REVIEW – The Apple Watch first came out in 2015, and though I’m not really sure why, I’m a little embarrassed to say I have been on that bandwagon ever since that first year. It has been great for me, and I don’t have any really big complaints, but I have always been curious to see if there was something else out there that would be a better fit fitness-wise. I never took the plunge because no matter what option you choose, it still requires dropping a significant amount of money just to test something new out. Then along came the opportunity to try out the Suunto Race 2, and with some seriously impressive specs I jumped at the bit.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $499.00
Where to buy: Suunto and Amazon
What is it?
The Suunto Race 2 is a fitness focused smartwatch. Which almost misrepresents it. It is more of a fitness tracker than it is a smartwatch. It still does all the smartwatch things you want it to, but its bread and butter is in that fitness realm.
What’s included?
- The Suunto Race 2
- 2-part watch strap
- Proprietary charger (no brick)
- User manual
- Warranty
Tech specs
- Bright 1.5” AMOLED display
- Sleeker and lighter design
- Advanced training and everyday activity tracking
- 115+ sport modes
- Offline maps, improved navigation
- Up to 55 hours battery
- Measurements: 49 x 49 x 12.5 mm / 1.93 x 1.93 x 0.49 “
- Weight: 76 g / 2.68 oz
- Bezel material: Stainless steal
- Glass material: Sapphire crystal
- Case material: Glass fibre reinforced polyamide
- Strap material: Silicone
- Country of manufacture: CN
Design and features
I have to start out by commenting on the color of the Race 2. It’s not revolutionary or anything, but I just love the color. I have stated in past reviews that I am an earth tones kind of guy. While Orange doesn’t necessarily fall into that category, the two tone light and dark orange give a more of a burnt orange look. And I love it. It also goes well with the black bezel of the case.
The Race 2 is quite comfortable. Having a lot of holes in the band spaced close together allow you to get a great fit at any wrist size. The only issue with the band is that it does not breathe well. The weather is starting to turn toward fall temperatures where I am but when I got the watch It’s been really hot, and just wearing it outside was uncomfortable. I had to loosen it a bit.
The screen is nice and bright whether inside or out. I had no problem seeing it out on a cloudless day or in the depths of my basement where I do most of my workouts. It does have auto-brightness but I found it still very bright in a completely dark room. So be careful if you wake up at 2am and look at your wrist to see what time it is.
I also like the very minimal amount of branding on the bottom of the bezel. It’s a nice touch but not so gaudy that it’s in your face. I like for a product to do its own talking. Not just an advertisement for the company as I walk around.
Of course there is an app. Nothing comes without an app these days. However in this instance I get it. The phone is the hub of everything. You need to connect the two so your watch can convey your activity to wherever you track all your activity. So, I had to download the app and create an account, but it was pretty straight forward.
Only I couldn’t send the data where I needed to. And that is the biggest downfall of the Race 2 in my book. There is no Apple Health integration. I realize this is not going to be an issue for everyone, but for anyone with an iPhone, it will. I’m doing a virtual race challenge right now and have to make sure everything filters into Apple Health so it then filters into the challenge app (The Conqueror Challenges). But without it connecting to Apple Health, I have to wear both watches. The Suunto and the Apple Watch. Not the worst thing in the world but I do look kind of ridiculous.
It says it has over 300 partner apps that work with and tie into the watch but I only really recognized a handful (Strava, some Adidas app, MapMyRun, etc.). Maybe if i jumped into the Suunto ecosystem and only used that it would be fine. Maybe I should for that matter. But for the time being I’m stuck in Apple Health, and the Race 2 does not play well.
I like the navigation of the watch. There is a crown on the side that you turn down to get to widgets like heart rate, blood ox, etc., and you turn up for workouts. And I mean workout galore!! So many workouts!
Assembly, Installation, Setup
Setup was a breeze. As soon as I turned it on there was a software update that needed to be downloaded, but it took about 20 minutes total and was ready to go right after that.
The app is fine. It’s a little all over the place but once you play around in it enough you get the hang of things. There are quite a few watch faces to choose from, but at first I was honestly surprised there were not more. But they actually have added some from the time I got it to the time of writing this. I think the biggest issue for me (and this is nothing but my personal opinion), a lot of them are kind of bland. There are a number of ones I like, but many of them look so similar that it feels like there is not a lot of choice, when in actuality, there are 43 to choose from at this time.
Performance
Once you start using the Suunto Race 2 watch, you see its potential.
