SUUNTO 7 GPS Sports Smart Watch Review
Wire OS is also here, along with Google, which provides key features such as notifications, Google Pay, app download capability, and music controls. Overall, the software runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 processor with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. This gives it an overall sleek performance, which means that Google and Samsung may not be running the latest version of the newly built Google Wear operating system.
Garmin Enduro keeps the GPS distance tracking well against the sports watch and strengthens the sports tracking as a whole. The accuracy of the heart rate monitor and the battery drop from tracking are not so good however and you can get better performance for less money.
The Suunto 7 has some really nice features, but in the end it crashes due to some issues that we have seen again and again on Wear OS smartwatches. Battery life does not seem to be so good, especially as the software on the Google side feels depleted and the uncertainty of whether it will get the big new Wire OS update is now a big issue for anyone thinking of buying a Suunto 7.
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 | SUUNTO 7 GPS Sports Smart Watch |  |
Design
- Stainless steel or titanium bezel options
- Box size of 50 mm
- 1.39 inch AMOLED display
- Interchangeable straps
There’s absolutely nothing about the look of the Suunto 7 with a 50mm cover, which is bigger than your average Wear OS smartwatch.
You can get eight different shapes, and Sunto offers a glass fiber reinforced polyamide box made of stainless steel or lightweight (and expensive) titanium locks.
You can grab it with a silicone tape or a new microfiber cloth for a soft-feeling strap that will hold it in place when you sweat. You can remove the straps if you want to blend that look.
The Titanium version we had to test weighed at 50g compared to the 70g for the stainless steel model, so at a higher cost you will get a large wristwatch that is light on the wrist. Both options are water resistant up to 50 meters so they are great for swimming and jumping in the shower.
There are four physical buttons for navigation (three on the right and one on the left of the case), which is larger than your average Ware OS watch.
The front and center have a 1.39-inch 454 x 454 AMOLED touchscreen with gorilla glass that is durable for outdoor adventurers. It’s a pleasantly sharp, colorful display that glows brightly with a sunlight-enhancing feature that brightens up that AMOLED screen, which can sometimes struggle for visibility in bright outdoor light. You have a display mode that always works, but even with a small amount of batteries to play with, you may want to think about whether you want to activate it.
Monitoring physical fitness
- Offline outdoor maps
- 70+ game modes
- Works with third party fitness applications
- Monitor heart rate
Suunto is famous for its sporty pursuits, especially when exploring the big outdoors, so it brings the perfect fit when you want to go adventurous.
On the front of the sensor, you have GPS embedded in it and supports GLONASS, QZSS and Bido satellite systems. You get an altimeter to monitor altitude and have an optical heart rate monitor to monitor your heart rate during exercise and during the day. Those human resource sensor data nurture training elements such as training load and recovery and the training process so that intensive training can be done and when to escape.
Although you have access to third-party apps and Google’s Fit apps to monitor exercise, Sunto includes its own software to cover this, which you can access with the physical button on the top right. From here you can get basic access to running, cycling and swimming (pool and open water), subdivisions such as track running and indoor cycling.
There are a total of 70 sports, including boxing, hurdles, dancing and kettlebell exercises. You will not be able to monitor the jab or kettlebell swing, but you will be able to monitor your heart rate and exercise time.
For the run, you can choose to connect to Google Fit and, more interestingly, follow the directions. Those routes are created in the Suunto app and then synced with the clock so you can follow them in real time in the form of bread crumbs. You want to tap into thermal maps that show popular routes, but you have control over how those maps show up even if you are experimenting.
You also have the option to download maps for offline use here. So once you have created that map up to a maximum of 50 km, it will download when the clock is put back into its charger and the watch will connect with WiFi. They are very detailed maps to follow and are definitely one of the highlights of the Suunto 7
In terms of accuracy, we put it against Gaming Enduro, which is largely based on parameters such as GPS-based tracking and average speed. With a 10bpm difference in reading average heart rate, the Gaming HRM-PRO chest recording did not do so well with the heart rate when reading more than 20bpm from the monitor. For house-to-house and rowing exercises, that heart rate was more stable and the maximum was 1bpm with a chest strap.
Smart watch features
- Works with Android and iOS
- Wear runs on the operating system
- Get sports apps
Sunto 7 is the first time that Sunto has decided to look beyond its own software to bring in smartwatch features that are not really provided in their own watch.
With the merger of Google with Samsung to change the smartwatch platform, Google has chosen it for the Ware operating system. 7 Sunto has not yet confirmed whether it will update to the latest version, and it looks like it will have to skip the new update or wait to get it. So right now you have something running on Wire OS 2.0.
Battery life
The Sunto does not specify the battery capacity of its packaging, but it is clear that it will be shorter compared to the Sunto 9 and Sunto 5 watches in its collection.
The Sunto 7 promises up to two days when used as a smartwatch, and on average when monitoring some games it was about one and a half days during our test period. At night the battery disconnection was about 25% and when you turned on the GPS, you saw that the battery was less than 5% to 20% of an hour of outdoor activity.
There is an option to switch to ‘good’ GPS tracking and battery-saving GPS models, which will get GPS data less often than the optimal option. However, in the end, for best accuracy, if you take a good time to monitor your outdoor exercise, you are most likely to get a regular charging cradle.
If you really want to use it to turn things around and look at time, Sunto basically offers a battery-saving mode that allows you to look at time, which is your lot.
