Talkback: Suunto Launches First GPS Watch

Peter Clinch wrote (see)

very good for making your I Am An Elite Mountain Athlete statement...

I always assumed the best way to do that was to take a picture of yourself at the top of a nice eight-thousander.

Clearly I was being naive.

Now I think of it, you clearly have to be an Elite Mountain Athlete to use one of these things, in order to get somewhere interesting and back home again before the battery runs out.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

The benefits, I guess, are that it fits on your wrist, you can use it to follow a route rather than just check a GR if that's what you want to do, it has barometric altimeter and also works as a pretty high-end HRM.

If you don't need/want those capabilities, it's a waste of money. If you do, then it's an alternative to the other units on the market.

I'm sure there's one out there, somewhere, but a simple GPS watch that would give me a spot GR and maybe altitude in a compact package would make sense to me. The thing with technology companies seems to be that they strive to add as many features as possible, when there's also a market for more streamlined stuff, I think.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

I always assumed the best way to do that was to take a picture of yourself at the top of a nice eight-thousander.Clearly I was being naive.

You can do that, as the likes of "The Machine" attest.  However, since he's done all the hard work you can be just like him with less sweat by wearing the same watch.  Or something.

TP wrote (see)

I thought Garmin already did GPS watches so how is this the first?

Ambuiguous, it was meant as Suunto's first GPS watch, but that's not strictly true either. The X10 had GPS capability, but the AMBIT is the first Suunto watch to combine GPS with all the other outdoorsy features it has, if that makes sense. I've changed the headline anyway.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

IIRC the 401 had HRM and gps. There was a boxy gps/hrm watch and a more watchlike one too IIRC.

However they were garmin and not suunto and as Jon pointed out it was Suunto's first one not THE first one ever!! A good piece for suunto  pre-review snippet on what looks a good piece of kit (if you feel the need for a gps in watch form and aren't happy with yourexistng HRM and separate GPS handheld. Back when I ran I nearly got a forerunner gps watch with hrm from garmin so I was nearly the sort of person who'd see a use for the two functions in one thing. now I think I'd rather have a HRM separate to a GPS in case I only needed one of the functions and also since you'd probably get more functionality from a dedicated GPS unit than from even the best of watch based GPS/HRM units.

Hi,

I've a 310XT Garmin - which gives a British Grid Reference, Heart Rate info, Altitude (not barometric) and a stonking claimed 20h battery (I've tested it out to 17 and there was still juice). 

It's also waterproof (designed for tri-athletes) so handles anything the weather here has thrown at it. 

It does most of what I want - and you can customise the set ups, so I have one for running, and one for walk giving different info.  So the walking one gives a bearing, altitude, time of day and sunset time as well as heart rate, distance etc.

I also have a casio barometer/compass watch (it was a bargain, what can I say) that's normally threaded through my shoulder strap.

P