Vertical in 2026: thoughts and experiences?

[elbee]

Tbh, it really doesn’t matter that much whether you use a brand new type or an older type watch. I’ve had several watches with an optical sensor and none work for me. It’s more person dependent than hardware. My advice, never buy a watch because marketing promise the best heart rate sensor ever. If the old one didn’t work for you, the new one will neither.

If it meets your criteria (long battery life and dual freqeuncy gps) it’s fine. (Personally I think dual frequency gps is a bit overhyped. I did follow gpx routes with an ancient suunto ambit 3 run and never got lost)

If I look around at my athletics club I see quite a few very good athletes using watches way older than a vertical.

If you like the watch, and it’s in your budget and don’t have fomo, you will have a watch which lasts many years.

[Egika]

regarding TI or steel, it comes down to the weight.
light weight helps the wrist heart rate detection.
I love wearing a lighter watch (and the difference is clearly noticeable).
While, if this is not priority for you, the steel models do the same.

[CroShark]

I’m a proud owner of the Vertical Solar Steel since the start of 2025.
The watch has been amazing for me.
The battery life is virtually unlimited for my training and daily use.
Like it was stated the OHR on the watch is just plain bad, pretty much useless for running ad similar “bumpy” activities, so an external heart sensor is a must (I use Polar Verity Sense and Suunto Smart Sensor.).
The GPS/GNSS performance is good, but to be honest with watches I usually get about 1 - 5 meters precision in challenging conditions (trees and nearby cliffs, and urban area). Which is good enough for following a trail on the map or imported route (most of the routes on OSM are less precise then the watch).
So far it held up great, despite many bumps with the rocks during climbing.

Definitely would buy it today for a good price.

[VoiGAS]

Great choice for your activities. The display is great in the sun. Especially for your activities it has a unique feature:
If you want to use the maps, with the Vertical 1 MIP Display the map is always on. AMOLED watches switch into a harder to read kind of reduced mode. You have to activate it by raising your hand which doesn’t work to well if mounted to a bike…

Its kind of heavy, I have the Titanium version and thats the maximum I would carry on the wrist. But thats highly individual

Battery just seems to last forever, so that shouldn’t be a concern

[Jan Krejčí]

@flatduck I first bought Vertical Steel when it was released. Before I used Suunto 9 Peak. Unfortunately I had to return the Vertical because the map feature was very unreliable back then (infamous black grid with white stripes instead of maps) and it was a deal breaker for me because I didn’t want to buy a separate cycling computer (my main sport is cycling). So I went with Garmin Fenix 7s. Fast forward to January 2026 and Fenix was repeatedly turning off during temperatures around 0°C and lower. So I thought it’s time to go back to Suunto, a Finnish brand should not have problems with freezing temperatures.

I was intrigued by Vertical 2’s better optical HR, mainly for non-activity periods, and by sleep graphs that are not available with Vertical 1. I always use a chest strap for activities. Also a slightly bigger screen is nice.

But biggest factor for me was MIP display, because I want to be able to glance on a navigation anytime without touching the display to wake it up.
So I grabbed a Titanium Vertical 1 that was on sale (around 634 USD in Czechia).

And man, with all the updates during those two and half years, I couldn’t recognize it. Back then, clicking in the user interface was slow and laggy, now fast and responsive. Back then, you couldn’t see HRV graph, today it’s standard. Maps are reliable. You have all the training metrics introduced with Suunto Race.

The only thing I wish for, is to be able to change the datafield on navigation screen from remaining distance to distance to next turn. Hopefully that will come with the last RIP update for Vertical in the future. Apart from that, the watch is perfect for me. I went on bikepacking trip to Poland and after three days of navigation in best GPS mode and sleeping with the watch, I still had around 25% battery. With Fenix 7s I had to plug in charger in the middle of a single day.

Of course, consider your needs and your main sport. Even steel version without solar will last long so you can save some money.

[plopes73]

@Tieutieu Agree, I have the same watch, since the first days it was launched. But we see Vertical 2 with some updates that can be done also in V1 and there are no news from suunto. BTW, your solar harvesting have the same level as before the last update? The one update launched together with V2

[Tieutieu]

@plopes73 Solar seems ok ; but i must admit that battery Life is so huge that i don’t pay attention to it anymore

[plopes73]

@Tieutieu yes, solar never really charge battery, but slows down the drain . Not a big problem for me either, but the fact that it stopped to work as before in the same time Vertical 2 was launched, that’s strange. I never had an issue with any upgrade.

[sartoric]

@plopes73 solar works as before for me.
did you add some protective screen ?
or maybe … did you clean the glass ?

[Tieutieu]

@plopes73 my solar works fine but two years ago I had to send the watch for the replacement of the panel. No issue since then.
If your watch is still under warranty you should contact support.

[plopes73]

@sartoric No, no protector, suunto has the best saphire glass And always clean. Maybe it’s a hardware fault as @tieutieu and @isazi mentioned. Well, glad to know that it still working as before on some watches because the timing it changes on mine, sure looks like it was being deprecated.
Thank you all for the clarification.