Another AMOLED hit from Suunto that undercuts the competition.
The Suunto Run is a great value running watch with enough features to also suit cyclists, swimmers, and triathletes seeking a solid budget-friendly multisport watch. It may not excel in all software areas, but the positives outweigh the flaws, making it a good alternative to beginner-friendly options like the Garmin Forerunner 165 and the Coros Pace 3.
Pros
- Solid all-round run tracking experience
- Likeable, lightweight and comfortable design
- Battery largely on par with competition
Cons
- Watch software is still a bit laggy
- Watch user interface needs refining
- Training insights need better communication
Things are looking up for Suunto. Since returning to form with the Vertical in 2023, the Finnish brand has joined the AMOLED party with the Race and the Race S, two great-value sports watches.
Now, it’s ready to swell the AMOLED watch market again with the Suunto Run, which appears to target entry-level options like the Garmin Forerunner 165 and the Coros Pace 3.
The Run is a sports watch that prioritizes runners, offering features like the latest dual-frequency GPS technology for more accurate outdoor run tracking, a wide range of training metrics and insights, and smart functions to make it useful even when you’re not just heading out for a quick 5K during your lunch break.
Like the Race and Race S, Suunto has gone aggressive with pricing in the hope it might sway you from similarly priced, beginner-friendly watches.
So, is this one of the best-value sports watches you can buy? We’ve been out running with it and more to find out.
Design and display
While the Run might be the cheapest of Suunto’s AMOLED series, it’s actually larger than the more expensive Race S in terms of size. The Race has a 49mm case, the Run features a 46mm one, and the Race S has a slightly smaller 45mm frame.
The design approach remains consistent across the three watches, and while you have more polymer and less metal on your wrist with the Run, it’s still a very sporty, bright, and overall likeable watch to wear.
It’s lightweight at just 36g. The Garmin Forerunner 165 and the non-AMOLED Coros Pace 3 both weigh just under 40g, so the weight is very similar to the competition, even though it’s actually a larger watch. It simply doesn’t feel like a heavy or bulky watch.
Suunto opts for a nylon watch strap where one end loops around the watch lug bar and the other is secured with a sliding button mechanism similar to those on many other smartwatches. We could probably do without the Suunto name largely emblazoned across it, but aside from that, it’s been a snug and comfortable nylon strap to wear.
Familiar feeling
For the display, it’s actually the same one used on the pricier Race S. So that’s a 1.32-inch, 46x 466 resolution AMOLED screen that can be kept on at all times and does let you adjust the brightness with three settings available. It offers good visibility, even in brighter outdoor conditions, and is a high-quality display if not necessarily a best-in-class one.
It also features a relatively large black bezel, but there’s enough screen space to ensure that your real-time stats, notifications, and widgets don’t feel cramped. However, there is a problem with how the screen is to be interacted with.
We’ve experienced something similar with the Race and Race S, where there’s minor lag when swiping through screens. While it doesn’t completely ruin the experience of using the Run, it’s hard not to compare it to the more responsive touchscreens on rival watches around the same price.
The Run is suitable for swimming and has a 5ATM rating, making it safe to be submerged in water up to 50 meters. Like other Suunto watches, you’ll need to keep a close eye on the proprietary USB-C charger required to power it. You’ll also need that cable when you want to drag and drop audio files onto it to use the onboard 4GB music player.
Battery life
Both the Suunto Race and Race S deliver solid battery performance, and the Run follows a similar pattern. No, you’re not going to get weeks of usage, but you also won’t be stuck with just a few days of watch time either.
When used as a smartwatch, it can last up to 12 days on a single charge. Suunto doesn’t specify what happens to battery life if the AMOLED screen is on 24/7 and consumes more power. We found that if you avoid keeping the screen on constantly, it can last about a week. Turn on that always-on display mode and the battery life drops to a maximum of four days. This performance is comparable to Garmin’s Forerunner 165 on both points, so it is at least competitive.
When you’re using the GPS tracking, Suunto states you can expect up to 20 hours in its most accurate GPS mode. This can extend to 40 hours in its power-saving training mode, so it has the ability to last longer.
We’ve mainly used it with the most accurate GPS enabled, and the battery dropped by 7% after an hour of outdoor running, which estimates to about 14 hours of total usage. When we added music streaming, the battery drain increased significantly, dropping by 20% for a similar tracking duration.
You’re getting better smartwatch battery life than the Suunto Race S but not the Race, and you’re also getting less GPS battery life to work with compared to both Race watches. Did we ever feel significantly shortchanged with battery life? Only when keeping that screen on, and even then, it still performs better than most smartwatches in the same situation.
