New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings
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All,
I’m a new (happy) owner of the Suunto Race.
After many years using Suunto products (Ambit, Spartan Ultra and also Eon Core), I’m pretty happy with this new watch.After only 2 days using it, here are my rough “pros and cons” :
PROS
- Design and finish of the product (Sunnto Race Midnight)
- AMOLED screen
- Map during the activity (only tested during a trail run)
- All the Suunto environment and metrics I’m familiar with
- HR measurement on the wrist
- New wristband (compared to my “old” Spartan Ultra one) really great and comfortable
CONS
- Known issue of not sync correctly the TSB/CTL with the app
- Limited choices of “watch faces” and/or possibility to personalize (e.g display the HR on the watch face)
- During an activity, not possible to display some key information in the map screen (e.g HR, altitude)
- Pinning several widgets (maybe 2-3) could be great
- Filter/block some notifications during the activity
That’s a very first and early feedback. But really happy for the moment.
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Hello
Two weeks to go with my Race. Before choosing this model, I hesitated a lot, scoured the forums to read the reviews, and in the end wondered whether the vertical was better or not. In the end, I opted for the Race, the price being the decisive factor.
So, for those of you who might be hesitating following some of the comments I’ve made:- I didn’t notice any latency on this watch. It’s responsive, the Suunto ergonomics are very pleasant and intuitive, and I love the simplicity and logic.
- customisation is easy and, to be honest, the statistics are more than adequate
- the battery life is incredible. I’m a marathon, trail and ultra trail runner and it will go the distance (130 km in the first week, performance mode, 60 km with navigation, sleep tracking, charge after 7 days at 18% battery).
-the screen is highly responsive and wakes up without a hitch during a run. Whether on the road or on a trail, the non-permanent display gives me no trouble at all. - the navigation is a real delight, responsive and easy to read. The application is intuitive and makes it easy to manage routes.
I’m new to Suunto, so I’ve yet to explore the guides and apps. I find that some of them lack a bit of flexibility and adjustment, but that’s not a real problem for me. I can imagine that updates will be coming in the future…
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After three weeks with my race, today I ran my first race with this watch. 53 km, 2200 m D+, navigation, Climb function, cardio belt… superb, perfect assistance during the race. I didn’t play around with the navigation too much, but I did display the profile from time to time, and in the end I didn’t use Climb very much (I don’t think I’ll be using it again in a race).
Battery: -15% in 6h30. Just incredible! -
@ODo67 nice time for a race with significant D+!
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@Brad_Olwin Thanks
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Hello everyone. Happy owner of suunto race for a week now. I miss only one thing. The ability to resume an activity later. In a mountain hike that lasts 10+ hours, with two breaks for rest and food, I end up having 3 different activities.
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@efbill welcome onboard !
Aren’t the rest and food times entirely part of a 10hours journey ?
You can pause your activity if needed, and resume it when you start again.
Maybe not exactly what you call « resume later », but close ! -
Hello,
It’s been 15 days since I have my Suunto Race and I have mixed feeling about this watch.
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The charger.
It always takes me like 30 sec to align the terminals of the charger with the watch. And if for some reason something or someone touches the watch while it’s charging, it deconnects and stop charging. And the short cable doesn’t help. Why isn’t there a real strong magnet ? I just drop my old Apple Watch on it’s charger even in the dark, and it starts charging. The choice of USB-A in 2023 is also questionable, but not the biggest problem here. -
Watch faces.
Beside the fact that most of them are ugly (especially the analog ones), the graphic quality is “strange” Some look like hand drawings that have been digitalized, with non-regular curves and lines.
But the weirdest thing is the fact that you can’t show 2 parameters of your choice on the watch face. For instance I need to have battery left and weather/temperature, and it is just impossible on any watch face. Why ? Is it so challenging to implement ? -
Notifications
The way notifications are displayed is quite confusing. Except Facebook and Twitter, all notifications are displayed with the same green message icon. So you can’t know from which app is the notification. If we can’t have an icon, at least show the name of the app in text. Another drawback: you cannot select the notifications you want. It’s either all of them or none of them. For instance when I’m running I need only phone calls (in case of emergency), when I’m not running I need all of them, when I’m sleeping I need none of them. Why can’t we have that ? -
Structured workouts
I created a structured work out and a custom sport mode and am still unable to have ANY information about intervals in the second field. I’ve tried to select “current interval distance”, “current interval duration”, “current interval repetition”, and during my work out this field always shows ‘0’. Am I missing something ? Do I have to enable something before ?
