Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?
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@zhang965 Genau esou ass et!
Some like it, some not. You cannot win
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@awinkel enjoy âŠand also have a look at the other episodes. Interesting interviews, especially the one with Benedikt Böhm, CEO of Dynafit.
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I had S9P and switched to Garmin Fenix 7. I am a bit biased towards Suunto because I love that they are passionate, they have great UX and SW designers, that they care about the environment. And I still read these forums carefully to see what Suunto is cooking up next, but from what I understood, S9PP is more of a chip update over S9P, so some of my issues with S9P carried over to S9PP.
Unfortunately the S9P are now on the wrist of my SO and not mine, as I am perfectly happy with Fenix 7.
What bugged me about S9P - not sure if it is fixed is S9PP
- build quality (it just isnât there), and I donât mean materials and durability, they are great, but things like vibration. Feels cheap and not premium. Also the button position is weird. I always had to be careful when using Leki poles with their specific âsharkâ system not to accidentally press a button.
- lack of customizability: the idea here is great. Out of the box S9P and S9PP have great UX both on watches and in the app. But I cannot customize all the screens. E.g. breadcrumb or intervals. I cannot move their position.
- wrist activated backlight. During my ultra with poles the backlight was on ALL.THE.TIME. Simply because the algorithm is too sensitive. Kudos though to the battery, which was not much affected.
- the screen quality. Compared to F7, the screen has a lower quality, might be due to the position relative to the screen, I donât know, but F7 screen is more vibrant and fluid.
- missing maps - I know this is a cliche but with F7 I again (also had F5 and F6) appreciated how easy it is to see the correct way e.g. at a complicated forest/trail junction simply because you can see all the other paths.
- GPS tracking: when we are crosscountry skiing and stop in the hut for a beer or for something to eat, the watch still count distance, even when my GF is sitting down (when she doesnât pause the watch manually), this happens only on cheapest Garmins (she previously had a Venu Sq), not an issue on F7.
What I like on F7
- I previously used also F6 and F5 and I can say that F7 is finally a Fenix without any major issues. I hated Garmin for a lot of things (e.g. UX, accuracy, battery life when maps/backlight is used) but this disappeared with F7.
- when using maps and/or backlight, the battery hit is minimal
- watch UX is improved, the menu structure as well, so finally it is not a mess of options.
- build quality - overall build quality is great - feels premium and durable from all angles.
- Solar. Last year we did a 3-week hike in French Alps. All day GPS tracking (around 8-10 hours) and because of the weather (sunny all day) I did not have to charge the F7 at all. The battery lasted literally until we returned to our car. Until then I thought of it as a gimmick.
- battery life: estimated battery life is legit, maps/backlight finally donât have so much hit on battery life
- reliability. With Suunto there were sometimes small bugs here and there, with F7 it just works (finally, the F5 and F6 werenât this way).
What I liked on S9P
- the design language (the bezel/screen ratio is not good but apart from that the design is great and especially the straps that are complementing the overall clean design very nicely)
- THE.MOBILE.APP - seriously. Someone should get a medal for that app. Clean interface, nice attention to detail, app worth the 2023. Garminâs app is stuck in the past.
- Which brings me to route planning. I could plan a route in Suunto app, this is terrible in Garmin (fortunately I am used to 3rd party apps such as mapy.cz).
- That Suunto cares. About environment, about users, about community. Ultimately all the issues I have with S9P come from the fact that Suunto is much smaller company than Garmin and thus has much less resources. And even with these resources they are trying as hard as they can (my impression). On the other hand as a user I want to have the product I can rely on, which was not S9P
- Logic and structure of the setup. That I am able to easily and in a nice way setup fields and screens in the mobile app. Garmin added that only recently and still is half-baked and full of bugs and looks like from 1990âs (only text menus copying the watch structure).
TLDR: Suunto is good but they have a lot of catching up to do for me to switch back:
- HW quality and performance (F7 is buttery smooth)
- data science: while I am not using the Garminâs training plans, I know a lot of people around me who do and it seems it really works.
