Suunto RACE S Review (S=small format)

I did a double-take on the price, $349. Wow.

Suunto may have got the price right for its last watch, the slightly larger Suunto RACE, but this time around the price is ‘more right‘ coming in at a staggering $100 cheaper for the stainless steel model ($349 vs $449).

Sure $349 is still a notable amount of money but for this price, you get a feature-packed piece of sports tech, great quality materials, a beautifully vibrant AMOLED screen and in my opinion, it’s the best-looking sports watch out there. Race S supports every sport you can sensibly think of, the smartphone app is very good, the 3rd party ‘app store’ is pretty good and if you also cycle, the also-beautiful Hammerhead Karoo 3 shares its data to the same Suunto app.

Suunto Race S – What’s Changed? (Highlights)

Race S is the successor to the Suunto 9 Peak Pro (October 2022) and boasts a bump to the hardware spec.

Compared to the larger Suunto Race model (Oct 023) model, the Race S is simply a smaller size.

9 Peak Pro vs. Race S – overall sizes and weights are similar. The most noteworthy changes are the doubling in screen resolution by using AMOLED technology and less wasted space at the edges. The new chip GPS is of the very latest generation of tech available and we see a digital crown introduced instead of a button. Slight downgrades have lowered the costs of production and hence we see slightly less tough Gorilla glass and lower water resistance – both still very good.

Race S vs Race – The Race S case size is smaller, screen not as good but with a new optical HRM.

• display 1.32″ AMOLED vs 1.43″ AMOLED
• resolution 466x466px vs. 466x466px (same!)
• weight 63g (steel) vs 80g (steel)
• thickness 11.4mm vs. 13.3mm
• diameter 45mm vs. 49mm
• New optical sensor array
• Water resistance 50m vs. 100m
• Battery L1 GPS 40 hours vs. 50 hours
• Strap width – both 22mm
• Lens – Gorilla Glass vs Sapphire Glass
• New Apple Watch-like packaging.
• New smooth-only bezel (steel) for Race S. Suunto Race had a ridged effect that I liked so I’m a bit disappointed about this change!

The two main technical reasons to get the larger model are for a superior lens material and superior water resistance, other than that it’s just the aesthetics of the different sizes for your wrist.

The only other difference I noticed between Race and Race S was that the digital crown on Race S was smaller and slightly stiffer when rotated.

New Features to Both Race Models

There are now female health features but I’ve not seen those yet. In any case, they are app-only features that use generic temperature and HR data gathered by the watch.

• Shimano Di2 compatibility is added, as is e-bike support with Shimano Steps.
• Also added is yet another speed increase to the user interface, particularly the flow between screens. The previous increase that came with Race also improved the performance of older devices. I only know that the latest speed bump improves Race and Race S (but not at the new zoomed-out levels)
• Increased range of map zoom
• Suunto Climb Guidance – individual hill info when following a route.

A couple of new watch faces are added to Race S that I think are cool. The new watch faces boast customisable complications that show various elements of physiological or environmental conditions.

Suunto Race S – Detailed Features

For a much closer look at the other features check out the Suunto Race review. Both watches share the same features.

Suunto Race Future Road Map

This information is not 100% official and gives a flavour of what we will hopefully see this year

• I believe there are additional watch face complications planned for the very near future (TBC)
• Support for Critical Swim Speed (CSS) will be added and possibly also other swimming features including support for drills (latter, TBC).
• Suunto is keen to highlight that, on average, 2 new tools or apps are added to the Suunto ‘app store’ each week.
• Talking of which, there is support for the AbsolutSweat sensor

Suunto Race/Race S – New Complications, Watchfaces & Straps

There are 3 new, customisable watch faces with up to 2 circular and 2 rectangular complications. You can choose the metrics shown on each complication from the following categories; time/date, activity & recovery, outdoor, weather and other. Here’s the full list and some images of the new faces

• Rectangular complications: TSB, CTL, TSS, Training This Week, Steps Today, calories today, sleep (hours), body resources
• Circular complications: Empty, Date (3 formats), dual time, seconds (2 formats), alarm, training hours, this week’s distance, ascent this week, steps, active calories, sleep hours, fitness level, blood oxygen, resources, altitude, barometer, moon phase, sunrise/sunset, time until sunrise, weather, air quality, wind, precipitation, battery, phone notifications.