Also regarding structured work out, when we set a pace target, why can’t we have an alert “too fast” or “too slow” when we’re out of our pace range target ? Do we have to run with our eyes constantly on the watch ?
There is an alert that announces the next interval. But why is the text so small ? I’ve bought a watch with a big screen to be able to run without my glasses, but even with my glasses on, I can hardly read this alert. I have to slow down and keep my arm motionless to be able to read it with my glasses on. Why is it so small ?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate this watch. Suunto did a very good looking watch with good hardware, good battery life, great screen, great GPS. I don’t even mind the bad HR sensor since it can be replaced by a chest strap. I just feel so frustrated because they did the hardest part and neglected the easiest part by ignoring very basic features.
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@bcourcet regarding #4, structured intervals created in the Suunto app or 3rd party service create manual laps, therefore lap-specific fields do work. The interval-specific fields are only used in interval sessions, which are created direclty on the watch.
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@halajos Thank you for the tip
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Hello!
A month ago, I finished my first 100K (116 km to be precise
), ultra trail des païens by Utmb (trail Alsace grand est world series). My Suunto Race was royal, perfect in every way. 18:34 into the race and barely 35% battery consumption (I didn’t use the navigation at all, the course was very well marked). I spent a long time in training fine-tuning the dial that corresponded to it and it was top notch: distance, average pace, time, instant pace, heart rate. All that’s missing is a well-seasoned Climb Pro and it’ll be perfect -
I´m looking for a golf-app for my suunto race, which shows the distance to the next green. Any ideas?
Thx!
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So, not going to create a new topic and this one seems quite appropriate.
I bought Race, yay. These are my first thoughts, more to come.
Backround:
I wanted a new sport watch. I had Garmin Forerunner 55. I am a cyclist in a first place, but I am doing also hiking, weight training. I was leaning to Garmin, because I have Edge bike computer, so integration into one platform is nice.
But, here is the thing: Garmin has just too many models in their lineup. Just the shear amount is crazy. And, to be honest, I think it is bit overpriced. Not Polar crazy overpriced, but just a bit.
Part of that (IMO) is the amount of features Garmin has. But, again, my opinion, some of them are just…well bit gimmicky? Things like Hill score, Endurance score, Body battery, Training readiness… Do not get me wrong, people at Garmin had to work hard for those metrics, but to me, they are completely meaningless.
I know my own body battery, I live with my body for 30 years. I do not need training readiness, I know if I can handle threshold training or if it better to go light and easy. Sometimes I have a feeling that those metrics exist, just to compare yourself to some random person on Reddit…So, I wanted core features, good GPS, altimeter, onboard maps, good battery, HRV tracking is nice.
Heart rate accuracy is not critical, I always wear a strap.
And, I had a budget. Combine all these things, it ruled out most of Garmin watches. The only one that has some potential was Instinct 2x …but, again, no maps, and I think, that the display could be much larger on that watch.So, I went with Suunto.
Vertical was out of budget, and I was choosing between Race and Race S. Race S has newer HR sensor, but smaller battery ultimately decided, that I went with Race.FIRST FEW DAYS
It was not smooth. First day, the watch did not want to update. Several soft resets, paring/unpairing, I even uninstall app in phone…
Ultimately, I went to sleep, and next morning after pairing, there was a update waiting in app. Cool.
Watch itself is really nicely made. Buttons are solid, and digital crown is easy to use. I was sceptical at first (coming from Garmin, those are all buttons), but the crown really acts like 3 buttons in one (up, down, select).
Even tho the watch is quite large (before I had FR 55, small tiny 43 mm watch) it sits on wrist nicely.
I only did one walk so far, but GPS accuracy seems to be very good. Not going to comment on HR accuracy, but it seems to be around right (if you train long enough, you know ± your heart rate just be feeling).Overall, I am happy with my purchase.
I want to do more hiking in autumn, so you can expect more post as times go. -
@StefanPancake Welcome to the Suunto family and enjoy your Race. It’s a very very nice watch and the best value for money.
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so it’s been almost a year since I got the watch and today it came back after a service, complete module replacement. I don’t know what that means exactly, but hopefully the problems with HR etc will be gone and we can move on
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