The battery on this is nothing short of amazing. The site boasts up to 55 hours of continuous tracking with GPS on, up to 200 in tour mode with a less accurate GPS, and if you are not training (then whats the point of the watch) you get anywhere between 16 and 22 hours of run time depending on what you have it tracking (heart rate, etc.). I had it constantly monitoring my heart rate. As in constantly while io was wearing it; sitting, standing, running, sleeping, etc. It een continuously tracks altitude, and all kinds of other things. I wore it all the way through for the first 3 days I had it, and it only dropped down to 75% charge (from 100%). That was also including 2 recorded workouts.
I like the interface while navigating the watch as well. From the watch face you turn the crown down to get to widgets like heart rate, blood ox, etc., and you turn it up for workouts. And I mean workout galore!! So many workouts! The website said there are over 115 different workouts. So chances are if you want to track something, you can. Actually because of the many options I think I got some inaccurate readings for one of my workouts.
I do a lot of body weight and kettlebell work. But it generally doesnt take me the full 30 minutes i try to hit for every workout. So I usually finish up with a session of rowing to hit said 30 minutes. While tracking my rowing on the Race 2 it said it rowed 2.3 miles, while the rower said I went 1.58 miles. At first I thought this was insanely off. But in retrospect, I think I tracked an outdoor rowing session on the watch, and I was doing an indoor rowing session. I didn’t realize there were separate modes for the two (because there are just so many to scroll through!).
During about a 17 minute kettlebell session this watch said I burned 156 cal while the Apple Watch said I burned 181. I don’t know which one is more accurate. To be honest I think most of these trackers are just making educated guesses at best based on your stats (age, height, weight, etc.).
I do love the fact that there is an actual kettlebell workout on the Suunto Watch. Maybe that is some of the difference in calories burned that I’m seeing between the two watches. I had to use a “high intensity interval” session on the Apple Watch.
The step counter seems to over count a little, but I could be wrong. At least it does in comparison to the Apple Watch. Maybe the Apple Watch is under counting. I really don’t know. But either way it’s so small of a delta that I’m sure it’s negligible.
And as far as daily steps go; I wish it had a daily distance covered? Like how much did I cover while just “livin”, and walking around? I was able to Google the average distance based on my height and the number of steps, but I don’t really care to do that every day. The metric they provide is a weekly distance, not daily.
I tried to use the blood oxygen sensor, and it took forever to give a result. About 1.5 minutes if I had to guess. And when it finally did display a result it said I was at 88%. And considering that would indicate I could have hypoxia I think it was a bit off. Or maybe I have to go to the doctor.
It doesn’t have automatic exercise detection as far as I can tell. At least in regards to a walking exercise it doesn’t. I went outside and started walking while wearing my Apple Watch and the Race 2 and after about 15 minutes, the Apple Watch recognized that I was doing an outdoor walk and asked me if I wanted to start the exercise. The Race 2 did nothing. I can’t really ding it too much for this. If you want to do a workout, just remember to start one. Or don’t and just go out for a nice stroll.
As far as stopwatch features go it works fine. You can have your phone notifications ping you on the watch but I very much dislike that so I turned them off. Even on my Apple Watch I don’t like anything notifying me on my wrist.
One of the smartwatch features I use most is timers. And for all kinds of things. I set a timer on the Race 2, but at some point while washing dishes and having gloves on, the timer shut off. You also can’t set multiple timers. I realize the Race 2 is more of a fitness tracker than a smartwatch, but it’s still something to note.
And the reason I think that timer shut off is from all the phantom touches. I think the touch sensor is just a little too sensitive and it thinks you are trying to swipe on it all the time. This happened most in the shower where it thought water droplets were finger tips. You can remedy this by turning on button lock, but it is definitely a workaround. This does still happen on the Apple Watch, but very infrequently.
Oh and the haptics on it are very strong. You are not going to miss those notifications if you decide to have them turned on.
Final thoughts
At the end of the day the Suunto Race 2 is a great watch and fitness tracker. It has a large, bright screen that will display a ton of different information. There are a couple of things that would make it that much better, but if you are thinking of getting this over some of the competition out there you would not be wasting your money.
What I like about Suunto Race 2 watch
- Black and two-tone orange color is great
- So many different exercise types to track
- Great fitness tracking
- Fantastic battery life
What needs to be improved?
- Maybe some other band materials to choose from
- A way to adjust the sensitivity of the touchscreen
- Multiple timers
- Improvement on some of the sensors
- Apple Health integration
Price: $499.00
Where to buy: Suunto and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Suunto. Suunto did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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