Suunto 9 Baro Screen Quality/Clarity

Efejota

@shvffles S9B here (no sapphire). Under direct sunlight, the screen is amazing. It works much worse with low light conditions. I find it VERY difficult to read in the sunset, for instance. I came from a A3P and the screen was definitely much much better no matter the light conditions. All in all, I would say that most of the time I find the screen not so good, but it is a personal statement. I have not seen Garmin alternatives, so I cannot judge.

cosme.costa

@efejota said in Suunto 9 Baro Screen Quality/Clarity:

@shvffles S9B here (no sapphire)

If I’m not mistaken all S9B have sapphire glass, it is the NON baro which is no sapphire.

Regarding screen, we can’t compare it with an ambit, they are not the same technology.

In my opinion the S9B has a very good screen for the technology that uses. Under sun light is amazing and in low light it is what is it for the technology, my Garmin 530, with trans-reflective screen too, has no better screen, on the contrary, and by default comes with the backlight always on. On the S9, you can turn on the backlight on and then is always very readable.

I run a lot with headlamp and I only use the backlight when I’m doing some training that I need to see some parameter constantly. When this is not important, I can run normally and putting the watch within the headlamp light range is enough to read the screen. Of course if you use a seven field creen is going to be more difficult to read than if you use only 3 fields.

EzioAuditore

Not sure if I can post other company’s watches (delete if not) but here is a comparison for you. Keep in mind I have reversed the watch-face on the F6x - when all black it is less visible. I can send you later also when all black. The photo is inside office next to window with cloudy weather - not much sun. Cheers.

Shvffles

@hristijan-petreski Thanks for these photos - it really helps.

This is an especially good comparison as I’ve been told the screen on the Fenix 6X is miles better than the Suunto 9 (and I’ve been told to go for that instead) But looking here, they’re very comparable.

Can you post a photo of the 6X with its standard display beside the S9? - thanks a mil for this!!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@shvffles maybe what you want to ask , is during workout mode how they look.

During the activity the s9 supports a white background that should make things way more visible imo.

EzioAuditore

@shvffles Sure. Here you go. Screen on F6x has less pixels (AFAIK) than the S9 so it looks “more pixelated” upon close inspection. During activity too I have no problems reading any of them. If you come from OLED screens you will be at first disappointed when you look at these (S9 or F6). In time though, you will come to love it. This is outdoor watch and outside (under sun or during day) it is just incomparable. Also at night the backlight helps to read it. If you need it for smartwatch you should look elsewhere (S7, Samsung or Apple, etc. - horrible bat. life especially Apple’s).

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@hristijan-petreski btw nice keyboard

EzioAuditore

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos Thnx. It helps while coding (Microsoft sculpt ergonomic)

Shvffles

@hristijan-petreski Thanks so much for these!!! They look the exact same to be honest! Which is a good thing I suppose as it means jumping in price to the Fenix wouldn’t be worth it from my perspective (a non pro).

Is it possible to add a watch face to the Suunto that also shows similar info to the Fenix all on one screen?

Shvffles

@shvffles Also what’s this about a Suunto 9 Peak?

I saw someone online telling another person to hold off getting a 9 as the Peak was launching soon?

Anyone have any info?

DMytro

@shvffles there were some rumors of s9peak coming out in summer or in fall. Why wait though? S9 was polished via a lot of software updates if you compare it to s9 when it was launched. If we speculate s9peak will be launched in a similar way, it will probably be less useful first year or so.
Also because s9 is almost 3yo it’s also quite a bit cheaper then top tier Garmin and coros watches and also cheaper then potential fresh s9 peak.
If you however think that s9 feature set isn’t sufficient, you could indeed wait, but for how long is the question.

Shvffles

@дима-мельниченко Yeh absolutely. It was just that when I saw the info, I thought, maybe better to wait. But…there will always be something new around the corner and as the Peak seems to be from the S9 family, it can’t be too different I don’t think.

