Recommend the S9Baro to me...

Brad_Olwin

@gaz1049 I run ultras and lots of trails, this is the ideal watch for me. The most important issues are battery life:

In Ultra mode up to 120h and most often used Endurance mode ~50h. While in these modes FusedTrack will provide tracks that are nearly as good as 1s GPS fix.
Using routes and waypoints will have minimal impact on battery life in these modes if you do not spend a lot of time on map page and altitude profile
I have not lost activities even when the watch runs out of battery

freeheeler

@gaz1049
yes, definitely recommended!
treat yourself and don’t think about biting the bullet

stromdiddily

Probably the most comprehensive discussion on the topic…

https://forum.suunto.com/topic/933/competitor-watches/572

pacos

Hello,
You can read my experience of Suunto vs Garmin in a recent post.
If I want to be fair with your choice (and not Gamin) you may want to consider Garmin if you need:

cartographic maps
advanced “fitness” measures, Suunto 9 is very basic
long lasting battery, mostly useful for fitness measures needing 24 hours heart rate. Useful naturally also the 60 hrs in ultra… but for this Suunto 9 with a powerbank is good also

If not with SB9 you have everything you need, you save > 200 euro, and you don’t have the risk to be one of the several random users having one of the several random issues that you can see on the Garmin forum and note that 2 X Random is very scary. I am an ultratrail runner and my Fenix 6X gave huge errors on elevation measures… 2 replacement in Warranty w/o solving the problem. I got a rid of the brand, to me it was unacceptable.
Make your choice and good luck!

dulko79

Based on recent survey in SA it looks that some fitness features might be implemented in the future. Do not know if they would be a part of SA, current Suunto watches or future products.

kk1n76

i see that you mention Coros. Coros, to be fair, is nearly a good competitor. However, there is one key thing that makes me myself move away from Coros and back to Suunto:

Navigation in Coros, is nearly unusable. The heading up issue is well known, even after current fix
There is no EPOC, training load , etc. Yes, they do have training load, but the metric is very questionable and the source of their calculation is not published and no scientific base and the number going up and down like yo-yo. Suunto use firstbeat, whose background is already known, and Polar use its own reliable and patented RND. Coros number is not clear from which source and whether they can be scrutinized, and that makes it totally unusable.
Sleep metrics are totally out in Coros

RiphRaph

@gaz1049 I’m now three months into using a Coros Vertix and I wouldn’t change back to Suunto for any money. Battery life is insane, looks are a matter of taste but I think it beats the S9 hands down, I love the digital dial for ease of scrolling and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is not to have to fuss with a touchscreen. It offers FULL native support for ALL Stryd metrics rather than the measly selection Suunto does, and for an optional (but, for me, extremely welcome) cherry on top it now also connects to the Concept 2 rower, so my cross-training data gets pulled into Coros App and from there to Runalyze.

Coros App could be more full-featured but for a quick look at my run stats it’s already better than Suunto App as it lets me overlay several metrics on one graph to see how they interact. And I’ve heard a whisper on Instagram that suggests they might be working on a web interface.

Saketo Nemo

I join the chorus of damn satisfied. I sold my suunto s9 baro…to buy another one limited edition

Suunto 9 had come out with certain features, already superior to the spartan series, with the latest updates it literally took off. I know people who had sold it and bought it back in light of the new software.

In my experience: great data strength, reliability and accuracy. Suunto App has reached the unexpected milestone of not making Movescount regret anymore. And I believe there is much more to come.

The other strong point is the Suunto App’s openness to an infinite number of applications that I believe satisfy any type of user.

Wait? Today the 9 baro is on offer and can be purchased at a very good price. It is normal that Suunto is thinking of a new watch, as there will be another and another, until the company goes bankrupt. Instead, ask yourself if the current watch meets your needs. If so, buy. If you wait for the new one, you will NOT have a price like the current one and most likely you will not even have the stability achieved by the 9 baro, at least initially. So you’ll have to wait for the price to drop and the clock to mature. Time will pass and again you will ask yourself the same question: wait for the successor or buy now?

Personally, I also love the fact that it’s built in Finland. And no, there is no other watch with the same build quality. I wear it on my wrist like I wear a jewel, which I would not do with watches from other brands.

Good choice

stromdiddily

@RiphRaph have a hard time classifying the vertix as an “adventure watch” when it has literally zero poi or waypoint capability. At least on the original S9 you were able to save and navigate to locations directly from the watch (say originally as they have just dropped poi management for the app and it’s awesome)

Otherwise your post is pretty spot on but I do find the app to be a bit cartoonish.

RiphRaph

@stromdiddily I’ll give you the “adventure watch”/waypoint issue. That was actually the reason I hesitated briefly before pulling the trigger on the Vertix; until the news of full Stryd integration broke I’d been intending to get a Fenix 6X Pro. However, have you contacted them about the issue? Based on my recent experience of communicating with their support people, I’d expect that they would listen to reasoned, constructive comments.

The app, cartoonish? I wouldn’t have called it that, but then my very first running watch was the TomTom Runner 3, where the app (and website) was festooned with literal cartoon people in running kit! Suunto App actually does more to deserve the label, in my book, for all those silly gold stars it hands out on the flimisiest of pretexts.

In Coros App I actually like the muscle heatmap quite a bit, though it would be still more useful if it didn’t seem to think that any strength training move only targets one individual muscle. Which hopefully is an improvement they’ll make in a future update.

stromdiddily

@RiphRaph entirely personal preference on app fit and feel. Color scheme and font I s’pose just doesn’t suit my fancy

Allegedly - there are waypoints coming, but they’ve been saying that for a while.

kk1n76

@stromdiddily i agree with you. and also, Vertix gps accuracy is actually one of the worst of the coros. Take a look at 5krunner gps accuracy test (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/psdyxm93y2m12j3/AABNlbBRsF2E3edvzqnnMPC4a?dl=0&preview=Test+Results+-+All+Watches.xlsx). For coros, the best accuracy is actually with apex, and not vertix. Vertix is way much worse.

While the app itself is limited, i actually find the biggest issue with coros is their totally unreliable matrix. Even if they have any web interface, it won’t matter much. Apart from stryd metrics, which i don’t use, since i’m barefoot / sandal runners, and stryd cannot stick to feet / sandal lol, the rest of metrics of coros are questionable at best or unreliable at worst (from sleep, training load, till recovery). They don’t provide any background / explanation on how they get the data, unlike firstbeat used by garmin & suunto , or polar own RND.

Concept2 integration used to be its coros unique point, but now even Garmin has it.

Coros strongest point is always at its battery life.