Key Takeaways
- Suunto has unveiled the Suunto Race sports watch, a more affordable alternative to popular models like Garmin Forerunner 965 and Polar Vantage V3.
- The watch boasts impressive features such as a large display, offline map support, and a long battery life of up to 40 hours with GPS enabled.
- In addition to tracking training and recovery, the Suunto Race offers over 95 sports modes and free downloadable maps for convenient navigation. Available in stainless steel and titanium finishes.
Suunto has today announced a new sports watch that is designed to compete with those from bigger names while costing a fraction of their price. The Suunto Race is built for athletes who want to take their performance to the next level without breaking the bank to do it.
Dubbed the Suunto Race, the new wearable features a large display that can capture a variety of training metrics, and even has offline map support while the battery life can still last for up to 40 hours with GPS turned on and a notable 26 days when the watch is in its normal daily operational mode. The Suunto Race very clearly has the Garmin Forerunner 965 and the Polar Vantage V3 in its sights but costs less than either.
Suunto joins the Race with a new sports watch
The new watch has plenty going for it, starting with the €449 / £389 starting price. That gets you a stainless steel model and the price obviously increases when you choose the titanium version, but at €549 / £479, it isn't horrific.
The good news continues when you dive into the features, too. Things kick off with a 1.43-inch AMOLED display and a digital crown that's designed to make it easier to select the functions that you want to use more easily. The aforementioned battery life means you won't need to charge this thing too often, while the Suunto Race can withstand weather conditions from -20° C to +55° C and is apparently military tested. It features a sapphire crystal to protect that display and the whole thing is rated as water resistant to 100 metres.
Moving on to the health and fitness tracking situation, the Suunto race is designed to track training and recovery via the measurement of heart-rate variability, or HRV. That gives wearers the data they need to better analyse their health and recovery times. That then allows them to make better decisions about training and rest. Suunto also offers free, detailed maps that can be downloaded to help athletes navigate even when they don't have their phones with them.
The act of training won't be a problem, either. The watch features more than 95 different sports modes across both indoor and outdoor activities, with Stava segments for sports like running and cycling also supported.
The new Suunto Race watch will go on sale 17 October in both the stainless steel and titanium finishes and could well be worth checking out if you're in the market for such a device.