- smooth out the bugs and focus on reliability (for bugs see above - e.g. the false distance tracking when sitting down)
- be open about what are the tradeoffs regarding battery life: S9P is a lot smaller than e.g. F7, yet the battery life was quite good. Until I noticed that I canât see my resting heart date for a specific period. Checked why and from my analysis it is because S9P donât know when I am resting. They are not able to know because they donât have automatic movement detection (such as Garmin Move IQ), or so it seems. Therefore they canât average only the periods of rest.
- add maps.
So overall it depends on your needs. Sorry for the long post, I am a sports watch enthusiast. These are just my opinions regarding S9P§ vs F7 based on my year with S9P and year with F7 (and previously AW, F645, F5, F6).
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@jakubdr Have you tried the Garmin Explore for route planning? Much more convenient compared to Garmin Connect (but still behind Suunto route planning capabilities). Advantage: You can use it completely offline
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@trailcafe I have, I tried to create a combination of waypoints (aid stations) and route for an upcoming race but fortunately this was fixed by Up Ahead and Garmin website route planner because I got lost in the Explore (was not able to join it for some reason)
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@jakubdr said in Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?:
- GPS tracking: when we are crosscountry skiing and stop in the hut for a beer or for something to eat, the watch still count distance, even when my GF is sitting down (when she doesnât pause the watch manually), this happens only on cheapest Garmins (she previously had a Venu Sq), not an issue on F7.
HmmmâŠfor my experience. when i sitting down to rest during my hike, my S9P did not count any walking distance. it always maintain same distance and i never pause my watch during my rest time.
Suunto Vertical All Black
Suunto 9 Peak All Black
Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR (Black) -
@babychai also ± fine on my s9
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@babychai I also have no issues in the open, but OP seems to be referring to sitting inside a hut. In such cases the GPS signal may be shaky, and the watch considers this crazy signal as you moving around.
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@isazi said in Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?:
@babychai I also have no issues in the open, but OP seems to be referring to sitting inside a hut. In such cases the GPS signal may be shaky, and the watch considers this crazy signal as you moving around.
Outside it is OK but happens indoors, unfortunately this is common scenario for us (and I suppose others) when hiking/crosscountry skiing etc. Stop in the middle for a bite or a drink in a hut and continue. Pausing the watch is an obvious solution but one has to remember to unpause it later
Anyway, mainly wanted to point out that F7 does not have such issues (maybe stronger antenna/different antenna position in watch) and therefore I donât have to think about it - one of the âjust worksâ examples there and the small quirks my SO needs to be aware of with S9P. -
@jakubdr said in Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?:
wanted to point out that F7 does not have such issues
maybe f7 auto pause ?
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@sartoric
you can set auto-pause on.
You also have the options to manually pause the watch and there is a resume later function which if used temporarily stops GPS while pausing your activity.Its possibly more likely that due to multi-band (and or just the GNSS chip in general which is excellent) may have had a better fix, enough that it had a good enough signals.
I have noted that my Epix when using All GNSS setting can get significantly better fixes than my F6x (Sony GNSS chip) including in places where my F6x cannot get a fix.
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@awinkel I have decided to go for the Garmin. There is a lot I like of the Suunto (design!) but the map functionality is a big advantage of the Garmin.
Garmin also has a website instead of only an app.
AndâŠI got the Fenix7 for only 50 euroâs more than a Suunto9 PP.
That small price difference makes the Garmin theoretically the better choice.
And I havenât forgotten Suuntoâs digital transformationâŠ
That was a big fuck you to their customers. -
@awinkel Glad you were able to find a solution, F7 is a great watch. Happy trails!
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@awinkel
ok, I also had to go thru the famous house of change. but I did not feel the same way about the digital transformation.
but itâs good that you could finally decide and made your choice -
@awinkel Only 50⏠more? For the non sapphire version i suppose? 9PP has sapphireâŠbig difference in my opinion!
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@Ultrawalker Yes, the non sapphire version. I read a few reviews and that wrote that the glass of the Fenix7 silver edition was already of very good quality and that paying for just the sapphire glasses wasnât needed. Time will tellâŠ
The glass of my Ambit2 wasnât t sapphire glass too and has no scratch at all.
