This is my first watch review and it's about the Suunto Ambit3 Peak which is the second GPS watch I’ve owned.
The first was a Garmin Forerunner 110 however the Suunto Ambit3 Peak is much, much better in all segments and it fits my training, races and it looks good as well!
The Garmin did it's job well, but I needed accurate elevation data and more battery power. The choice was this watch, the Suunto Ambit3 Peak.
This watch was purchased in August 2016 and I used it since than every day! Yes, I use it even in my "normal" life while not training! :)
As mentioned before, I needed a watch with a good performance in terms of elevation readings and battery life. Everything else was like secondary. But don't get me wrong here. This watch is so much more!
The Suunto website provides the following features:
• Route navigation and track back
• Route altitude profile navigation in real-time
• Compass
• Altitude (FusedAltiTM)
• Weather information
• Heart rate in swimming**
• Activity based recovery time
• Speed, pace and distance
• Bike power support (Bluetooth Smart)
• Multiple sports in one log
• Discover new routes with heatmaps on Suunto Movescount and Suunto Movescount App
• Movescount training programs on the watch
• Extended feature set through Suunto Apps
• Languages: EN, CS, DA, DE, ES, FI, FR, IT, JA, KO, NL, NO, PL, PT, RU, SV, ZH
• 30h battery with 5 sec-GPS accuracy (1 min-accuracy: 200h)
• Route navigation and track back
• Route altitude profile navigation in real-time
• Compass
• Altitude (FusedAltiTM)
• Weather information
• Heart rate in swimming**
• Activity based recovery time
• Speed, pace and distance
• Bike power support (Bluetooth Smart)
• Multiple sports in one log
• Discover new routes with heatmaps on Suunto Movescount and Suunto Movescount App
• Movescount training programs on the watch
• Extended feature set through Suunto Apps
• Languages: EN, CS, DA, DE, ES, FI, FR, IT, JA, KO, NL, NO, PL, PT, RU, SV, ZH
The battery life is indeed great! But the 30hrs lifetime is achievable only if you set up the watch in order to read the position every 5 sec.
I found out this to be a little bit tricky indeed. As a matter of fact I changed this setting online, synchronized everything with my watch and it died on me after just 17hrs! Not good!
So what I do now instead is that I use the best GPS accuracy, all the readings I need and I run my 100-mile races with an external battery pack that I connect to the watch when I see that the battery life is low. Easy as that! I did a 43hrs run/hike with just one charge in between! :)
The quality of the product is incredible!
I mean.... just look at my images of the watch! The product is two and a half years old and it's as good as new despite the fact that I train almost every day, that I race quite often, that I raced several 100-mile races and shorter ones too of course, that I climbed, hiked, I swim in lakes and sea and there is nothing wrong with the product! It's just amazing! I love it!!!
I remember waiting for ages in order for my watch to find the GPS signal, now it's like seconds! This is just great and when it comes to races that stress time waiting for the GPS signal is just worth the price difference to me! Yes... the watch is kinda "pricy" - approx 300EUR. But its a LOT of product for the money you pay! :)
As I mentioned before, you need to search for wearing issues..... it looks new! The only thing I do after my sessions is to rinse the watch under cold water.... just to clean the product from my sweat and dirt... nothing more! Just water!
The watch has a very nice and ascetically pleasing simple design. It doesn’t look out of place on the wrist even if you have a skinny arm like I do. Still you have to get used to the size and the 89g weight. The buttons are easy to use, the menus are easy to navigate, and everything is quite easy to use. The strap has never bothered me even after hours of running.
The heart-rate monitor uses Bluetooth instead of the more traditional ANT+ for pairing and that is great if like I do use the heart monitoring while training indoors.
Suunto Ambit3 Peak needs occasional software updates to keep accurate time....
I had a few issues! Yes, there are some!
• I had issues synchronizing the longer runs and longer races using the Bluetooth connection to my phone. I found out (talking with the Suunto support) that it's a good thing to sync all those longer activities using the provided USB-cable connected to a PC. Now I know that, and every run longer than a marathon i do sync using the cable! No problems after that! If you do attempt to sync and fail, or if you see the move on the phone but not online on Movescout DO NOT delete the move on the phone app or even worse... DO NOT disinstall the phone app! You gonna lose the move! If you have a sync fail try connecting the watch to the PC or contact the Suunto support. They are really good!
I noticed that the Suunto support while helping me retrieving my UTMB move used a software called MaoRem. The software managed to retrieve the move from my watch! I cannot understand why Suunto has no such software available to the users with an friendly layout of course. The technician that supported me removed the software from my computer at once so I couldn't test that one!
• I had issues with the battery life using other modes even if the GPS accuracy was set the same! I ended using the standard setup with a power pack I use when/if needed to charge the watch.
• I use the Android App, and honestly - it needs improvement! The App is very basic, too basic! A company such Suunto is has to aim higher with better software (my opinion of course)!
• I had issues understanding the Navigation options, how to use the navigation while running, how to use the routes and how to use the Track back function (in order to retrace your route at any point during an exercise). A better manual would be fine. The information online was better but I needed to search on YouTube in order to understand some of the functions better.
This is something I noticed a lot online:
- the users are VERY satisfied with the hardware but very disappointed about the software in general, bot the app and online. I hope that Suunto will do better in the future because the products are fantastic and I recommend this one!
Feel free to contact me if you need more information about this nice Suunto product! :)
