The Suunto Race S promises the same solid, multisport tracking experience as the Suunto Race – but with a smaller case *and* a smaller price tag.
The Suunto Race S is a solid-performing AMOLED multisports watch that essentially gives you everything you get from the Suunto Race at a price, which will definitely ruffle the feathers at Polar, Coros and Garmin. While heart rate accuracy disappoints, good GPS and a decent price point still make the Race S a strong option – just use a chest strap when you need that HR performance.
Pros
- Affordable pricing – compared to rivals
- Mapping features
- Good display quality
- Strong GPS accuracy
Cons
- Reduced durability
- Laggy touchscreen
- Questionable heart rate tracking
The first Suunto Race was a huge step forward for the Finnish brand as it sought to gain ground on Garmin, Polar, Coros, and the emergence of the Apple Watch Ultra as a genuinely strong sports-tracking smartwatch.
Unlike other top-end, AMOLED multisport watches, Suunto is bringing that colour but going aggressive on the pricing. If the Race was an affordable option compared to the likes of the Garmin Forerunner 965 and Polar Vantage V3, the Race S is going cheaper.
So has Suunto delivered another great AMOLED sports watch that undercuts the competition while delivering a great performance? Here’s our verdict on the Suunto Race S.
Price and competition
As mentioned, the Suunto Race S, in premium multisports watch terms, is pretty affordable. It’s priced at £325, where the larger Suunto Race cost £389 for the stainless steel model or £479 for the titanium version.
That £325 price mark puts the Race S well below the price of other AMOLED sports watches like the Polar Vantage V3 (£519/$599) and the Garmin Forerunner 965 (£599/$599). That’s actually also cheaper than the Garmin Forerunner 265 (£429.99) and the standard Garmin Epix Gen 2, which costs £399.
Unlike the Race, there’s only one bezel material option, so the price doesn’t get bumped up for a titanium version.
Design and display
So, let’s deal with size first. The Suunto Race S features a 45mm case compared to the 49mm one on the Race. That’s also significantly smaller than the case sizes on the Forerunner 965 and the Vantage V3.
There’s just the stainless steel bezel option for the Race S while you’re also getting a downgrade in glass protection, with sapphire crystal replaced by Gorilla Glass. We haven’t seen any scratches in our time with it, though we’ve also used Gorilla Glass-packing watches that can be more susceptible to scratches compared to sapphire crystal, so it does lose something in the durability department compared to the Race.
That AMOLED screen is still a very good one. Unsurprisingly, there’s a smaller display in place, though the 1.32-inch, 466 x 466 resolution doesn’t feel like an inferior screen or too small to absorb your stats on. Colors look great and accurate, it’s bright and vibrant and you can set it to stay on at all times at the detriment of battery life.
Our biggest issue with the screen on the Race was interacting with it. Swiping through menu screens simply didn’t feel as smooth or as slick as doing the same on Garmin or Polar’s AMOLED watches, or on an Apple Watch Ultra. It does feel like the same story here. Screen responsiveness and lag does seem slightly improved, but if you want the slickest touchscreen experience, this isn’t the best of the bunch.
The polymer case design is very similar to the Race, and I had it partnered up with one of Suunto’s new brighter straps that’s been comfortable to wear, though we have mixed thoughts about having Suunto’s name plastered across it, which feels a touch tacky. You still have two flat physical buttons with a twisting crown in between that does let you scroll through screens if you don’t want to swipe on it.
In terms of waterproofing, that has been downgraded here too. The Race S is waterproof up to 50 meters in depth compared to 100 meters on the bigger Race. For most, that level of protection should be fine, but if you did want to go to deeper depths, then you might be a tad disappointed about drop in durability.
Overall, the Suunto Race S has been easy to get on with and wear. Barring our slight grievances with the minor software lag, the smaller case doesn’t feel like a big downgrade on the Race, even if elements of its durability have been.
Battery life
The larger Suunto Race put in a really good performance on the battery front, especially when compared to other AMOLED watches. While it does feel like there is some slight drop in performance here, this is still a watch that can get through a good week of training and just short of that if you have the screen set to always-on mode.
Suunto quotes up to 9 days in smartwatch mode, which is down from 16 days on the Race. If you use it in its top GPS performance mode you can enjoy up to 30 hours of battery life compared to 50 hours on the Race S. If you opt for its best power-saving tracking mode, that will get you 120 hours of tracking time compared to 200 hours.
Those drops seem to consistent with some of our testing time with the Race S. There just seems to be a little more noticeable drain on battery during workouts, during the day and overnight too. For an hour and half of GPS use in the top dual-band mode, battery drop was 10%, so that wouldn’t quite equate to 30 hours and we’d say – much like the real-world usage on the Race – those maximum numbers feel optimistic.
If you’re willing to be more strategic with your use of those tracking modes, then it will go further.
But this is an AMOLED sports watch that can hold up to a good week’s worth of training – which will do for most people.
Charging-wise, it uses the same cradle used with the Race and is relatively snappy at charging back from 0-100%, so won’t keep you hanging around for too long if you need to get out and track.
Training features
The features that are available to you on the training and analysis front are the same as they are on the Suunto Race. That means a pretty similar experience and we’d say this is an area that Suunto could look to finesse both on and off the watch.
It supports creating interval workouts and offers recovery-based insights from heart rate variability measurements, can inform you about your energy levels and can display some of those insights from the watch face.
