Suunto Race S general discussion
-
I believe that people who buy this type of watch belong to a certain economic level, but above all, they are usually mature, adult individuals. This implies, among other things, that their eyesight is not the same as it was at 20 years old. This is something to seriously consider when launching a product like the Suunto Race S, which is not known for having the largest screen on the market.
On the other hand, I find it hard to understand why, on virtually any electronic device, regardless of the screen size, you can adjust the font size to improve the user experience. Paradoxically, a sports watch, which has a smaller screen than most other devices, does not include the option to change font sizes to make menus and data easier to read.
To make matters worse, I recently watched a video of an older Suunto watch—I can’t remember the model—where you could choose font sizes M, L, and XL, if I’m not mistaken. I can do without the “holiday-themed watch faces,” which are purely aesthetic and trivial, but I truly miss something as fundamental and important as this feature, aimed at improving usability and the user or customer experience.
-
Poor Suunto just wanted to give a little joy for xmas with a couple of new watchfaces - which were likely thrown together in a couple of lunch breaks by one of the developers for a bit of fun - and all they get is moaning about wasting resource that could have been used elsewhere. Devs are humans too, remember!
Regarding the small font, it was clear from the point of purchase what size the fonts were and there were lots of video reviews showing the font size so if the font is too small maybe the Race S wasn’t the right purchase. Obviously there’s the larger screen on the Race which would help with readability or there are other watch companies with software that does allow for font size changes.
Adding support for font size changing is, in my opinion, a really complex and time consuming development process because all the ui elements need to be extended to work correctly with the different font size and then extensive testing is needed across all the languages the watch supports to make sure the cropping of text is minimised and all the non-english characters and emojis correctly scale. Furthermore, work would be needed across all the Suunto Plus apps to check and update where needed to handle the additional font sizes.
If the alternative is to offer a watch with a bigger screen and then spend the resource on the long list of other requests for fixes such as turn-by-turn, guided workouts etc. I think you could guess what I’d vote
-
@jannis for me for many years adding about 10 beats to my nightly resting HR seemed to yield reasonable resource levels, very similar to Garmins bodybattery. There are many post here in the forum concerning this and techniques how to find out working values.
-
@far-blue I absolutely do not share your opinion. There are brands/watches on par with this Suunto Race S, even lower-end models, that include this feature. Any electronic device with a larger screen comes with it by default: smartphones, tablets, e-books, laptops, etc. However, a watch screen is smaller. I find it hard to understand why it doesn’t include this functionality.
If I chose this watch, it’s because it meets all my wants/needs, except for the font size, something Suunto has already incorporated into some of their other watches in the past. We’re talking about a €349 watch; I believe the price alone justifies it.
-
@Koldo-Larrea Only some Coros watches support it and I notice the Pace 3 doesn’t even though the Pace 2 does. Also, it only changes the size on workout screens, not the general watch UI. I don’t believe Polar support it at all.
-
@Koldo-Larrea I would also like to have bigger font, the joys of getting old!
But I bought the Vertical for what it had, if this was a make it break feature I may well have made a different choice. Too late to complain now!
But maybe this may change in the future. Particularly for standard watch faces. The are very few I can employ now that I can read without glasses that have second counters. Now I think this would be easy as some watch faces are already big digits but generally lack a second counter.
-
@Audaxjoe
As a Suunto Vertical owner, do you think a screen not just larger—that much I take for granted—but transflective would look and read better? I use reading glasses indoors, but I don’t wear them while doing sports. However, since the fonts are so small and so close together, I find it hard to read the menus and data. Thanks in advance. -
@far-blue I use the contemporary city watch face for this reason. Have you tried that?
-
@far-blue said in Suunto Race S general discussion:
Regarding the small font, it was clear from the point of purchase what size the fonts were and there were lots of video reviews showing the font size so if the font is too small maybe the Race S wasn’t the right purchase. Obviously there’s the larger screen on the Race which would help with readability or there are other watch companies with software that does allow for font size changes.
This is the reason I have a Race and not a Race S. The 9PP was too small, and the Race would have (I guess) been the same.
@Koldo-Larrea said in Suunto Race S general discussion:
@far-blue I absolutely do not share your opinion. There are brands/watches on par with this Suunto Race S, even lower-end models, that include this feature. Any electronic device with a larger screen comes with it by default: smartphones, tablets, e-books, laptops, etc. However, a watch screen is smaller. I find it hard to understand why it doesn’t include this functionality.
A small but important point: they don’t come with it ‘by default.’ It has to be developed as a function of the software offering. With development budgets competing for functionality, if this is not considered essential for sales, or a means of selling more, then it simply won’t be developed. Again: Suunto is a business, not a cool company that provides watches for our ‘pleasure.’
-
@Koldo-Larrea In not sure, I have never even seen the race. The Vertical is very easy to read, but I need to wear reading glasses too read the font as it is too small for my age! I have sports glasses with inserts.
It would be great to have larger fonts!
