S9PP review from a non-target audience

[zhang965]

I got my S9PP titanium last week with a great deal on Amazon, so here is my review as I did last with S9P.

First impression, the box is badly printed, my S9P Birch white titanium box’s printing is much better than my S9PP box, maybe it’s the difference between white text printed on black box and black text printed on white box.

Second impression, as many reviews mentioned, I didn’t see any PRO here, S9PP is what S9P should be at the beginning.
Since Spartan, Suunto has implemented their one-watch-sold-twice strategy: beginning with Spartan, finished as S9B; beginning with S9P finished as S9PP.
So, I don’t like the PRO suffix in the title, it’s nonsense unless pro means prostitute. OR you add a urinalysis sensor in the watch.

Now, after basic configuration on my S9PP, we go for some small activities.

The OHR is totally unusable, I’m a true Spartan ultra user, I don’t use OHR for sport, but S9PP’s OHR accuracy still shocked me 3 miles away.

Here are some comparisons:

The GPS looks good, but I got a weird track here, it seems Suunto developed a new version of ghost runner.

My suggestion on the OHR:
Keep the light on, but remove the OHR sensor, we’d like to have a RGB light on the watch like Razer does, Suunto can add LGBTQQIP2SAA support with such colorful outcome.
And don’t forget to show random numbers on the screen, suunto will publish some numbers combination every month, if you matched the numbers, you win a prize such as a horse or something from Sunnto.

Bad
The price, 499 is too damn high for S9PP. 399 euros for steels edition, 499 euros for titanium is a correct price. ( Thank to amazon, they already dropped 100 euros on the titanium S9PP)

The new watch faces, the one with handwriting style numbers is fine BUT it’s horrible with some numbers, especially with numbers 1,2,3,5, damn it’s UGLY. And all numbers are UGLY in the other watch face. It looks like Suunto will make a new watch face with Comic sans.
If these typefaces are still in the refundable window, please ask for a refund, please.


BTW, do you guys make it on purpose? When we discuss these ugly typefaces, nobody will focus on the ugly bezel anymore?

The upper button simplification is AWESOME! You only push one button then you can go! BUT, WTF is the pause interface? You must scroll down twice to end the exercise, WTF, the option menu is before the END button…

I noticed one funny thing, when I long push middle button, my S9P is smoother than S9PP during the cycle motion.

Worse
Why there are so many media controls? The bloody dumb media controls functionality is now can be found in widget screen; can be found in the exercise option, setting training menu and lower button menu again? I was once happy because I saw the media controls widget can be disabled in SuuntoAPP, and it will not disable other media controls menu. So, you have to face media controls again and again.

The menu logic is…better than the old S9 line, but…why there are so many repeated items? You have Alarms and watch face both in Settings and lower button menu.

Why don’t just merge Outdoor where you set the altitude and navigation menu where you set GPS units? Why don’t just merge Activity menu where you set your steps etc and Training menu?
WTF the MAX/MIN HR are set in Setting -> General -> Personal and the heart rate zones are set in Training menu? Why we cannot merge them directly in the training menu or HR zones setting?

Worst
OHR sensor. (fine, I remember always the quote from Spartan ultra age, real man don’t use OHR)
The vibration is the new social shame symbolization, my S9PP vibrated once in the meeting room, all my colleagues were shocked. Thank you Suunto.
Why the custom sport modes cannot be synchronized in SuuntoApp? If we have several custom sports modes, we must create them manual again after changing watch?
Why cannot we set the HR directly in SuuntoApp and synchronize it directly with new watches?
Who redesigned the charge? Who tested the charge? It’s not stable, it’s not usable, it disconnects time and time… wonderful, I must watch on my watch during the charging.

WTF it is?

Conclusion:
S9PP is what S9P should be.
And I DO encourage you to buy an S9PP, if you still use old suunto watches like Ambit 3.
And if you are S9P users, I think you would wait for a little bit, waiting for the price drop and the stabilization of the S9PP.
It’s a great watch for 399 Euros or 499 for Titanium
Or you can buy a Coros APEX 2 pro.

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

The strange GPS path - was it your first ever use of the watch, before the calibration? Do you have the latest firmware installed?

[DMytro]

@zhang965 I also kinda like the new s9pp watchface and don’t see why 1,2,5 are (particularly) ugly, but that’s subjective I suppose.

[zhang965]

@DMytro said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

@zhang965 I also kinda like the new s9pp watchface and don’t see why 1,2,5 are (particularly) ugly, but that’s subjective I suppose.