Watchfaces can be further customised with coloured tints.

Suunto Race S Accuracy

The heart rate accuracy from the new sensor during sports is sometimes great and sometimes flakey. These tests all compare to at least 2 other sources of heart rate and I always wear the watch properly. However, I have issues with wrist-based heart rate from almost every vendor due to skinny wrists, tanned skin or some other factor. I recommend everyone who wants accurate HR use a chest strap or biceps monitor like the Polar SENSE.

Bizarrely, my results with the new optical HR sensor were probably worse than with the older sensor on the original Suunto RACE. I could not discern any particular pattern even cycling was sometimes great and sometimes not. Very strange.

Turning to GPS accuracy, the super-new, dual-frequency chipset looks pretty good to me, beating the Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch on this first run test. Of particular interest is the good performance near tall buildings, under trees and two small bridges.

This next run simulates suburban running on a grid of roads. It represents fairly benign GPS reception conditions. Race S performed alright but not quite as well as the other devices on the test. I’m not concerned about the performance, I just expected it to be a tad better.

This run simulates tall urban buildings and other difficult challenges for urban GPS reception. Suunto was the best on test. Whilst Suunto edged it over the Garmin, both easily beat Apple Watch this time around. Things were NOT perfect though and I’ve included the one section where a particularly long tunnel caused problems for Suunto when it emerged at the other end near some tall buildings. No watch has ever aced this particular test which I now routinely perform.

In my standard 10-mile GPS test it didn’t fare well on the sections that counted – its 75% is very run-of-the-mill.

Suunto Race S – Models, Colours, Price, Availability & Discounts

The steel models are available today and should be on the Suunto website, Amazon and elsewhere soon after. Suunto tends to price initially high and then regularly gives good discounts. Due to the very competitive pricing on Race S, I’m unsure that will happen this time around.

• Steel Case: 2 case colours, 6 strap colours (Black, grey, power pink, power blue, power orange, gravel grey).

You might compare the pricing to a plastic Forerunner 265s AMOLED at $449 rrp, or a titanium bezelled Forerunner 965 AMOLED (triathlon watch but looks plasticy) at $599. Those comparisons aren’t like-for-like as the Garmin has more features but the aesthetics and case quality on the Suunto are those of a quality wearable that you can wear 24×7. Once you compare it to a Garmin with a higher spec case and AMOLED screen you’re looking at something even more expensive than a Fenix 7s (small, non-AMOLED) at $650rrp. A comparable but larger Polar Grit X2 PRO (AMOLED) is $750. Yikes.

US: $349

EU: 349€

UK: £299

Takeout – Suunto Race S review

For A Detailed Look At The Features: Suunto Race review

Suunto has a highly competitive offering here. Other reviewers and several people I’ve shown the Race S watch all love its looks and build quality.

The most obvious fly in the ointment is still the optical HR quality which you might get lucky with but…probably not. Then again there’s no guarantee you’ll get lucky with any other vendor’s flavour of oHR either.

Suunto has crept ahead of Polar with its features and ecosystem. However, on those two fronts, it lags behind Garmin. Most people will probably have all their sporting needs fully satisfied with the features Suunto offers with everything from adaptive AI training plans, 3rd party app and HRV recovery metrics. However if, like me, you enjoy sports by using niche running or cycling features you’ll opt for Garmin. But if you are spending all that money on a Garmin watch will you be comfortable with its 24×7 looks? If not there might be more expense needed on something like an Apple Watch to benefit from its market-leading smart features.

Whilst Suunto Race S is not a Garmin-killer, it’s certainly a Garmin beater for anyone prepared to do the research and walk the path less trodden. But those people are relatively few in number so the biggest losers could be Polar and Coros, the former pricing too highly and the latter lacking an AMOLED option.

Awesome news for lovers of all things Suunto.

Highy competitive. Highly recommended.

• US: $349
• EU: 349€
• UK: £299