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Suunto 5: a multisport watch designed for easy training

Suunto 5: a multisport watch designed for easy training

April 07, 2020

Features of the Suunto 5
Suunto 5 quick tour
Suunto 5 in-depth review
Suunto 5: the differences with Suunto 3 Fitness and Suunto Spartan Trainer
Our opinion on Suunto 5: should we buy it?

After the suunto 9, the brand's high-end model, the Finnish firm is offering, in May 2019, the Suunto 5, a mid-range multisport and triathlon watch targeting performance. It is an elegant, robust and comfortable watch that offers most of the functions that most sportspeople are looking for: cardio on the wrist, GPS navigation and course recording, monitoring and assistance for athletes, relevant metrics already offered by the Fenix 3 but not the Suunto 9 (VO2max, stress, sleep analysis, recovery level), long battery life, intelligent battery management (like on the Suunto 9) and a function that should make it successful: personalized progressive training that adapts depending on your performance (see below).

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€ 329 € 312.55 (* 1)

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€ 329 € 269.99

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Features of the Suunto 5

Weight66g

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(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7YjcorBoL4 (/ embed)

Suunto 5 quick tour

Suunto 5 at a glance: the right compromise for most sports

Released in May 2019, the Suunto 5 is a mid-range watch, located between the Suunto 3 Fitness and the Suunto 9; of great autonomy, offering 80 sports profiles. Multisport, it is suitable for activities that are linked like triathlon (you can change activity without stopping the recording).

This new model replaces the Spartan Trainer by making changes in design and new features (see our comparison below).

It offers everything you need to train, program and load routes to follow (heat maps also supported), monitoring its performance and progress. In particular, it offers:

Evolving personalized training: the watch assesses your physical condition and offers a 7-day training plan (duration and intensity of the exercises offered depending on your physical condition and your goals)
Physiological measurements: VO2max, stress, recovery (Body Resource function)
24/7 activity monitoring including a detailed sleep analysis
GPS navigation : loading and following a route, recording the track, navigating to a point
Course recording : the watch records and restores your route on PC or Smartphone with altitude profile
The sharing of your outings with the community and access to heat maps (routes taken by the community in your region)
Great autonomy (up to 40 h) and intelligent battery management
A new Sony GPS chip more economical and compatible with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS
Support for cadence and power sensors (cycling, running) and calculating swimming efficiency (SWOLF)

Who is Suunto 5 for?

The Suunto 5 is for all athletes, from beginners to advanced, who are looking for the essential functions to train and progress without allocating too large a budget. Its progressive training makes it suitable for neophyte athletes who want to progress without knowing anything about the numbers and metrics displayed.

This watch compares to the Garmin Instinct (resistant, with barometer), the Polar Vantage M (for running), the Garmin Forerunner 245 (very complete with or without mp3 player and assistance in the event of an incident) or even the Forerunner 735 XT (running and triathlon).

Do you hesitate to buy this watch? Read our Suunto 5 review at the end of the article.

Suunto 5 in-depth review

Design and weight: elegant, compact and comfortable

Suunto offers a model with an elegant design that goes very well in everyday life (city, work). The stainless steel bezel gives it a chic and neat appearance. Suunto declines this model in 4 design variants: All Black (black), White (white), Burgundy Copper (copper) and Graphite Copper (anthracite).

We are dealing with a relatively robust, compact (46 mm in diameter, 14.6 mm thick) and light (66 g) watch. We are close to the size of the Fenix 5 Plus (47 mm in diameter, 15.8 mm thick and 76 g) but still far from the 38.5 g of the Forerunner 245.

The Suunto 5 is equipped with a non-touch color screen of 218 x 218 px (320 x 300 px on the Suunto 9).

Autonomy: 20 to 40 hours in GPS mode, intelligent management of the battery and recharges!

Suunto offers a long autonomy watch: up to 20 h in GPS mode (recording every second) or up to 40 h in "Endurance" mode (energy saving). These excellent figures were obtained thanks to the use of a new Sony GPS chip (instead of Mediatek). A choice that the brand's competitors are gradually facing (Garmin, Polar and Coros among others).

Unlike the Suunto Spartan Trainer, the "Ultra" mode is no longer offered, probably because the autonomy of 40 h is better than the 35 h of the Spartan for a much higher recording precision. On the Suunto 9, we do even better with a record autonomy of 120 h and good measurement accuracy thanks to the FusedTrack mode which combines the GPS with the accelerometer to extrapolate the missing data from the GPS.