Sports tracking: GPS and heart rate monitoring tested
The Run is designed for runners, but like other Suunto watches, it can track many other activities as well. You get 34 sports modes instead of about 95 modes available on the Race S. These modes include trail running, walking, hiking, pool and open water swimming, climbing, and there is a triathlon mode available too.
A significant omission in the Race and Race S is the lack of full offline maps. The Run model still offers route import features, accompanied by breadcrumb-style navigation on a simplified data screen to assist in following routes and returning to the starting point.
As a running watch, there’s a lot to like. Suunto features the dual-frequency GPS technology seen on its more expensive Race, Race S, and Vertical watches. In our testing, Suunto provided some of the best accuracy in tougher environments, maintaining a strong satellite signal.
We’d say Apple, Garmin, and Suunto are at the top of the dual-band performance list, and that doesn’t change with the Run. When used with one of Garmin’s dual-band watches, data like distance covered, average pace, and GPS tracks mostly match.
Heart rate monitoring accuracy comparison
There’s a new optical sensor for all-day heart rate monitoring and tracking effort levels during workouts. You can also pair external Bluetooth heart rate monitors, and we had no trouble doing so with both Garmin and Polar’s Bluetooth monitors.
The heart rate tracking overall performed quite well. We used it for activities like indoor rides, rowing, and general strength workouts, and the performance was good across the board. For high-intensity workouts, it’s best to pair the external sensor for the most accurate and reliable data.
Beyond just tracking runs, Suunto offers features that can add structure to your training and help you optimize your training time. There’s a ghost runner mode to run against a virtual runner hitting a specific pace. You can create interval training sessions and will need to add an interval display from the companion Suunto phone app to do that.
In the app, you can access the Suunto Coach, which is currently in beta testing. It provides a summary of your training, recovery, and progress, along with displaying your current training volume and load. For individual workouts, the app captures metrics like Training Stress Scores, abbreviated as TSS, or PTE, which is a scale showing the impact of your workout on your aerobic fitness.
A common theme with these insights and metrics is presentation. It’s all a bit text-heavy, and if you were a beginner runner trying to understand some of these metrics, they aren’t exactly easy to grasp.
Basic activity tracking and sleep tracking
The Suunto Run can be a watch that can track your steps, daily heart rate and sleep, and you can mainly view that from the widget stream on the watch or from the main home tab on the app.
There seemed to be a difference of around 700-800 steps in the daily step count totals compared to two other devices we tested. There aren’t any notable features designed to encourage you to move more and regularly; it mainly seems to focus on simply capturing this data.
Resting heart rate data also appeared to trend higher, by about 4-5 BPM, which isn’t a bad showing and aligns with the good heart rate tracking performance we’ve generally seen from the Run.
At night, the Run will track sleep duration, analyze sleep stages including REM, monitor heart rate, and evaluate your sleep quality.
We’ve been testing alongside an Oura Ring 4, and total sleep time wasn’t far off from what the Oura recorded. It captured similar sleep stage data, though time spent in the REM sleep stage was usually longer, according to the Run.
Average and lower heart rate readings were similar, and overall, the Run appears to provide reliable sleep tracking without pioneering new features or clearly linking it to your recovery needs.
Smartwatch features
Suunto has been catching up on making its watches function more like smartwatches, and it hasn’t been alone in that effort. Whether that’s designing a user interface that feels more suited for those non-tracking smart devices or adding features we’ve come to expect on smartwatches, the Run aims to find the right balance and does a decent job at it.
The user interface is very familiar; you swipe from the watch screen in different directions to navigate where you need to go. However, there needs to be a better balance of text and icons, as the UI can feel a bit text-heavy at times. If you miss a notification, you have to go through two screens to review it, and the notifications aren’t well optimized for the screen.
While you won’t get the payment support offered in the China version of the Run and the more extensive SuuntoPlus access available on the Race and Race S, you do gain a significant addition to the Suunto platform: a music player. This feature allows you to drag and drop audio files (MP3, FLAC, WAV, or AAC) when you connect the watch to a computer.
Music streaming & smartwatch basics
There is a portion of the 4GB storage available for use, which should contain audio files you’ve purchased or can download. Unlike Garmin, Apple, or Wear OS smartwatches, you cannot store offline playlists from music streaming services like Spotify.
Getting the music onto the watch initially is a bit slow. Even syncing a couple of podcasts seems to take longer than it should for such small files. The music playback controls and music player controls are well-designed and easy to use; it’s just that the initial process of adding the audio makes using the feature regularly a bit of a chore.
Other smartwatch features include an on-screen flashlight, Find My Phone mode, weather forecasts, and the ability to set timers and alarms. The Run offers enough features to make this a practical watch beyond workouts. As for integrating sports watch and smartwatch features seamlessly, there’s still some work to be done.
