I recently was introduced to Suunto as a fitness and outdoors, brand a few months back when I took the Race S Sports Watch for a spin. Suffice it to say, I came away very impressed with the company as a direct competitor to the likes of Garmin. Since then, Suunto introduced another watch called the Run which I was only too happy to check out.
Our Suunto contact offered up the Suunto Run for review as well, but how does it hold up to an ever more flooded market of more advanced sport watches?
Design
If you set the Run and the Race S next to one another, you’d immediately assume they are the same watches. After closer inspection, you’ll find that the Run is composed of polycarbonate (plastic) housing with an impact resistant face. This makes the latest Suunto much lighter, and I think it slightly hugs my wrist better for some reason.
Otherwise, you have the same button layout and rotating crown from the Run to the Race S. Much like Garmin, Suunto seems to keep this continuity between devices. This usually lends to less confusion, and learning curve, from upgrading watches (more on this later in the software).
Suunto doesn’t skimp on sensors with the Run, even at the palatable $240 cost. It’s tuned for runners, hence the name, and includes onboard GPS. There’s also real-time tracking of heart rate, steps, elevation, and heart rate variability. It’s a well-rounded package out of the box when you purchase the Suunto Run.
Changing bands are a snap with the industry standard 22mm quick release pins. Suunto includes a nice nylon strap in the box, and mine is a striking Lime colorway. If that doesn’t suit you, then Amazon is your friend. Finding a band that is your style can be had for less than $15 in my experience.
Fitness Tracking
Let’s start with the mostly positive portion of my daily experience with the Suunto Run. The overall fitness tracking has been pretty solid. I’ve found my daily steps, GPS run data, and HR all to be well within that same ranges I’d expect from my Garmin Forerunner 165. It’s not exactly the same, but I have seen improvements in the new heart rate sensor layout, and the step count, over my recent testing of the Suunto Race S.
The same is true for workouts. There’s a ton of included sports profiles that should easily get you started in the right place to log almost any workout you need. During these activities, the Run was accurate to reason on taking in metrics you’d expect like heart rate, calories burned, and even reps for some fitness profiles.
Smartwatch Things
Where I really struggled with the Suunto Run is in the smartwatch interactions. There’s a certain level of standard features that I was frankly shocked it what it lacked to perform well. My main gripes are UI elements and navigation, as well as customization via the Suunto Plus store in the app, are different from previous models.
This includes two main issues I’ve found in the lack of adding additional widgets and watch faces via the Suunto Store not being available for this device. This is the app Settings options where on other Suunto watches you’d find these items, and it’s simply not available for the Run watch at launch. Having no way to add additional watches faces is pretty unacceptable for a $250 watch.
The same is true on general UI elements and navigation. The notifications are buried in the control panel for some reason, instead of having a dedicated widget for the Suunto Run. This adds an added layer that just doesn’t make sense. All modern smartphones, including other Suuntos, have a dedicated space for notifications. This makes them easily found in the UI and actionable.
Speaking of, the same is found when trying to action notifications, the ability to dismiss them from the current watch aggregation, but it doesn’t seem to action the swipe away on your phone and also seems to return when you get more notifications on the Run.
This is all due to Suunto overhauling the underlying operating system on the Suunto Run. It’s running a different core variant that the company has hinted will come to other devices later. Even though the Run is the first one to run this new underpinning, I’d expect more cohesion from device to device and fewer bumps altogether like the lack of Suunto Store Plus access.
“With accurate fitness tracking, onboard GPS, and week-long battery life, the Suunto Run delivers serious training features at a runner-friendly price—just don’t expect full smartwatch perks.”
Battery Life
Despite some of the software hang-ups, I’ve been impressed with the battery life. I’m getting well over a week’s usage per charge. This depends on how many running activities or notifications I get during that time, but this is the top end of the spectrum from a smartwatch perspective. You can only really point to the likes of dedicated Fitbit or Garmin for similar runtimes.
Honestly, Wear OS could learn a lot here. When you have something that’s feature around outdoor life, fitness, and unplugging in general, battery endurance is a huge selling point. Some have come closer with four days with options like the OnePlus Watch 3, but most Wear OS watches fall well short of anything offered by the Suunto Run.
Charging is done via a magnetic puck found in the packaging. It’s quick, effective, and includes USB-C cable connection on the other end. No complaints here other than I think they could have nailed the cohesion again with having this reverse compatible with previous models, but the charging contacts are in a different layout. It’s a small thing, but cuts down on waste, user buy-in, and SKUs for Suunto.
Final Thoughts
Awarded to products with an average rating of 3.75 stars or higher, the AndroidGuys Smart Pick recognizes a balance of quality, performance, and value. It stands out in design, innovation, and user experience, delivering great functionality at a competitive price.
I had a fairly positive first experience with the Suunto Race S a few months ago. I fully expected the Run to build on that, but I was left with more questions than confidence. The biometrics and hardware are there, but the decision to vastly alter the software tarnishes the final product. And you should never buy a product on the promise of features in future software updates.
I don’t want to bash the Suunto Run here. As I said, it does a ton very well for just fitness. If you don’t plan, or maybe consciously don’t want, better smartwatch options, the Run still checks a ton of boxes. My only counter to that thought is you can get the fantastic bargain buy of the Garmin Forerunner for the same price.
If you do want to give the Run a shot, you can snag one from both Suunto and Amazon. You have a palette of color options as well, but our review unit is the blinding Lime. Alternate colors are Black, Coral Orange, and Frost Gray.