’t query the watch’s sturdiness any time quickly.

Suunto 9 Peak Professional Options

When selecting a sport or health watch, the options are all the time the largest promoting level, and the Suunto 9 Peak Professional delivers. The biometric sensors are quite a few, measuring every little thing from coronary heart fee to blood oxygen stage. Though measuring your blood oxygen ranges isn’t probably the most essential characteristic, it has grow to be an business commonplace for high-end GPS watches and will be useful in case you are adapting to coaching at altitude. You can too monitor your health by a V02Max estimate, or examine in your stress and restoration ranges as a proportion.

Wanting on the capabilities of a number of different GPS watches, just like the Garmin Forerunner 935 and the Suunto 9 Peak, the 9 Peak Professional comes out forward in additional areas than one. It has an unbelievably giant record of obtainable sports activities to select from together with every little thing out of your commonplace working, biking or swimming, to some extra area of interest actions like curler skating, impediment racing or mermaiding (don’t ask). The Suunto 9 Peak Professional additionally performs nicely as your day-to-day well being tracker. It retains on prime of your motion with its built-in step counter, shows energy burned, and has customisable exercise targets to suit your life-style. You can too management music and media by way of the watch however do be aware that it doesn’t have any offline music storage like a few of its opponents on the market.

For these skilled runners, it’s the refined enhancements that may make all of the distinction. Its small particulars, like the present tempo exhibited to the second, moderately than to the closest 5 seconds, or measuring V02Max to at least one decimal place for a extra correct health estimate. Moreover, now you can see a measurement of energy output with no need a third-party attachment. With that mentioned, it is vitally easy to connect coronary heart fee straps, stride pods or energy meters if you want to take action. Connecting my Garmin chest coronary heart fee strap for extra correct coronary heart fee information took a matter of seconds and labored flawlessly.

It’s price mentioning that the Suunto 9 Peak Professional has lots of the handy smartwatch and connectivity options of a smartwatch similar to Bluetooth, cellphone notifications and updates from the cloud. Additionally it is very straightforward to arrange and connect with apps similar to Suunto and Strava. I used to be disenchanted, nonetheless, to not see a metronome within the Suunto 9 Peak Professional. A metronome is a intelligent setting that Garmin and plenty of different smartwatch manufacturers embrace of their premium GPS watches that assist an athlete with their cadence.

Coronary heart fee and GPS accuracy

Every time a brand new sports activities watch launches there’s a lot emphasis on its new and improved options. After a few years of being an avid runner and utilizing a number of sports activities watches, I discover that the metrics that matter probably the most are the GPS and coronary heart fee, and extra particularly how correct they’re. An correct GPS is essential to nearly all different information. For instance, the tempo of a run is calculated utilizing the time spent working and the space travelled. In case your GPS isn’t correct then most of your different information can also be off. The excellent news is the Suunto 9 Peak Professional does a improbable job offering very correct GPS information from each surroundings I examined.

Shifting on to the up to date coronary heart fee sensor, I discovered the brand new sensor to be a particular improve. The downfall right here is that wrist coronary heart fee sensors should not probably the most dependable generally and might produce questionable information at occasions. On this case, I’d describe it as respectable sufficient to get by for the informal consumer. I all the time advocate utilizing a coronary heart fee strap or belt for a extra correct studying.

Battery life

The excellent battery life could also be one of many prime causes to purchase the Suunto 9 Peak Professional. It is a huge enchancment from the bottom model and Suunto claims you may stand up to 21 days of battery life in each day use. There are a lot of battery modes to select from primarily based on the way you wish to use your watch. These embrace Efficiency, Endurance and Tour, in addition to the choice to create your individual customized settings. Efficiency is probably the most highly effective battery mode, able to recording as much as 40 hours of outside exercise with the very best GPS accuracy, whereas the Tour mode is alleged to final 300 hours of steady use. To check the battery, I ran 10km (roughly 50 minutes) in Efficiency mode with the navigation turn-by-turn setting on and this solely used 2% battery.

This best-in-class battery life together with the flexibleness to customize your choices positions the watch strongly for endurance and extremely athletes. Suunto is without doubt one of the solely watches that gives a battery life estimate primarily based on the present cost of your watch, which is tremendous useful. Should you did, nonetheless, neglect to cost, Suunto has you coated with quick charging capabilities, that means you gained’t have to attend round all day. One hour to cost from empty to full means you’ll be again to smashing your PB’s very quickly.

Up to date UI

It’s attainable to miss the significance of interface updates, however right here the standard of life enchancment was improbable. That’s to not say it’s excellent, nonetheless. Suunto might not but be on the identical stage as Garmin in the case of how intuitive their watches are to make use of, but the updates to the Suunto 9 Peak Professional have closed the hole considerably. The sooner processor together with the extremely responsive and clean menu system offers a vastly superior really feel to previous generations of Suunto watches. A giant tick from me for the redesigned interface.

GadgetGuy’s take: Suunto 9 Peak Professional

Lastly, a sports activities watch with all the options and metrics now we have come to anticipate (plus some extras) with out compromising on fashion. You can too purchase and use the Suunto 9 Peak Professional guilt-free as it’s constructed from 100% recycled supplies with the bottom carbon footprint of any GPS sports activities watch available on the market. The largest updates which have an enduring impact are the wonderful battery life together with the extra correct GPS monitoring. These options plus a much-improved interface make for a top-quality sports activities watch. And I believe it seems elegant even when not coaching.

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