The best Suunto watches you can buy

Suunto is a big name in the sports watch world, but not so much in the smartwatch world. The Finnish company produces wearables primarily for outdoor enthusiasts and sports professionals looking for performance monitoring and integrated GPS smarts with long battery life. Suunto watches are also known for their build quality.

Buy the right Suunto watch for your needs

All Suunto watches focus on fitness and sports tracking via intelligent functions. In this respect, you can’t really go wrong when looking for a training companion. There is a heart rate monitor on each of the watches listed below. They are all waterproof to some degree and each use Suunto’s mobile health, training and planning app. Fitness tracking for a dizzying number of activities, from fishing to skiing, is also a common feature. While battery life varies between these devices, they all have battery saving modes for use with GPS.

However, the models differ in some important areas. As with any product, finding the right Suunto device is all about weighing the features you need against the value of the device. In the following we explain the most important differences so that you can find the best Suunto watch for your needs.

See also: The Best Fitness Trackers You Can Buy Right Now

The best Suunto watches

• The Suunto 9 Peak is the best Suunto watch you can buy. It packs the best features of the Baro into a leaner body and more. It’s also the best looking Suunto you can buy for the boardroom, but is just as good for a hiker or a mountaineer.
• The Suunto 9 Baro is the best Suunto for multisport enthusiasts. It packs the functions of a kitchen sink into a sturdy, robust outdoor multisport watch.
• The Suunto 7 is the best Suunto smartwatch. Powered by Wear OS, this is the best option for anyone who wants a more familiar smartwatch experience with the usual Google services.
• The Suunto 5 is the best Suunto for most people. It contains all the core functions of the Baro and Peak, but dispenses with some special features and more expensive functions.
• The Suunto 3 is the cheapest Suunto watch on this list. It loses several features, but it makes up for it at a lower price. It’s the best gateway Suunto you can buy.

The Suunto 9 Peak is the company’s new flagship. It’s essentially an upgraded Baro (below) in a slimmer 10.6mm thick body that should make for a more comfortable fit on the go. It is also considerably lighter and smaller than its Baro counterpart, weighs 62 grams and is 43 mm in diameter. However, the Peak does not compromise on the quality of workmanship. It comes with a sapphire crystal lens fused to a polyamide / stainless steel shell.

Suunto also advertises a typical battery life of two weeks, but can also last 170 hours in GPS tour mode or 25 hours with highly accurate GPS tracking. In conjunction with offline turn-by-turn navigation, this is ideal for weekend tours or mountaineering adventures. The Peak also includes an optical heart rate sensor and an SpO2 sensor for high altitude blood oxygen tracking. You also get the option to update the firmware wirelessly, which is an oddly new feature for Suunto.

However, the Peak lacks some of the conveniences common on other smartwatches, including support for wireless payments and built-in music storage or control functions.

Suunto 9 Baro: The best Suunto watch for multisport

Like the Peak, the Suunto 9 Baro offers a wide range of functions. For one, it’s tough and bulky. It uses a fiberglass-reinforced polyamide body that is surrounded by a stainless steel bezel. The package is waterproof up to 100 meters. It weighs a total of 81 grams and the 50 mm dial is also coated with sapphire crystal.

Suunto also claims that the Baro has the same battery life as the Peak, and the company’s usual GPS power saving modes are also present. An altimeter and barometer provide information on weather forecasts on board, offline navigation is also available, and activity tracking for a variety of activities (more than 80) is also integrated. A heart rate monitor complements its utility as a fitness tracker.

Even so, the Suunto 9 Baro is expensive for what it lacks. As with the Peak, you don’t get any of the additional health tracking add-ons found on other smartwatches, like an EKG or BIA sensor. There is also no NFC and no wireless payment system. You’re also missing out on Peak’s SpO2 sensor and OTA updates.

The Suunto 7 is the company’s only real smartwatch running Google’s Wear OS software. This makes it possibly the most adept device for Android users looking for a balance between sports tracking and smartwatch functions. It includes sleep tracking, body resource measurements, and continuous heart rate tracking. The Suunto 7 also records more than 70 sports, offers support for Google Pay, Google Assistant and the app benefits of Wear OS.

However, the presence of Wear OS can be a blessing and a curse. The operating system has some issues even if it plays better with Android devices. It seems unlikely that the Suunto 7 will be upgraded to Wear OS 3 as well. The watch won’t last as long as its counterparts between charges, either. In addition, the Suunto 7 does not have support for external heart rate monitors, but this may not be something that buyers of this particular device will obviously need.

Divers and swimmers may want to look elsewhere as well. The Suunto 7 is 50 m water resistant and does not have the weather warning systems of its more expensive siblings.

Check out our full review to find out more about the Suunto 7.

The Suunto 5 is one of the company’s older offerings. It has a squat bezel and a 46 mm mineral crystal dial. While this helps keep costs down a bit, it can have an impact on durability when compared to its sapphire-wearing siblings.

It is also the middle child in the Suunto range, but still offers some of the functions of the more expensive watches. This includes exercise modes that will extend the life of the device when using GPS, albeit a little less than with Peak and Baro. Tracking for 80+ sports, a variety of fitness metrics and exercise recovery information, and a heart rate monitor are also included.

However, it suffers from a tiny, blotchy display that could push people to an equivalent Garmin or running watch alternative. Still, the Suunto 5 is the Goldilocks Suunto device if you can overlook these shortcomings.

The Suunto 3 is the lightest and smallest watch in the range. It looks like a mini Suunto 9 Baro, weighs only 30 grams and offers five days of battery life. It also includes tracking for different sport modes, heart rate monitoring, and compatibility with multiple tracking services.

What the Suunto 3 falls short of is the lack of integrated GPS. It is the only Suunto on this list that requires a companion phone to keep track of your runs. This omission and a few others bring the price down a good deal, so the compromise makes sense for those who are less serious about their exercise regimen. However, if you need a GPS watch, we recommend fishing above the Suunto 3. However, the 3 is well suited as a gateway Suunto watch.

Recognitions

That’s it for our list of the best Suunto watches to buy, but it’s just a taste of what’s out there. We would also like to give these products an Honorable Mention:

• Suunto 9: Even if it’s getting a bit old, the original Suunto 9 still has a lot to offer. It lacks the built-in weather features of the Baro and Peak, but it still offers 100m water resistance, a sturdy shell, and a claimed week’s battery life with GPS training modes. It’s also reasonably priced thanks to its age.