It’s not ugly on these numbers, the problem is, when these numbers are doubled, it’s ugly, because the single number is designed to be natural to be humain handwriting, but when they are doubled, it looks very dumb very stagnant

My solution is to make the number slightly different between different positions

[DMytro]

@zhang965 I see, hm, I suppose that would be better. But this does bother me much personally.

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

Ohr for low temp is bad for me as well

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos heh I even have problems with belt in sub-zero.

[Kurt68]

I have now done a lot of test runs with the S9PP in comparison with the Fenix ​​7x and the Vertix 2. The S9PP and the Vertix 2 always measure very similar distances. I have deviations of only a few meters. The Fenix ​​7x has a wider spread. I always get a higher distance +1-3% compared to the other watches. Garmin seems to have problems, especially when you often walk through underpasses. The picture shows an example of a run through an underpass. The Garmin then immediately showed 100m more. the Vertix does it best here

[dulko79]

@zhang965 You should go in watches review writing. No reviewer beats your style.

[A Former User]

I can give you right on and here are some my thoughts after 24h usage

BAD:

OHR , but lets be honest here…NONE of watches with OHR are accurate and none of manufactures are better or worse as suunto, same is true for SpO2 as estimation of VO2 max and if we speak about they accuracy under low temperatures…well, forget it

Doubles
yes they have Alarms and watch face both in Settings and lower button menu, but also settings is under lower menu…whay we ned middle button at all? you can save middle button complete since ppl will probably use touch screen in most cases

HR zones
I am not sure which system is used here to calculate them, but it is way to aggressive…at least they can be adopted

Compas

Why is re-calibration needed every time is used? On my Ambit 3 I made it last year once, and never again since

Sport Modes

I see no point in having or creating custom modes if I can not fine tune them…it is waste of time every time to adopt them before I start a training…please make this options (HR Zones, GPS signal strenght etc available under SA as it is in Suntolink or provide SuntoLink support for S9PP)
Why I can not start a training using touch display, instead of using buttons, but all other parts of menu I can??

Design

looks more as toy or watch from automates for 5eur…BEZEL is huge and irrational, no sense at all…(well it would have sense if they as GARMIN used this huge BEZEL for solar cells…but NO) and they are covering 25%-30% of displays for FUN
And how this should be outdoor watch…this will not survive my 1 month training in outdoor (swimming, CX-cycling) or working in wood where I fall at least 2-3 times on the ground, or smash watch against some hard surfaces…it looks so fragile

Buttons
Why are they so noisy?
It not possible to use it at night or in stealth situations (where 0 noise is appreciated) without to hear it this disturbing very loud sound

Watch strap
what is wrong with silicon watch strap, after a 3-4 hours working in clean office it was covered with dust and X particles ? (see picture…it just looks dirty=, cheap and unhygienic!

At moment I tend to use the watch for next 1-2 weeks and then send it back to amazon, and either to stay with SA3P or to switch to Garmin, in my case Suunto lost the path, and is way behind other companies and just reuse for bad old tech/functionality loosing sense for outdoor watches

[el2thek]

@A Former User said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

looks more as toy or watch from automates for 5eur…BEZEL is huge and irrational, no sense at all…(well it would have sense if they as GARMIN used this huge BEZEL for solar cells…but NO)

The Fenix7s, which is a similar size, has a similar ratio of display to watch size. Not for solar, for GPS.

[Spree]

The bezel discussion is really stale.

Suunto recent watches do not have a smaller display compared to the overall size of the watch, in comparison with competitor products; but the design choices to leave all of it “visible” and unmarked makes it look bigger. It’s a design I like, but quite clearly most people don’t and then assume that the display is smaller than it actually is.

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

@A Former User as others have mentioned: The bezel is a matter of it being clean, which makes it look larger. I think that DC Rainmaker had an S9PP review in his YT channel when he actually measured bezels in Garmin, Suunto and Coros and they all are about 6 mm thick.

You can enable touch in custom sports mode when choosing custom battery mode. Although I agree with you that it’s strange that custom modes remember some settings and some don’t (auto laps are remembered, but not battery modes or S+ apps).

I believe there’s plenty to do in regard to new S9PP firmware and UI. We’ll see.

[isazi]

@Łukasz-Szmigiel the UI is being actively developed. It’s new and not perfect at first, still I find it a big improvement compared to the past.

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

@isazi I agree, it’s better, more responsive and in general, more legible (although not everywhere) but at this moment it looks as if it was mainly ported from the old one. Which makes sense, considering that S9PP is the first watch using this UI.

