The Suunto 9 Peak is essentially a shorter, more stylish version of the Finnish sports watch maker’s top-end Suunto 9. It has all of the same features as previous Suunto 9 models, including over 80 tracking modes, important environmental sensors like an altimeter and compass, and the option to publish routes using Suunto’s heatmaps to find your way to the most popular running, walking, and biking spots.
For effective outdoor tracking, there’s support for the major satellite systems, and the snap to route function wants to improve track while trying to get a strong tracking signal in patchy areas. The watch also has a blood oxygen sensor and an optical heart rate monitor, as well as smartwatch features like music controls and the ability to read phone alerts from the wrist.
What will you see here?
Price and release date:
The Suunto 9 Peak was released on June 17th, 2021, and costs £609 / $699 / AU$999. The Suunto 9 Baro, which has a bigger case and much of the same features, costs £419 / $499 / AU$699.99.
Design and display:
The Suunto 9 Peak is without a doubt the most attractive watch Suunto has ever made, yet it isn’t without flaws. Let’s start with the positives. The Suunto 9 Peak features a 43mm design that makes it more unisex than most other outdoor watches. The case is dominated by a lovely slim titanium bezel, which went nicely with our review sample’s light blue 22mm strap.
It’s small at 10.6mm, and the entire weight of 52g doesn’t feel too heavy to wear daily or while doing the activity. To put it simply, the 47mm Garmin Fenix 7 is 14.5mm thick and weighs roughly 20g more.
The Suunto 9 Peak has a water resistance rating of 100 meters, so you may drop it up to 100 meters if you need to. On the right side of the casing. There are three physical buttons and a – likely 1.2-inch transflective display with 240 x 240 pixels.
However, its display supports touch, it isn’t amazing. The transition from one screen to the next is very slow, and taps might take a long to register. There’s also the issue of a large black bezel surrounding the screen, which takes up the valuable property.
In terms of visibility, the screen does well in harsh outside light. Although it is prone to wiping, the large bezel means you’re losing out on more space for your data fields to breathe. An LED backlight helps vision at night, although it isn’t particularly bright. There’s a lot to appreciate about the Suunto 9 Peak’s design and overall look, but it’s held down by a poor touchscreen that forces you to rely on the hard physical buttons to move.
Sports tracking:
The Suunto 9 Peak has over 80 sports modes, including indoor and outdoor activities, as well as core sports such as running, cycling, and swimming. Activity profiles marked as ‘basic’ will just monitor time and heart rate, rather than the more detailed data available for other activities.
A digital compass and a barometric altitude are used to track altitude, as well as ascents and descents over more steep terrain. There’s support for the five most popular satellite navigation systems. With four different GPS recording settings to choose from depending on how much battery life you have.
Storm warnings, temperature measurements, sea level pressure data, and dawn and sunset times are among the many weather-related features. An optical heart rate monitor estimates effort levels and provides continuous heart rate monitoring during exercise. It also works with external heart rate sensors if you don’t trust the heart rate accuracy. The on-trend SpO2 sensor may also be used to keep track of blood oxygen levels.
The Suunto 9 Peak’s tracking experience is severely disturbed by its slow, sluggish display. Which makes selecting modes and adjusting settings a chore. After our first few trips out with it, the Suunto 9 Peak was very quick to pick up a GPS signal. When we compared it to the Garmin Epic, we found that the two watches had equal distance and pace information.
After that, you may sync them to your watch. However, things become pretty simple from there. To go around, you’ll use a simple breadcrumb navigation system. It’s good to use in general, albeit the lack of any kind of detailed mapping offers you little idea of the surrounding environment or what could be coming up on your journey. Garmin and Coros, for example, provide greater mapping experiences.
Battery life
The Suunto 9 Peak delivers the same battery life as the basic Suunto 9. So you’ll be monitoring and receiving phone notifications for the next seven days. If you’re only using it to tell the time, that number climbs to 14 days.
You have a variety of GPS battery numbers to choose from when it comes to tracking. With the greatest accuracy providing you with 25 hours. You can get up to 170 hours if you’re ready to give up supreme precision. Suunto has also added its intelligent charge reminders. This will analyze your activity history and advise switching to a less power-hungry mode if your battery is low before an activity.
The Garmin Fenix 7 has a GPS battery life of up to 57 hours when compared to comparably priced watches. In full GPS mode, the Coros Vertix 2 can last for 140 hours. Even the older Fenix 6 Pro can last up to 36 hours on a single charge. As a result, it lags behind the market in this area. In testing, it has proven to be capable of running for a week with GPS tracking enabled. The battery dropped by 5% after an hour of tracking in the ultimate GPS accurate mode. This isn’t bad, but you’ll see smaller dents in the battery from some of the other watches listed.
Does Suunto 9 Peak have maps?
: Both Suunto (and Polar) use mapping from Komoot with route building handily done in the Suunto application. Komoot has great streets yet additionally trail maps and it is uncommon as far as I can tell that a realized trail is excluded.
Does Suunto 9 Peak have Barometer?
Suunto 9 Peak utilizes barometric pressure to quantify altitude. To get exact readings, you really want to characterize an altitude reference point.
Does Suunto 9 have music?
Your Suunto 9 can be utilized to control the music, podcasts, and different media played on your phone or being projected from your telephone to another gadget. The media controls are on as a matter of course however can be switched off under Settings » Media controls. NOTE: You want to pair your watch with your telephone before you can utilize Media controls.
Conclusion
If you’re already a user of Suunto’s ecosystem and are looking for a Suunto with a stylish design. The 9 Peak checks all the boxes. One of the nicer, more unique features that make the Peak a handy watch to have on your wrist is Suunto’s heatmaps. While there are some aspects of the Suunto 9 Peak that operate well, as a whole, it falls short. Suunto’s on-watch software is slow and sluggish, which makes using the Peak on a daily basis an unpleasant experience.
