Suunto 9 Peak Professional GPS Watch Overview

Backside Line

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

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

The Suunto 9 Peak Professional’s contact display is without doubt one of the greatest within the enterprise, and we had no issues utilizing it whereas moist or whereas sporting gloves. Its noticeably sturdy processor permits for clean capabilities within the watch, fast storage and evaluation of actions, and lag-free efficiency. Nonetheless, all that highly effective processing and clean capabilities 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 information evaluation and fewer polished software program.

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

How We Examined

We put the Suunto 9 Peak Professional by way of in depth real-world testing (Alaska-style), utilizing it for path runs, backcountry snowboarding, and each day smartwatch duties to evaluate its efficiency throughout quite a lot of conditions. Over a number of months, we absolutely depleted and recharged its battery a number of instances to guage battery life, wore it for lengthy intervals to gauge consolation and value, and examined its GPS accuracy in various terrains and situations. By integrating the watch into our on a regular basis routines, we guarantee our overview of the Suunto 9 Peak Professional is complete and grounded in firsthand expertise.

Accuracy

Regardless that it’s not a multiband GPS watch, the Suunto 9 Peak Professional tracks distance surprisingly properly. It by no means confirmed any wavering or extraneous wobbles within the monitor, whatever the terrain we took it in. It was often spot-on in our fixed-distance take a look at and precisely recorded elevation achieve with out faulty information factors.

Nonetheless, buying an correct coronary heart charge 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 are going to proceed to belief the Peak 9 Professional’s GPS and elevation information, we recommend pairing it with an exterior coronary heart charge monitor when you’re trying to get probably the most correct outcomes.

Battery Life

With a acknowledged 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. Nonetheless, 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 each day use, it could not maintain up as properly 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, that 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 singular steel stud into the adjustment holes of the band. Nonetheless, 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 an identical measured and acknowledged weight of fifty-five grams, it’s positively on the heavier facet of our lineup. The additional bulk is noticeable, significantly when sporting gloves or sliding out and in of backpack straps. In case you are on the lookout for a low-profile, light-weight watch, you might look elsewhere, however the Peak 9 Professional continues to be snug sufficient for multi-hour actions.

Options

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

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

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

Ease of Use

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

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

We often 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 information analytics and will be finicky to make use of. The charging cradle is magnetic, which is revolutionary and nice for straightforward 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 fundamental capabilities 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 clean titanium outer is sturdy and smooth, 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 will not be as long-lasting as others in our lineup. Its highly effective processor makes it clean functioning and it’s fast to cost.

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

What Different Watches Ought to You Take into account?

Wish to see what else our workforce reviewed? See our full GPS watches gear information to seek out your good GPS watch. When you’re contemplating the Suunto 9 Peak Professional, listed here are some sturdy opponents:

Coros Apex 2 Professional Overview: 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 Overview: When you preferred the show dimension of the 9 Peak Professional, however are on the lookout for a bigger watch at a lower cost, the T-Rex 3 is a superb possibility.

Coros Tempo 3 Overview: Over 100 {dollars} cheaper than the 9 Peak Professional, however nonetheless loaded with options, the Tempo 3 makes for a wonderful price range watch.