Suunto 9 review – in pictures
The premium GPS sports watch with a battery life that'll go beyond your best efforts
FINNSPIRATION
All clean lines and minimalistic design – the Suunto 9 couldn’t be more Finnish if it tried. But this down-to-earth smartwatch flips that minimalism on its head when it comes to features, by adding in a battery life feature that claims to not only enhance the staying power of the Suunto 9, but also improve its accuracy too. Add that to a shiny new app and smartphone notification support, and you’ve got yourself a GPS watch to reckon with. But with a chunky £500/$599 price tag to wrestle with before it finds a home on your wrist, does its performance outweight its cost to make it a worthwhile buy? We’ve put it through its paces to help you decide.
METALLIC MINIMALISM
The Suunto 9 is primarily a sports watch but you could happily wear this all day and enhance your look. The brushed metallic bezel looks as good as it feels, and is surrounded by a tough-yet-soft rubberised silicone material strap, which gives just enough stretch to ensure anyone whose wrist size fall in between notches is catered for. While you do get touchscreen, there is also a selection of three buttons on the right which make for easy controls, even when running. The display isn’t huge when you factor in that black bezel but it’s plenty bright enough for daylight viewing and features a great use of the full colour options to clearly display all your information at a glance.
FEATURES APLENTY
I’m counting battery life as a feature on the Suunto 9 as it’s so ridiculously good. At its maximum you can get up to 120 hours of constant tracking, and yup, that’s with GPS on too. This is thanks to a new FusedTrack system, which I’ll touch on more shortly. Multi-sport tracking is also a huge part of what the Suunto 9 is all about. Think of a sport and this will have a mode to track it. This also means that jumping between disciplines while out is as easy as a long button press – ideal for triathlon transitions. Suunto has included the latest optical heart rate sensor tech in the 9, so now you can not only track your heart rate during workouts, but all day and night.
MORE AND MORE
Since this watch is mad for going further in terms of battery life, it’s also kitted out with enough sensors to help you when you’re out there in whatever wild lands you end up. Temperature data? Check. Barometric altimeter? Check. Bear alarm? Ok, you’re out on your own on that one. Sticking closer to home? The notifications from a connected smartphone are pretty handy here too, with detail down to smartphone notification history. That means you can check back and see any missed alerts – something some models fail to offer.
SUPER SAVER
While the Suunto 9’s battery life is one of its biggest selling points, it’s the smart system that runs it which really makes this watch efficient. Once battery gets lower you’ll be alerted with the option to change the mode to save power. It’s a bit like battery-saving modes found on smartphones, except in this case Suunto called it Intelligent Battery Modes. The great thing about this is that it’ll work out how much battery you have left based on what you’re doing, so if you’re out running and need to judge what you can keep doing and get recorded, you can rely on the figure it tells you. These modes also apply to sports where you can select the Ultra setting to get that hefty 120 hours of tracking.
SPORTY SPICE
It might not have all the life-tracking support of some watches but the Suunto 9 focuses on pure performance to cater for sports nuts. That means you won’t get contactless payments or music built-in but you will get the best battery life out there and really accurate tracking, meaning you can just keep going on whatever sporting endeavour you’re pushing yourself in. The smartphone notifications, battery saver suggestions and top-quality build add further weight to the pros of this watch, though its price tag may cause some to want for more of the features to make it a better all-rounder for the money. However, if you’re an ultra-runner or triathlete that needs stamina and accuracy over anything else, the Suunto 9 will keep up with you every step of the way.
