How is the 9PP positioned with the new arrival of the RaceS?

fv4500

On the discussion about the future of the 9PP, the other day I was shopping for a new pair of trail shoes. They were showcasing Suunto watches and you could touch and feel them. These were nonfunctional mock-ups, by the way. I discussed with the guy the new Race S and asked about how many Suunto AMOLED vs. MIP watches they were selling. The answer was that 4 out of 5 watches sold were AMOLED, with 1 out of 5 MIP (and these were Verticals), reason being that people feel AMOLED “the next big thing” in display technologies: they look much better.

AMOLED sells watches, that’s the fact.

IMHO, unless Suunto launches a Vertical-S anytime soon, MIP will die with the Vertical. Let’s face it, Suunto nailed it with the Race S in price and features packed. I’ll miss MIP.

VoiGAS

Maybe my Watch is different from the others, I have other expectations or I am not able to set the watch correctly

My Watch: Race S, made in China…

My Use Case: Running at daylight, if possible sunny conditions

My settings: Highest Brightness and AOD on, lift to wake off ( I have AOD on, so…)

Sounds like it should be always readable, right? But it is not. The display is reducing the brightness after a few seconds to a level below “low” and doesn’t go up anymore. This brightness level is unreadable in the sunlight

So you have to activate lift to wake, else you brightness setting is ignored. That works, but it takes about 1 second. Sounds not like much, but during running its an additional stride you have with your hand lifted. For me thats at least annoying if not unacceptable for a sportwatch.

Maybe I got something wrong, but I don’t get how this can be better than the 9 Peaks MIP for running outdoor. For indoor AMOLED is much better, I agree on this.

VoiGAS

At least I am not the only one https://forum.suunto.com/post/144517
And for cycling:
https://forum.suunto.com/topic/10268/bright-mode-cycling/

Too bad I didn’t read them before buying the Race S. If the AOD setting will be fixed to “Always On” instead of “Always Off” the AMOLED display will be absolutly fine. Until then I cannot recommend the Race S for “Sun Runners”. I guess for biking its even worse because Lift to wake doesn’t work on a mount.
9PP is currently the better choice I would say, anyone planning to buy Race (S) should be aware of the problem

isazi

@VoiGAS both posts you mention are before the update that allowed display setting to be specified per sport.

DirkM

@VoiGAS I have been a runner for many years and see no problem in raising my wrist and waiting for the display to activate - in less than a second, in my opinion. But maybe we have different needs. Besides, the MIP display has been no different in twilight and darkness with the backlight turning on.

VoiGAS

@isazi You are right - but there is still no solution for situations without lift to wake, right?

VoiGAS

@DirkM I agree, in darkness/twilight the MIP was worse. But for my preffered weather conditions it was perfect.
So it depends, but I think it is important to be clear about the pros and cons.
For Indoor, twilight, night, home AMOLED is better
For Sun MIP is better
As this is a major difference between 9PP and Race S it fits here

Mauerwegler

Fun fact:

A refurbished S9PP Ti costs 359 € right now.
A brand new S9PP Ti costs 349 € right now.

Maybe it is because the refurbished one is Made in Finland?

far-blue

Clearly the obvious solution is to own both a Race S and a 9PP

Brad_Olwin

@VoiGAS said in How is the 9PP positioned with the new arrival of the RaceS?:

An update here after more usage: Yes, maps are great - but not as much as I thought. After a longer Trail Run today I noticed that about 50% of the trails on Y crossings were not in the map. So it also didn’t help in this case. And in the case where it helped I’m not sure if I would also be able to find the right way with the old maps.

And Display: AMOLED is rubbish. I really, really hate it after I did some workouts and the longer run today. Its like the watch is trying to work against you, turning of the screen all the time. Even when I activated AOD in every sportsmode the map still gets dark until its not readable anymore. And still, after 9h running with navigation the battery was below 50%.

Well, I respectfully disagree here. I don’t use AOD and find responsiveness on turning my wrist superb - I have no issues while racing where I have less time to glance at the Screen. With navigation on I am getting close to 30h battery estimate. On a 7h 26 min 50K race with navigation and climb guidance I lost 14% battery on Race S as measured by JSON file. Both are in direct sun at 1700 m elevation.
@wakarimasen

Below are zonesense from Race S and Vertical. The AMOLED screen refreshes quickly and shows up in photos.

VoiGAS

@Brad_Olwin Thats really strange. My Race S takes about 1 second to light up, even after a hard reset. Is yours faster or is this lag acceptable for you?
Regarding battery lifetime: Did you use maps on navigation? I heard thats the big battery eater and I used them on my 9h run. Without them the battery lifetime seems good enough. Even good enough it could power a real Always On Display in my opinion…

Edit: Measuring the one second speaking the word “twentyone”. Not very scientific or precise - but I can speak the whole word before the display lights up, so this should be around one second

Brad_Olwin

@VoiGAS battery lifetimes with maps on but not on map page 100% and course loaded but no TBT. As fast as I turn my wrist screen is bright no AOD and full raise to wake. During non- exercise might be slower but that doesn’t matter. During exercise plenty fast for me but likely not fast enough on a bike.

VoiGAS

@Brad_Olwin Interesting, thank you for this answer. Looks like the watches behave a little different. I hope one of the next updates will give me a similar performance - then I am perfectly happy with the Race S

Edit: Found some strange behaviour after experimenting with the settings, but its to OT here - I opened a new topic

VoiGAS

Maybe some positive things about the Races S compared to 9PP
I already said I don’t like the AMOLED display at all. But there is one thing I really like: the torch feature. I thought about it as a useless gimmick, but it works great and easy to access via shortcut
The maps are not as useful as I thought for Y crossing and routing. But if you are not following a route and just want to checkout where a trail will bring you during a hike - perfect!

So two points for the Race S

VoiGAS

Is it just for me or did Suunto really changed back the price of the Peak Pro? For me in the shop the price for the steel version is again 349€ after it went down to 299€ some weeks ago.
I don’t think they will sell a lot for the price of the Race S

TrailEyes

@VoiGAS On the U.S. site, steel 9PP listed at $249. Not sure why there’d be such a difference between dollars and euros though.

VoiGAS

@TrailEyes Thats a great deal!

Audaxjoe

@VoiGAS also think about it on a bike handlebars. Next to useless. The Vertical is always readable. If it gets dark you turn the backlight on.

Elipsus

@TrailEyes That’s usually because US prices are displayed w\o taxes (as it varies from state to state) while euro prices include VAT

Egika

@VoiGAS I just measured the screen response time using a video with timestamp.
from turning my wrist to the screen lighting up with data it is exactly 200ms in my Race S