The revised heartrate monitor is a significant improvement over the old one. The old would would not reliably provide heart rate information, those problem are all gone with the new model.

The watch provides a lot of information and the interface to the PC is awesome. I am much happier with this system compared to the T3 I had before.

The alarm on the watch is not easily accessible and also not very loud, so the watch has some weaknesses as a general utility.

From the reviews, it seems like Suunto is great for our military folks abroad, and if that’s you, thank you for what you’re doing, and you can stop reading, because this review is more for the civilian fitness/outdoors folks.

It’s pretty clear that Suunto wasn’t designed with a unisex aesthetic. That’s okay, but without stand-out features, it was already low on the comparison chart for me. It’s just large and chunky, and didn’t fit on my small wrist without flopping around.

But what killed the deal for me was the GPS unit. I decided I really need GPS for tracking where I’ve been and how far I’ve gone. I thought this model had a GPS option, but I was mistaken. Turns out that costs quite a few more bucks to get into GPS, as another reviewer noted. I should have paid more attention.

Even if I did get the GPS unit, I will note that the Garmin model seemed superior for GPS applications, at least for casual fitness as opposed to military-your-life-depends-on-it uses, because of:

- the hardware: other brands’ GPS is achieved through a separate unit strapped to your arm that contains three AAA batteries that run out of juice after 8-12 hours. It’s a battery hog. The door of the little plastic GPS thing might be ill-fitting, as it was on mine (from a Timex model, but they all use the same third-party supplier) and another reviewers. So, hit or miss on the manufacturing. Problem is that unloading and reloading the batteries every few runs will get to be a hassle. And, it’s one more piece to lose or break. The Garmin unit contains it all right inside the watch itself. So superior.

- the software: If you’re interested in downlaoding (uploading) your workouts into your PC and analyzing your total miles, calories, and actually seeing your route overlaid on a map, it will require a lot of steps for you and a little PC savvy to do it with other solutions. Garmin is a mapping company and their software is so easy.

But, if you like a manly-looking watch, you don’t need GPS, and this model would probably be great.