The watch offers 2 operating modes:

Performance mode: 1 reading per second, 20 h autonomy (25 h on Suunto 9)
Endurance mode: 1 reading every minute, autonomy of 40 h (50 h on Suunto 9)

Suunto 5 also offers intelligent battery management with alerts based on activity history. If the autonomy is insufficient, the user can simply change the mode to extend the life of the battery. The accuracy will obviously be less good.

Finally, novelty, the watch learns your training patterns and reminds you to recharge it if the battery is insufficient. For example, if you are used to running twice a week for 2 hours per session, the watch will check the battery status before you go out, the day before for example. If the autonomy is only an hour, an alert will prompt you to recharge.

The sensors

The Suunto 5 is equipped with cardio on the wrist, a GPS chip compatible with GPS (American system), GLONASS (Russian system), Galileo (European system) and QZSS / Michibiki (Japanese system).

It does not have a barometric altimeter but displays the altitude and assesses the rate of climb using GPS.

It is compatible with external sensors for running and cycling (cadence sensor, power sensor).

Sports functions

The Sunto 5 offers the essential functions for navigation and sports monitoring:

80 sports profiles: we find the profiles already present on other Suunto watches. Note that each profile is similar with generic data (distance, GPS track, calories expended, etc.). Sometimes it's just the name of the sport that changes!
Personalized training: it is the function which constitutes the main interest of this watch and which will be of great help to athletes who want to improve their physical condition without knowing the basics of training. The watch uses the algorithms of the company Firstbeat to evaluate your performance over 4 weeks. On this basis, it offers a personalized 7-day training plan which consists of advice on duration and intensity of exercise. This plan is updated daily based on your progress. If you miss a scheduled session, the watch will redo the calculations and propose a new plan. The plan therefore evolves over the days, depending on your progress. The idea here is not to prepare you for a race or a competition but to improve your physical condition (the VO2max is taken as a reference for this).
The Body Resource: this function offered by the algorithms of Firstbeat (also proposed on the Garmin Forerunner 45, 245 and 945 series) aims to prevent overtraining. It helps to find the right balance between training time and recovery time. The principle is simple. The watch estimates the level of recovery of the sportsman, in other words his capacity to produce a new effort. This level decreases with fatigue, stress, work, physical activity and increases with rest, sleep, relaxation. The Body Resource thus makes it possible to judge if it is judicious or not, at a given moment, to go to make sport or if, on the contrary, it would be better to rest. The Suunto app displays a summary of measures and trends to help the user manage their activity well.
Physiological measures: Firstbeat's algorithm is used to assess VO2max (physical condition), stress level, recovery.

GPS navigation

Suunto 5 records the route and returns it on a map when you return health home or on a Smartphone. It allows you to download to the watch and follow a route previously defined or selected from the Suunto interface. In particular, we will be able to access heat maps: these maps display the routes followed by the community of thousands of Suunto users. If you do not know where to ride or hike for example, it will be enough to look at the routes of other users around.

The watch offers complete functions for navigating along a route, reaching a target or POI (point of interest) and retracing one's steps by following the actual recorded track.

Functions for running, cycling and swimming

The Suunto 5 offers functions specific to running, cycling and swimming:

Cycling: support for a cadence, speed and power sensor. Assistance for interval training.
Running: support for a cadence and power sensor (Stryd sensor), assistance for fractional training.
Swimming: swimming type detection, measurement of cadence, distance, swimming rhythm and number of movements, estimation of swimming efficiency (SWOLF score), assistance for interval training, measurement of heart rate ( with cardio belt).

24/7 activity monitoring

The Suunto 5 is designed to be worn daily and overnight. She tracks your activity 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. It records the distance traveled, the number of steps taken, the calories expended. She analyzes sleep and its quality. It assesses the level of stress.

smart health connected functions: access information and share your exploits!

The Suunto 5 is compatible with the Suunto application but not with Movescount (unlike the Spartan Trainer). The application allows among others to share its outings with the community or on social networks and to discover and download into the watch new routes shared by the community (heat maps)

The Suunto app integrates Strava, TrainingPeaks and Relive, for sharing data with these platforms.

