your honest thoughts
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Hello all,
I am looking into getting myself a Race 2. Due to the amount of complaints that I read about HR, bugs, non-matching data between app and watch, sleep tracking and yada-yada, I wonder if that is the general concensus that is is not that good of a watch.I run, hike, ski and bike, hit the gym but dont care so much about those metric. Map is important. I come from a Fenix 6pro. I dont want to pay for a new Garmin with a bunch of features I dont want.
I am looking for a training watch to help me plan and see progress. I aim to do ultras and I am hoping that the R2 would be a good watch for that.
Looking forward to read your responses. Thanks
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@Sebastien-Trudel I and others here do ultras. Race 2 is a great watch with battery better than any fenix. The only disadvantage is the crown is more difficult to use with gloves. I prefer the Vertical 2 and the flashlight is very handy. There are some bugs that need fixing and an update coming that solves the majority of them. The Suunto watches are primarily sports watches. I don’t care much about fitness tracking or smart watch features.
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@Sebastien-Trudel
I’ve had Vertical for two months and I’m very satisfied so far. No major issues with the firmware like with F8. Hopefully it will continue that way. Running, trail running (with HR belt), hiking, metrics OK, SuuntoApp much more user-friendly. I don’t miss smart features at all. -
@Sebastien-Trudel
Je trouve l’application vraiment sympa. Je pratique le running avec ma Suunto (avec sur l’autre poignet une Garmin). Il y a pour moi un gros problème avec le Bluetooth et les ceintures cardiaque. Par exemple pour la Polar H10, une fois sur deux la montre ne s’appaire pas avec la ceinture. Si je n’avais que cette ceinture, j’aurai revendu ma Race 2 car c’est inutilisable. Ca se passe mieux avec les ceintures Garmin mais pour Zone Sense les HRM-Pro et Pro+ ne sont pas compatibles (?), la HRM 200 l’est heureusement. En fait le meilleur capteur externe pour la Suunto parmi ceux que j’ai c’est le Polar Verity Sense (mais pas de VFC donc pas de Zone Sense). Il y a vraiment une amélioration importante à apporter au bluetooth ! C’est inédit pour moi des bugs de ce type. Même sur Polar avec qui j’ai eu de nombreux problèmes en tout genre, ça ne s’est pas présenté … Le cardio poignet est mauvais même pour la marche par rapport à Garmin qui lui est fiable c’est + 20 bpm par moments. Au repos, pas de problème (heureusement). Pour l’instant je la garde en espérant une grosse amélioration du bluetooth et l’apport de la musique ! -
@Sebastien-Trudel i have Race 2 for few months, unfortunatelly i don’t do much sport right now.
But at least i can share my opinion:
Build quality is very good, watch looks premium.
Battery life ist good but worse when you enable navigation or even AOD. But it is still good for all day hikes. In smartwatch mode with all 24/7 tracking it provides arount 14-15 days of battery life (when no battery life bug present). Some had worse battery consumption, that bug was fixed but some users claim to have still issues.
Amoled is fine, personally i prefer MIP but in 90% of time i am ok with Amoled too. Just on bike i would prefer MIP much more as enabling AOD takes more battery. It is more personal choice.
OHR works but make sure to keep it firmly to prevent cadence lock. (see some complains on forum)
Software bug i personally have:
I had no issue when bought watch, than firmware update broke bloodoxygen and worsen battery life. Than another update fixed it for some time but after few weeks issue reocurred. Now waiting for next update to see if fixed finally. For now hard reset fixed all issues for me.Map features including navigation are good for hiking or bike trip. I need often calibrate compas but that is not so problem to do.
Customizability is great. You can rearange menu items and hide what you don’t need.
Overall it is good watch with some bugs (but it looks like only some percentage of users have them). If bloodoxygen and powerconsumption will be fixed for good than i would say it is great watch.
Never had different watch than suunto so i can compare to other brands.
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@Sebastien-Trudel Since you mentioned the map feature being important and other comments mentioning map as being good, here is my obligatory comment that I keep mentioning on this forum about the disappearing trails and other details as the map is zoomed out.
If you plan to use the watch on trails for hiking or trail running, keep in mind that trails disappear from the map when zooming out beyond the 200m zoom level - that is 200 meters from the center of the map screen to the edge. Arguably, that is very little trail visibility as it covers just 1 minute at running pace or 2 minutes at fast walking pace - that is as far as you can see trails on the map without having to pan the screen using touch input, which inevitably leaves smudges from sweat. It is even worse when the watch is configured in imperial units - trails disappear after the 500 ft zoom level, which is just 150 meters.
I’ll keep mentioning this issue until it has been addressed. Also, it is worth mentioning that prior to Race 2 release the maximum trail visibility radius was greater. For example, for watches configured in imperial units it was 0.5 mile (800 meters), which I thought was still insufficient.
Also, I am still waiting for any explanation from Suunto of why this regression in functionality was necessary and if there are any plans to do anything about it. I posted about it here, I contacted support about this issue. I messaged Suunto on Facebook messenger. I got nothing in response.
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@sky-runner Good points. I’m not satisfied with mapping features of Suunto and I really hope that will change. For my country, last time I got maps update was in December 2023.
