Reviews and videos
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@dcrainmaker thanks for the time to make it over here to reply! Been paying attention to the queue (Instinct Xover and Ignite 3 hitting the air Tue and Wed I assume).
Just one comment from a loyal viewer: the videos are valuable for seeing how the UI works and that’s at least why I was waiting for more videos post resale firmware updates. Des covered this pretty nicely today. Still looking forward to that vid on your end as well!
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@mountainChris Ultimately, the way I see it, once a company starts shipping a watch, they’re taking consumer’s money in exchange for what they deem as an acceptable product. And thus, that’s typically when I aim for my reviews to be released (and generally on final firmware/hardware).
Sometimes, we see improvements - either in bug fixes, or things like accuracy. Sometimes, we don’t. Usually, we see improvements in bug fixes relatively quickly, which is why I often provide color on whether or not I think a bug is easily fixable or not.
However, for accuracy, it’s anyone’s guess. That comes down to many factors that’s very hard to predict. A manufacturer could be at the end of the ability of that component, and thus, more time won’t really solve it. Whereas other times, it’s a brand new component - and more time will usually make things better. I often add historical data here, and notables about the components in question.
Ultimately though, I’ve long held to the line that once a product is released, that’s the book we judge it by - good or bad. We can check again down the road, but companies should learn to release products when they’re ready. For the most part, Suunto usually does that actually.
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@dcrainmaker thanks, yes you are right. When products got shipped, improvements should be felt by customer from previous watch. Having a greatly improvable watch in the beginning with flaws is extremely customer dissatisfactioning for spending money and could lead to sending it back. Just to rely on SW improvements is thin ice when it is too shaky at the beginning. So thanks for sharing, good pow, great videos!
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@dcrainmaker Thanks so much for your clarification for the SUUNTO crowd here. I have been reading your reviews for a long time, and they absolutely help me make informed decisions, and Im sure everyone appreciates the time it takes for you to provide this so thank you. I was kinda wondering about your list of reviews once I saw the updates from Coros last few weeks, then minimally Garmin and Polar this week. I had no idea the review list was so much longer. Cheers.
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@mikekoski490 I actually don’t disagree with DesFit’s assessment of the cost. While there are perks (such as Finnish build and carbon offsets, as you mentioned) that Des didn’t highlight that do add value, I feel that the S9PP is about $100 too much. I felt the same about the regular 9P too last year, and it takes awhile for Suunto to put some of these on sale (conversely, Coros never does sales, and Garmin’s sales are meager, at best).
I think Suunto’s strengths would shine a lot better value-wise and stack up more readily at a price point just a bit lower than where they come in at now. While Coros’ latest offerings seem to have disappointed a lot of people, Garmin has had it’s most interesting year in a long time, and I think a bit more strategic pricing would draw lots of new people to the 9PP.
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@TrailEyes kinda have to agree with you here. And Des also replied to a comment that despite acknowledging that the compliance-choices playing a part in the pricing (i.e. total manufacturing cost maybe being higher than eg. in China), he still seems to feel the contents of the watch aren’t really meeting the price point.
But I’d also concur with some of the other comments in the video that the app features were slightly neglected in the review.
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dcrainmaker’s review is up.
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…and it’s in-depth to say the least.
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@dcrainmaker Great to hear. So, basically, different brands, different flavours to launches. Perhaps more so on Suunto’s court that the PR on this seems different to other competitors where the product and reviews look to be hitting on lauch dates. Not that anyone is expecting it to be but somehow that’s how they have become in recent years.
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@altcmd Suunto splits their launches into two chunks (and has for as many years as I can remember):
A) Announcement
B) Retail availabilityUsually, they’re separated by about two weeks. Some companies do it that way, some do it the other way (everything in one shot). Apple, Google, and Fitbit does it like Suunto (separated by 8-10 days usually), Whereas most other fitness companies do it with the single-day announce/available (Garmin/COROS/Polar/GoPro/DJI/Wahoo/etc…).
Marketing peeps/companies prefer the dual-approach, because they think they get two hits worth of attention. Some media sites prefer the dual approach if they get two meaningful waves as well. For example, it works for Apple because…Apple. But it doesn’t tend to work as well for Fitbit.
My personal preference is just one bam, simply because I can focus on a product and then move on to the next fire. For companies that aren’t named Apple, my observation is that the double-tap system doesn’t tend to work out as well, as people like me get distracted with something else that has an embargo, and then have to make a judgement call on which thing to focus on for the 2nd date. Versus tying media people to a single review embargo date/time tends to work best at managing to herd cats. This is especially true for any tech site between mid-August and late November.
Again, just my personal observations/preferences.
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Not sure if this review, for the German able among us (that’s not me :D) has already been posted => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtB6pvUQOk4
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Gear Loop review