It also offers a take on features like Garmin’s Training Readiness scores or using HRV to offer recovery insights.
The main issue we have here is that the presentation of these training features and insights needs work. Delving into them on the app feels overwhelming to do so and the execution of those key insights you can look at and say, okay, I need to do something different here or take a rest day, just doesn’t feel prominent enough in the day-to-day use of the Race S.
Suunto does offer a summary of your key training, recovery and performance data, but it needs to be better packaged to make it something you’d regularly be willing to glance at and take on board.
Mapping and navigation
Suunto’s improving mapping and navigation support started with the Suunto Vertical and then the Race added an AMOLED into the mix and it elevated the experience of using it for getting around.
Suunto offers the same level of support on the Race S, which is a strength for the Race S, especially when you consider you’d have to pay more for a Polar or Garmin to offer similar support on an AMOLED watch.
Like the Race, you need to add a Wi-Fi connection from the Suunto app to be able to sync over sections of a map. You’ll also need to drop the watch back onto the charging cradle to sync maps over to the watch.
It’s a pretty painless process and while it can take a bit of a while to even fire over a section or region of a country, the experience of using the maps on the Race S remains strong even on that smaller screen, letting you pan and zoom around maps with the touchscreen and see information like points of interest or your estimated time of arrival.
You can build routes too, where you can also enable turn-by-turn navigation and that particular support works well too. Garmin will still give you the most feature-rich mapping experience, but you’re getting a very good one here on the Race S, for far less money.
Heart rate accuracy
The Race didn’t deliver great heart rate tracking accuracy, especially during workouts, and it’s unfortunately more of the same here with the Race S.
There’s a similar optical sensor setup that is able to deliver real-time readings, help you create personalised heart rate training zones and will fuel insights like recommended recovery time, training effect scores and VO2 Max estimates.
We hoped that having a smaller case might see an improvement in performance, but on most of the occasions we used the Race S, the heart rate seemed pretty off compared to both Garmin HRM-Pro + and Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate chest strap monitors.
Below is a sample workout using the watch for a track workout and the maximum heart rate reading was much higher than the chest strap.
We used it for a mixture of workouts and intensities and while it held up better for more static workouts like rowing, the overall data just didn’t feel reliable enough for us here.
If you’re set on using it for heart rate-based training, we’d say take the option to pair up an external heart rate monitor here. We managed to do that no problem with both monitors mentioned and you’ll get the data accuracy you crave.
GPS accuracy
Suunto’s integration of the dual-band GNSS technology we’re seeing in a host of sports watches and smartwatches has been one of the best showcases of it in our time with both the Vertical and the Race. That’s not only in terms of accuracy but also in terms of the smaller drain on battery when using the top GPS performance mode.
We’d say it’s more of the same on the Race S, with a little battery drain in the process. Especially compared to the AMOLED-free Vertical.
As a reminder, dual GNSS frequency support refers to using L1 and L5 frequency bands as opposed to a single band to communicate with available satellite systems. In the case of the Race S, that’s GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS and BEIDOU. That’s all of the major ones.
Using it against the best dual-band modes tested on Garmin and Apple watches, the Suunto Race S performed really well. Metrics like distance tracked and pacing never felt worryingly off and digging into the GPS tracks, those looked very good overall too as shown above against Garmin’s multi-band mode.
Like most watches, grabbing a signal on the first few tests took a little time, but things quickly sped up after that, so it’s not a watch that keeps you hanging around for long.
Bottom line, if you want one of the best watches for delivering the strong GPS accuracy, this is one of the best out there.
Sleep and fitness tracking
If you want the Race S to be a fitness tracker, it can do that for you. There’s also sleep tracking available, you just have to make sure you enable it first on the watch before you take it to bed.
The general fitness and sleep tracking falls into the same category as Polar and Coros sports watches in the sense that it’s not quite seen as a huge priority. It’s there if you want to look at it, but Suunto is not going to push that data at you. It does give you sleep data when you first wake up, but bar that, you need to hunt out that data.
If you want it to keep an eye on daily step counts, then we found totals similar to the Garmin Forerunner 965 and the Oura Ring Gen 3’s step counting. When you take it to bed, the sleep tracking isn’t rivalling the kind of performance you get from Polar for instance. Of all the sports watches, Polar delivers insightful and crucially, reliable sleep tracking.
While the Race S will tell you how long you’ve slept, show you times you feel asleep and woke up and capture heart rate to fuel recovery insights much like the Race S has a tendency to underreport the amount of time slept. It is one place where heart rate monitoring seems more reliable, but if you’re looking for a super accurate sleep tracking, you’re not going to get the best here.
Smartwatch features
Suunto offers the same smartwatch features on the Race S as the Race. There’s nothing new here at all. This is a watch that’s going to flash up your phone notifications and let you view all in one place from the notifications menu. You can control music playing on your paired smartphone and it worked fine when using it with Spotify. You’ve also got a find my phone mode, the ability to customise watch faces, complications on watch faces and pin widgets to put the data you most care about a swipe away.
Everything here works fine and if you’re happy mainly using the Race S to view notifications and control your music, then you’ll be satisfied with what is on offer. The user interface isn’t our favourite compared to what Garmin and Polar offers, but it’s a basic yet competent performer that isn’t going to give you the fullest or best executed smartwatch experience.
