Suunto Spartan Ultra for a month

Got a great message a few weeks

ago, that I had been selected along with 13 others, to test the new Suunto Spartan Ultra All Black Titanium HR multi sport GPS watch - all because of my Race To The Stones video footage ;-) I like this!! 

#SuuntoSpartan
Thank you Suunto! :-)

I'll have the watch in my possession for a month (September 2016), and will do my best to test it as much as possible in both running, kayaking and when mountain biking - and what other crazy things I can come up with... There are some challenges related to the testing, which in the end may lead to that I can keep the watch if I win. Let's see if I'm prepared to do what it takes...

The first impressions of the device is that it's robust and seems to be able to handle some tough conditions (made from titanium and sapphire glass), though it is fairly light and the wrist band is soft and flexible. The chest strap for heart-rate monitoring is also very soft, and I'm keen to find out if any chafing will occur on my longer runs (like with the original strap for my Garmin Forerunner 310XT! Now using the strap from my old Garmin Forerunner 305)

The touch screen works great, and the menu seems easy and relatively intuitive to use. There are some things which I'm missing a bit. A simple alarm when worn as a normal watch - this will be part of a software update (hopefully soon). 

There are some other functionalities, which hopefully will also be included in a soon-to-arrive software update. I wanted to use the watch for an interval session, but there are no settings for this (yet) even tough there's a sports-mode for it, which only change the screen layout. Therefore I had to use my Epson Runsense SF-810, which actually does great on that point (but is also lacking the normal "alarm"-thing).

It has 80 different pre-programmed sports-modes, and I'm pleased that it can be used for kayaking as well where it estimates the stroke-rate among other things. And should I capsize, the watch is waterproof down to 100m. It also tracks daily activity in terms of steps and calories burned. It estimates your recovery time and I miss some customisation of screens and activities (like intervals), but that will be coming with a software update (hopefully soon!).

Anyway - I'm gonna take it for some long runs this weekend and some more kayaking. I'll include mountain biking at some point as well, but lets see when I can find the time for it. So far I like the device very much, but the promised update of the software will make it even better! :-)

See you out there!! :-) 

#Suunto #SuuntoSpartan #SpartanUltra #RTTS2016

Best M.

PS: Views are my own! The watch has been provided by Suunto for me to test for a month, after which it has to be returned.

UPDATE: A list of planned updates for September can be found here!