Suunto 7 review - You win some, you lose some - Android
Suunto doesn’t have as much clout in the GPS watch space as it used to. Garmin is the go-to for outdoor fitness watches for most people, while Apple, Samsung, Google, and even Fitbit have been surpassing the Finnish company in the smartwatch realm. That’s why the Suunto 7 exists. The company is trying its best to appeal to outdoorsy users and those who still want a good smartwatch.
Did it succeed? It’s kind of a mixed bag, but I do like a lot about the Suunto 7. I haven’t even thought about switching to another watch since I started wearing it, and that says something. This is our full Suunto 7 review.
The Suunto 7 looks more like a GPS sports watch than it does any other Wear OS watch. It’s big — maybe too big for a lot of people. The 50mm case is pretty much the max I’d go for my average-sized wrists. Luckily it’s relatively light at 70g.
The whole thing feels really high quality, though. The polyamide material that makes up the case feels sturdy and comfortable, and the side buttons are clicky and easy to find. And that strap, oh man, that strap. It’s great. It didn’t get caught on my clothes, and I quite like the texture on the outside. My one complaint is that the strap loop moves around the watch strap a little more than I’d like it to.
There are four buttons around the watch case. The top-left is the home/all apps button, the top-right is the non-programmable Suunto app button, and the other two are both programmable. Wear OS really benefits from a rotatable crown, but unfortunately there isn’t one on the Suunto 7.
Our Suunto 7 review unit vs the Garmin Fenix 5
The watch is this big for two reasons: for the display and battery. The 1.39-inch AMOLED display is fantastic. Colors are great, and the size makes it easy to read notifications.
Suunto surprised us a little at CES when it claimed two-day battery life for the Suunto 7 — not a small feat for a Wear OS watch. But I’m happy to say the claims are legitimate. I often got a solid two days out of the Suunto 7, even when wearing it to bed and recording an exercise at the gym during the evening. I usually went to bed on the first night with about 65% left in the tank.
These numbers are for “normal” smartwatch use: receiving notifications, using Google Pay, tracking workouts, etc. If you’re running the GPS continuously, battery life drops down to 12 hours.
All-day battery life and quick performance — Suunto nailed the hardware with the Suunto 7.
Suunto is actually the first Wear OS watchmaker to utilize the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100’s power-saving sports mode. You can read more about that here, and see Suunto’s Mikko Ahlstrom explain the feature to Android Authority during an interview at CES.
Speaking of that Qualcomm processor, performance is good. It’s the same ol’ story as all other recent Wear OS watches: Google Assistant hiccups from time to time and the setup process is a little laggy. Everything else is smooth sailing.
Suunto has been making watches for a long time, so I’m not surprised the hardware is top notch.
The Suunto 7 is in the same ballpark as other mid-range multisport watches. It has built-in GPS (with GLONASS, QZSS, and Beidou), an optical heart rate sensor, and a barometric altimeter. It can track over 70 sport modes, including running (outdoor, interval, race, trail, and more), hiking, pool and open water swimming, and many other niche activities. There’s a catch-all “unspecified activity” for outdoor and indoor sports, too. There’s no triathlon mode here though, likely because the battery wouldn’t be able to last that long.
The Suunto 7 excels during outdoor activities. That’s because it supports offline outdoor maps, so you can still see where you’re going even if you can’t get a connection. They’re pretty detailed too, with terrain info, trails, and contour lines if you’re using these maps for hiking or trail running.
Just open the Suunto smartwatch app, click offline maps, and select which 40-mile area you’d like to download. These offline maps automatically update when the 7 is charging and connected to Wi-Fi, so you always should be up to date.
If this is your first experience with a Suunto watch, boy are you in for a treat with Heatmaps. Suunto Heatmaps show heavily traveled areas frequented by other Suunto users. The maps look really nice — they all have a dark background, with orange and yellow accents designating the most popular running paths.
See the image above. The bright yellow path is a popular running route near my house, and the darker orange lines are paths taken semi-frequently. This might not be all that useful for a residential area in my case, but you could see the benefit if you’re going trail running or hiking. The goal is to stay safe, so Heatmaps make it pretty easy to stick to well-traveled paths. Also, colors change depending on which activity you choose.
These Heatmaps are available for 15 total activities, including running, swimming, and hiking.
Heatmaps are available during exercises, but Suunto also included an awesome Heatmaps watch face for the Suunto 7 that auto-updates based on your location. It’s literally one of my favorite watch faces I’ve ever used. You can zoom out or in on your current location and set it to any one of the 15 Heatmaps you like.
I found the Suunto 7’s GPS to be quite accurate, at least compared to my Garmin Forerunner 245 Music and Fenix 5. On a long outdoor walk, all three of these devices were able to stick to my path pretty accurately, even when I went under a bridge.
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