Suunto 5: the differences with Suunto 3 Fitness and Suunto Spartan Trainer

The Suunto 5 is the successor to the Suunto Spartan Trainer and the model just above the Suunto 3 Fitness. It takes up functions already present on the Suunto 3 (evaluation of VO2max, stress, recovery, progressive training) and offers new functions and better autonomy than the Spartan Trainer. Among the main differences, we note:

Better autonomy: 20 h in GPS mode (40 h in degraded mode) versus 10 h, 16 h and 35 h for the Spartan. Note that Ultra mode is not maintained. That said, the user wins with 40 hours of average quality recording versus only 35 hours of poor quality recording on the Spartan.
Sleep quality assessment
A new GPS chip and GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS compatibility in addition to GPS
Smart battery management and smart reminders based on habits
Evaluating the effectiveness of swimming movements (SWOLF index)
Physiological measures (VO2max, stress, recovery) and the Body Resource
Adaptive personalized training
Loss of access to Movescount and Movescount App

Read also our Comparison between Suunto 3, Suunto 5 and Suunto 9: the differences, which one to choose?

Our opinion on Suunto 5: should we buy it?

The Suunto 5 is a good, pretty multisport GPS watch, easy to use, offering the essential functions for any sport and great autonomy. It is largely sufficient for classic sports use (recording of the route, statistics, physiological measurements) and for navigation along a route. Versatile, it is suitable for most sports, in particular running, walking, swimming, cycling, triathlon but, due to the absence of a barometric altimeter and a compass, it is less suitable exploration and mountain activities (trail, hiking). This watch is suitable for athletes who play sports to have fun or who are looking for performance and want to progress.

Why buy Suunto 5 rather than another?

The Suunto 5 is an ideal watch for people who want to improve their physical condition without having to worry about the numbers. Evolving personalized training, combined with the Body Resource function, makes it possible to progress without special knowledge. Just follow the advice of the watch to see progress. This is a real advantage over other mid-range sports watches and a reason why we recommend this watch.

Please note, however, that personalized training is aimed at improving VO2max but not at preparing for a race. The function is very basic. For sports training (preparation for a competition for example), it would be better to have a watch offering more sophisticated functions. In the same range, we recommend the excellent Forerunner 245 (with or without mp3 player) which is however not a triathlon watch.

Long autonomy, intelligent battery management and reminders according to habits are also one of the great assets of this watch. For even greater autonomy and more complete functions, we can of course turn to the top of the range, the Suunto 9, which offers up to 120 hours of autonomy with improved precision thanks to FusedTrack an extrapolating method GPS data to save battery.

The interest of this model (like that of the Spartan Trainer) is to be a real multisport watch, that is to say to be able to change activities without stopping the recording. It is therefore suitable for triathlon.

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A complete and practical guide to motivate and progress

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€ 26.4 € 17.94 on commentcourt10km.com

See

Should you resell your Spartan Trainer for a Suunto 5?

Compared to the Spartan Trainer, this new model brings 4 major innovations:

Much better autonomy, intelligent battery management and smart reminders to recharge your watch at the right time
Relevant physiological measures (which are partially found on the Spartan 3), in particular the Body Resource to assess your recovery and whether it is wise or not to go in for sport, the assessment of stress levels, VO2max measurement (physical condition), evaluation of sleep quality
Evolutionary personalized training
GPS compatibility with GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS for greater satellite coverage and, in theory, faster attachment

The advantage of changing watches is limited if none of these new features are of interest to you. For example if you do not need more autonomy, you train in an area where the GPS signal is already good, you do sport for pleasure without trying to progress.

A versatile watch but little adapted to mountain sports

As we write above, the absence of a barometric altimeter, or even a compass, makes the Suunto 5 less attractive for mountain sports (hiking, trail, ski) and exploration. For this type of sport, see our comparison of the best hiking watches.

Verdict

This watch offers relevant new functions which should appeal to athletes who appreciate the Suunto brand. We were seduced by the scalable personalized training, the Body Resource function, the long autonomy and the intelligent battery management. This watch also offers good value for money. Here is a beautiful, complete and practical watch for good follow-up and to have fun.

We liked

Evolutionary personalized training to know when to train and progress without knowledge
Great autonomy
Intelligent battery management and reminders to recharge it
Physiological measures including the Body Resource
80 sports profiles
The intuitive interface
Sleep quality assessment
The design, chic and robust, the comfort

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