DMytro

@shvffles we’ll see I guess

EzioAuditore

@shvffles You’re welcome. So to answer your question about the info on the watch-face. Here is where the s9 and the f6x differ. One being Linux alike and the other Mac/Win
So the s9 has types of watch-faces: outdoor, fitness, training and then some classic where the relevant information of the type is shown. You can interact with most of them though. So the one I use one press and it gets you to show info of the altitude one more and it shows weather info (baro, see @Brad_Olwin post above - it is the same watch-face with mine). You can of course choose different colors for all the watch-faces. Garmin (the Linux in this case) is totally configurable: it has two types digital and analog (btw s9 has also analog types) and the info shown is configurable. The placeholders (separated by the colored separators) can be custom-tailored to show whatever you want. Even the control center (as they call the quick menu) can be custom as well as can be the ‘widgets’ menu. This is where you see overview of the info you want to see: weather, training progress, sleep, alti/baro, etc.
I always have had a weak point for Suunto (Ambit series, Spartan and 2 S9baro), then I switched to Polar and was gifted my Fenix cause of the info I needed after an injury I had (run dynamics - but you need garmin’s HR belt for this).
To put it simply in the beginning the Fenix felt like over-engineered and too complex, on the other hand it gives you all sort of possibilities some of which I never used (golf, walk the dog - I know: WTF, music, full maps, etc.).
The thing is: it is nice to have all this on your wrist but how useful it is depends on your preferences and needs. I.e.: I am at certain age that I consider modern music to be noise at best (IMHO) so maybe for young generations the music reproduced by the fenix is ok, for me though it is not: so I always carry my mobile when easy running, hence a feature garmin charges but I do not use.
If you check their forums in the beginning the f6x was called by many a Random Number Generator and garmin didn’t fix the bugs but was ‘polishing’ the Golf, the walk the dog, etc.
I was hiking and running uphill just to see what is wrong and while polar was showing HR of 148 the garmin was showing 78!! This as you know was destroying all other metrics: training status, recovery, etc. It is only after 13 iterations that they somewhat fixed it. This was no HW issue since I found the running OHR even better than the S9 (at least in initial stages of my run where the s9 for some reasons still locks to my cadence and then normalizes). They have different algorithms per activity for everything: vo2, HR, etc so this was the reason that they were suggesting: use walking activity when hiking and indeed the HR was much better the thing is you didn’t have ascent vs descent).
Now though with the latest FW (16.6) the watch is in much better state. Credits where is due
So to sum in my experience:

suunto: outdoor, hiking, trail run
polar: running - the data they have in flow is just out of this world
garmin: a bit of everything with heavy emphasize on the social (you got badge cause you beat your friend, etc) and navigation (this is where they shine due to their heritage)
Hope it helped and FYI I always consider ‘non-pro’ users to go for garmin (at least in the past) and sport enthusiasts to go for suunto or polar.

Cheers and take care.

Shvffles

@hristijan-petreski Thanks for that really detailed overview - it’s definitely given me food for thought.

From my perspective, I’ve only gotten into fitness over the last several months. I’m 6.1”, 37 and before I started running (treadmill), I weighed 108KG.

I’m now down to 94KG and so, getting a watch (my first sports watch) is effectively a gift/motivator for where I’ve come from and where I hope to go.

Family and colleagues all use Garmin so that’s where the bias kicks in (I do like the size of the 6X).

But I think I kind of want something with my own stamp on it. I came across the configurator yesterday on the Suunto site and put together a pretty sweet design with a lime strap, silver bezel and engraving on the underside. It’s a little more expensive €499 but it’s mine (if you know what I mean), plus, this forum, and in particular, this thread has really made Suunto all that more appealing to be honest - a very welcoming and helpful bunch of people!!!

Going forward, I hopefully see myself heading outdoors and into the mountains and my new found love for fitness has me thinking about an ultra in a few years…maybe.

Decisions…

isazi

@shvffles the goal of this forum is to be a meeting place for the community of Suunto users, and I am glad you like the atmosphere here!

EzioAuditore

@shvffles You are definitely right. There is my weak point for Suunto. It is smaller but it feels like ‘family’. And I prefer to ‘support’ some smaller companies, otherwise in a couple of years the conglomerates will dictate everything (the next fenix will be north of 1k eur). If I hadn’t received the f6x I would never have bought it.
Make sure (from my experience) that there will be much more ‘looking eyes’ at your Suunto than your Garmin
Size between the 2 is almost identical as is the weight (especially if you go for the titanium version S9 is even lighter).
Plus when going outside: enjoy the scenery, the view, the surroundings, the companies and you will find much joy than blindly following the numbers on your wrist. Cheers and keep going, the s9 will surely help you achieve your goals, just do not force anything. I started with 7:30 min per km and HR of 170 to 4:30 per km and 140 in my late 30s so anything is possible

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@hristijan-petreski said in Suunto 9 Baro Screen Quality/Clarity:

I started with 7:30 min per km and HR of 170 to 4:30 per km and 140 in my late 30s so anything is possible

Efejota

@hristijan-petreski I understand now why you needed to recover from an injury. Just kidding

EzioAuditore

@efejota Actually the knee injury was basketball related. After a couple of months the running was making my knee hurt even more only to find out that due to the injury I was subconsciously putting more stress to my sick leg (thinking that in this way I will return it to normal). This is where the run dynamics from the Garmin HRM helped a lot. It showed me that I use the sick leg 55% longer on ground and the healthy one 45%. It took a lot of forced effort to bring it to balance.