Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?

dulko79

@zhang965 what reorganization?

dmn23

@Mff73 Yes, François posted on social media about it but quickly deleted the post

freeheeler

@mikekoski490
I have used a Grit X Pro for some weeks.
the UI in the watch and app was not my taste, but more important: I really missed the vertical speed value

mikekoski490

@dmn23 Great! Ill have to start saving…

Ultrawalker

@Mff73 Any idea when that new watch would be launched? Within a few months or end of 2023?

Mff73

@Ultrawalker
Sorry, i am not the teaser launcher, i discover this like you. I have no information.

Jamie BG

@freeheeler
makes me laugh - there is no need to delete anything. You just go in an remove the activity from your activity list. Golf maps you just ignore, unless you are absolutely desperate to save the 2 largest map regions on your watch and only have a 16GB model.
usually find a golf map update occurs as frequently as a map update - i.e. they tend to update at the same time.

freeheeler

@Jamie-BG
I was talking about the menu in the dashboard

awinkel

@trailcafe I’m from The Netherlands but speak German as well. I will make some time to listen to the podcast. Thanks for the tip!

awinkel

@dmn23 That’s one of the problems of Suunto. For years the watches weren’t very good at all. The Suunto9 Peak Pro was some better with the upgraded hardware.
But the software isn’t updated very often and bugs appears longer than needed.
It seems that Suunto is reinventing itself, but until that happens, we are left with watches that are average.

zhang965

@awinkel said in Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?:

@dmn23 That’s one of the problems of Suunto. For years the watches weren’t very good at all. The Suunto9 Peak Pro was some better with the upgraded hardware.
But the software isn’t updated very often and bugs appears longer than needed.
It seems that Suunto is reinventing itself, but until that happens, we are left with watches that are average.

Well…I vote for more updates but
I’m not sure often update will fix more bugs or bring more bugs

@zhang965 Sometimes customers are already satisfied when seeing ANY progress

mikekoski490

@Jamie-BG I did try to ignore the many updates to tons of things I didn’t use, and golf course map updates did kind of bug me that I couldn’t just say no thanks. After awhile seeing in the list of updates something like ‘Added profile and additional fix for jogging with baby stroller with twins while sipping coffee to account for extra wrist motion’ was just too dizzying to keep up to!

zhang965

@lessthanmore said in Suunto9 Peak Pro or Garmin Fenix7?:

@zhang965 Sometimes customers are already satisfied when seeing ANY progress

Maybe, but often update will scare Suunto fan boys.

@zhang965 Genau esou ass et!
Some like it, some not. You cannot win

trailcafe

@awinkel enjoy …and also have a look at the other episodes. Interesting interviews, especially the one with Benedikt Böhm, CEO of Dynafit.

jakubdr

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 isn’t there), and I don’t 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 “shark” 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 don’t 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 doesn’t 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 don’t 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 weren’t 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. Garmin’s 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 1990’s (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 Garmin’s 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 can’t see my resting heart date for a specific period. Checked why and from my analysis it is because S9P don’t know when I am resting. They are not able to know because they don’t have automatic movement detection (such as Garmin Move IQ), or so it seems. Therefore they can’t 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).

trailcafe

@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

jakubdr

@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)

babychai

@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 doesn’t pause the watch manually), this happens only on cheapest Garmins (she previously had a Venu Sq), not an issue on F7.

Hmmm…for 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.