[zhang965]

@isazi said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

@Łukasz-Szmigiel the UI is being actively developed. It’s new and not perfect at first, still I find it a big improvement compared to the past.

Ok, I see, as the old UI is not perfect, so we created another not perfect UI right?

[isazi]

@zhang965 perfection is not for us, only the almighty is.

[Umer Javed]

I thought I’d some of my feedback here on a few items above. Just to balance out the discussion. Believe me, I have a lot of negative feedback too but my POV:

@A Former User said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

Doubles
yes they have Alarms and watch face both in Settings and lower button menu, but also settings is under lower menu…whay we ned middle button at all? you can save middle button complete since ppl will probably use touch screen in most cases

I actually like having the alarm available in the quick/lower-menu. It’s nice to be able to quickly set the alarm as needed. I also like having the watch face in the quick menu as I frequently switch between the analog at work to the outdoor one as needed.

It also makes sense for those settings to be present in a general settings menu. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be removed from there. Hence the duplication.

Re: the music controls, fair enough. I actually don’t bother with music on my runs but funnily I’ve used the music controls at my workplace when I’m away from my desk lol

Some of this is just Suunto understanding what we/users need and calibrating those settings. But just to add the above notes because I actually support certain things as they are.

Compas

Why is re-calibration needed every time is used? On my Ambit 3 I made it last year once, and never again since

I feel there’s a bit more to it here. I upgraded to S9PP from an A3P as well. Can you guarantee that your compass was accurate through that year? I understand there are some issues with compass requiring recalibration after charging etc. but I’d rather have my watch detect and tell me when something is wrong or if it detects a condition that could have caused something to go wrong. Lack of feedback is not always a sign of everything being OK BTW, the S9PP compass rated accuracy is only down to 5º (on website) which isn’t exactly high precision tool.

Why I can not start a training using touch display, instead of using buttons, but all other parts of menu I can??

I also prefer not to have touchscreen for “critical” actions like these. I intend to use wear this ice climbing and skiing with gloves and in wet conditions, so a button for those items is definitely better. I do feel like the buttons are a bit too small compared to A3P with gloves but once winter is truly here in Ontario I’ll know for sure.

Design

looks more as toy or watch from automates for 5eur…BEZEL is huge and irrational, no sense at all…(well it would have sense if they as GARMIN used this huge BEZEL for solar cells…but NO) and they are covering 25%-30% of displays for FUN
And how this should be outdoor watch…this will not survive my 1 month training in outdoor (swimming, CX-cycling) or working in wood where I fall at least 2-3 times on the ground, or smash watch against some hard surfaces…it looks so fragile

To each his own re: styling. My only wish is that the glass wasn’t flush against the watch case. I’d love a slight guard like the A3P had. Even though the glass is super strong, it’s still a nice thing to have. Plus the current glass edge will pick up reflections at some angles.

Re: durability, it’s passed MIL-STD 810G so I feel OK with what I can throw at it: https://www.suunto.com/Content-pages/military-tests-for-suunto-9-peak-pro/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBTezcxaJi0

Watch strap
what is wrong with silicon watch strap, after a 3-4 hours working in clean office it was covered with dust and X particles ? (see picture…it just looks dirty=, cheap and unhygienic!!

I’ve been wearing mine 24/7 since I received it late October (except for a few days when i was sick…) and mine has no such issues. I’ve also worn it when sanding dusty 3D prints on my workbench and haven’t see it attract anything more than A3P did. I don’t believe there’s a design flaw but YMMV

[zhang965]

@isazi said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

@zhang965 perfection is not for us, only the almighty is.

And media controls

[TrailEyes]

@A Former User said in S9PP review from a non-target audience:

Design

looks more as toy or watch from automates for 5eur…BEZEL is huge and irrational, no sense at all…(well it would have sense if they as GARMIN used this huge BEZEL for solar cells…but NO) and they are covering 25%-30% of displays for FUN

I know bezel talk has been done to death, but it’s something I do consider when buying a watch. The comical size of the FR 935 and 945 bezels are one reason I didn’t upgrade to them back when I was with Garmin and instead came to Suunto with the 9 Baro (proportionally a smaller bezel-to-screen size ratio).

Now that I’m wearing a 9PP, I’ve surprised myself at how much I’m not bothered by the bezel in person. It looks worse in photos than it does in real life. My only wish would be for Suunto to have put their logo on the bottom part of the bezel rather than on the side of the case. I think that would’ve looked sharp.