So we have been reviewing many consumer smartwatches lately, mainly from smartphone manufacturers and recently we managed to get a hold of a professional multi-sport GPS watch from Suunto - the Suunto 9 Baro and if you're familiar with the brand, you would know that this watch costs a lot more than many smartwatches in the market coming in officially for RM2799 at its official store in Lazada.
What makes the Suunto 9 different from other typical smartwatches if it lets you do similar things such as monitoring your health for running, hiking, swimming and others? Well, that's exactly why we have reviewed it and if you're really serious about sports tracking and love sports, read below to see how "Pro" this watch is.
Design - A tougher smartwatch look
One of our colleagues used to own a Suunto Ambit 2 and it actually looks rugged and tough. However the Suunto 9 has very similar design compared to most of the smartwatches in the market but looks and feels tougher. The body's bezel and button are made out of stainless steel and as for the touchscreen color display, it's running on 320 x 300 pixels and has an LED backlight covered by sapphire crystal glass. The strap is using silicone and for a tough smartwatch for a man with a small to medium wrist size, it was actually quite comfortable to wear it. Not too light, not too heavy, a perfect balance.
Front view, it looks pretty simple. If you want to change the watch face, there are a few templates available for you.
The buttons on the side for you to do certain tasks
The sensors on the back, it also comes with a magnetic charging cable which is very convenient and easy to charge.
However, one of the drawbacks is that although you don't need to bring around a heart rate belt together, it's not really that nice to sleep with. Another problem is the brightness on the touchscreen when you're outdoors, you may not be able to see clearly what's on the display even when the sun is not too shiny and with 100% screen brightness. The touch screen was a bit unresponsive at times too but at least you can access all the features with the three buttons on the side of the watch.
Tech specs and features - Pro sport tracking features + Basic health & smart features
The tech specs of the Suunto 9 Baro are as follows:
- Touchscreen colour display with 320x300 pixels resolution
- Built-in GPS + FusedTrack (for more accurate track and distance tracking)
- An optical heart rate sensor
- Bluetooth connectivity
- Built-in barometer
- Battery life: 25, 50, and 120 hours at one-, 60-, and 120-second intervals, respectively
- Intelligent battery technology
- 100m water resistance
Like most smartwatches, the Suunto 9 Baro offers plenty of features such as sports tracking, GPS navigation and alert notifications. In just the sports tracking alone, it already has over 80 types of sports modes with a standalone GPS tracker, showing information of the sunrise/sunset times, altitude, temperature, storm alerts and also provides route map navigation, which happens to be one of the best features that we like. Because it works in real time where you can easily follow the route to go back to your starting point. This is very useful if you get lost.
Of course, the Suunto 9 Baro has a built-in health tracker with an optical heart rate sensor underneath the body. Along with the built-in accelerometer, it can help to monitor your heart rate 24 hours, track your step counts, calorie burn and monitor your sleep too. All these data and analysis will be synced back to the Suunto mobile app which is available on both iOS and Android, where you can see how you have been doing over the past day, weeks, months and or a year in a detailed manner.
An actual heart rate sensor, not bad
This is how the data looks like in the app for hiking
The running data, you can see the flag as your starting point which is nice
Besides the Suunto mobile app, you can also use other social sports apps like Strava to share your training and achievements with your friends and family. The smartwatch can also receive all incoming messages, emails and phone calls after you connect it to your smartphone. Despite that, it's a bit ironic that the smartwatch is unable to decline or answer the call on the spot, as well as unable to reply a message or play a song.
Performance - High Accuracy and Long Lasting
Due to our limited time with the smartwatch, we only managed to test with it with running and hiking mode. Despite the short period to test, we found that the details provided were very accurate. This includes distance tracking and altitude information by comparing to the data we have from our all-time training routes. Thanks to the FusedTrack feature, it was able to save the battery consumption because (according to Suunto) of the combination of the GPS and motion sensor rate which improves the track and distance accuracy.
You can follow the route back to your starting point
Checking out my data on the first pit stop
Speaking of battery performance, a 5KM run with performance mode on only consumes 3% of the battery, whereas a 3 hours hike consumes 11% only with performance battery mode on. We have a feeling that it can actually go on longer, as Suunto claimed that the smartwatch can last for 25 hours with performance, that's far more than enough for anyone to complete a full marathon. If you want a longer lasting performance, you can switch it to Endurance and Ultra battery mode which is said to last for 50 and 120 hours respectively with GPS mode on.
It's also worth mentioning that the Suunto 9 Baro comes with 100m water resistance. That's pretty deep and it's able to track your swimming stroke rate, count and type and even record your heart rate underwater. Just wow!
Hiking data
Well well well, will you look at that data. This is for serious professional athletes
Conclusion – A sports watch for serious multi-sport lovers
So who is the target audience for this smartwatch? Well, if you love joining a triathlon or play multiple sports such as running, hiking or swimming, and also are really serious on tracking your training data, the Suunto 9 Baro is a good choice. By the way, there is also the Suunto 9 for a slightly lower rate of RM2299 in black and white which also offers a long-lasting battery without sacrificing any of the data accuracy.
What smartwatch do you use for your sports activities? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more tech reviews at TechNave.com.
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