Suunto 9 Peak Professional GPS Watch Evaluate

Backside Line

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional GPS watch defies conventions of a high-performance watch with its glossy design and exquisite titanium outer.

This watch has the capabilities for a multi-day journey, however doesn’t look so turbo that you just’d really feel bizarre carrying it round city. Its high-performance processing pace, wonderful options, and trim appears to be like make it one among our favourite GPS watches.

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional’s contact display screen is among the greatest within the enterprise, and we had no issues utilizing it whereas moist or whereas carrying gloves. Its noticeably robust processor permits for easy features within the watch, fast storage and evaluation of actions, and lag-free efficiency. Nevertheless, all that highly effective processing and easy features take a toll on the battery life. It drains a lot faster than marketed and is notably impacted by the chilly.

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional’s lack of onboard music storage, no offline maps, and restricted smartwatch performance make it much less versatile for devoted smartwatch use. The companion app additionally lags behind others, providing much less intuitive knowledge evaluation and fewer polished software program.

Nevertheless, its spectacular number of exercise modes, robust options, and refined design make it a high contender for anybody looking for a glossy and dependable watch for his or her subsequent journey.

How We Examined

We put the Suunto 9 Peak Professional via in depth real-world testing (Alaska-style), utilizing it for path runs, backcountry snowboarding, and every day smartwatch duties to evaluate its efficiency throughout quite a lot of conditions. Over a number of months, we totally depleted and recharged its battery a number of occasions to judge battery life, wore it for lengthy durations to gauge consolation and usefulness, and examined its GPS accuracy in numerous terrains and situations. By integrating the watch into our on a regular basis routines, we guarantee our assessment of the Suunto 9 Peak Professional is complete and grounded in firsthand expertise.

Accuracy

Though it’s not a multiband GPS watch, the Suunto 9 Peak Professional tracks distance surprisingly effectively. It by no means confirmed any wavering or extraneous wobbles within the observe, whatever the terrain we took it in. It was often spot-on in our fixed-distance take a look at and precisely recorded elevation acquire with out misguided knowledge factors.

Nevertheless, buying an correct coronary heart price was noticeably difficult. We chalk this as much as the consolation of the band greater than the precise watch, as it’s exhausting to get the band adequately tight with out being uncomfortable. Whereas we’ll proceed to belief the Peak 9 Professional’s GPS and elevation knowledge, we propose pairing it with an exterior coronary heart price monitor in the event you’re trying to get essentially the most correct outcomes.

Battery Life

With a said GPS battery lifetime of 40 hours and a smartwatch battery lifetime of 21 days, that is about common for a watch of this worth level. Nevertheless, throughout our subject testing, the battery life was a lot shorter in follow.

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional misplaced about 5 to 10 % of battery life per hour of use. Chilly additionally severely impacted it, leading to a steep decline in battery efficiency.

Whereas this Peak 9 Professional’s battery is greater than sufficient for every day use, it might not maintain up as effectively for lengthy and chilly adventures the place entry to charging is a problem.

On the upside, the Peak 9 Professional was one of many fastest-charging watches in our lineup, which means that it powers again up shortly after depletion.

Consolation & Wearability

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional comes with an ordinary band. If you wish to customise it with a third-party wristband, you may simply take away it with a sliding pin.

The surplus tail of the band is secured with a novel metallic stud into the adjustment holes of the band. Nevertheless, this band was one of many extra uncomfortable ones we tried, and the watch as an entire didn’t put on comfortably when in movement. The exhausting, ninety-degree edges and lack of a curved bevel trigger it to dig into the wrist, and the uncomfortable band makes it exhausting to tighten the watch so it doesn’t jiggle.

With an similar measured and said weight of fifty-five grams, it’s undoubtedly on the heavier facet of our lineup. The additional bulk is noticeable, notably when carrying gloves or sliding out and in of backpack straps. If you’re searching for a low-profile, light-weight watch, you could look elsewhere, however the Peak 9 Professional remains to be comfy sufficient for multi-hour actions.

Options

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional has nearly each exercise kind conceivable; nonetheless, narrowing down the choice to your favorites is counterintuitive inside the watch’s interface.

Fortunately, the power to create a customized exercise mode inside the app after which add that to the watch is a superb characteristic. We personalized actions for various kinds of working and mountaineering, the place we wished to see related metrics shortly.

Whereas the Peak 9 Professional can’t have maps offline on the watch, it may well have routes with turn-by-turn navigation. It might additionally set up location and navigate to factors of curiosity. Attending to this navigation inside the watch’s menu takes some follow with Suunto’s considerably complicated interface. Whereas it may well learn and dismiss messages and notifications from a smartwatch, it lacks different features that make it preferrred for every day put on.

Ease of Use

It’s each contact display screen enabled and has three buttons for choice and menu scrolling. We recognize that the contact display screen responds even when the display screen is moist or if we’re carrying gloves.

The buttons, alternatively, are exhausting to deal with with a gloved hand, and we regularly “fat-fingered” them unintentionally.

We continuously discovered ourselves puzzled by the watch’s person interface. Narrowing down the variety of actions displayed is counterintuitive, and a few generally used options like navigation are buried in a menu.

Moreover, the companion app has hard-to-interpret knowledge analytics and might be finicky to make use of. The charging cradle is magnetic, which is progressive and nice for simple attachment, however it’s simply bumped, disengaging the watch from charging. Whereas the Peak 9 Professional leaves some room for enchancment in ease of use, navigating to primary features and actions stays streamlined and easy.

Ought to You Purchase the Suunto 9 Peak Professional GPS Watch?

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional is a svelte watch that blurs the strains between a classy timepiece and efficiency {hardware}.

Its easy titanium outer is sturdy and glossy, giving it a fancy look not like GPS watches’ conventional sporty spice vibes. The 9 Peak Professional is most suited to these utilizing this look ahead to single-day outings since its battery life isn’t as long-lasting as others in our lineup. Its highly effective processor makes it easy functioning and it’s fast to cost.

Nevertheless, its person interface might be counterintuitive, and the small buttons are simple to push mistakenly. Whereas it lacks lots of the options required for every day smartwatch use, the 9 Peak Professional is a robust possibility for the every day coach who nonetheless appreciates a well-designed and glossy watch.

What Different Watches Ought to You Take into account?

Need to see what else our crew reviewed? See our full GPS watches gear information to seek out your good GPS watch. In case you’re contemplating the Suunto 9 Peak Professional, listed here are some robust opponents:

Coros Apex 2 Professional Evaluate: With a barely bigger show and much more battery life, the Apex 2 Professional is a standard-setting watch good for lengthy adventures.

Amazfit T-Rex 3 Evaluate: In case you preferred the show measurement of the 9 Peak Professional, however are searching for a bigger watch at a cheaper price, the T-Rex 3 is a superb possibility.

Coros Tempo 3 Evaluate: Over 100 {dollars} cheaper than the 9 Peak Professional, however nonetheless loaded with options, the Tempo 3 makes for a superb finances watch.