We Review Suunto’s Slimmer, Cheaper Race S AMOLED Smartwatch

Before we dive into the Suunto Race S review, here’s a little explanation for why we’re digging into this watch.

While we don’t typically review size (or color) changes for a particular model of smartwatch, the new Suunto Race S required an exception. For some background, Suunto has struggled in the last decade with oddly-named smartwatches, insurmountable software glitches, abysmal battery life, and a few hits during a short history of mostly misses when it came to endurance sports-focused smartwatches.

All of that changed last year when Suunto released two objectively awesome endurance smartwatches (with names that also made sense) – the Race and the Vertical. The Vertical was first up, and put to rest any doubts about Suunto’s ability to compete when it came to modern-day accuracy and battery life.

The Race followed soon after, and between its excellent, bright AMOLED screen, killer physio functions (like HRV tracking), offline mapping, triathlete-friendly activity modes, dual-band GPS, and a surprisingly high (like, higher-than-advertised) battery life, it was a very good watch. But when priced at only $450, the Race became near perfect – crushing comparable watches that cost over $100 more.

So with that in mind, below we look at the Suunto Race S, a watch that’s smaller in size, weight, price, and battery life. But does that make it better?

Suunto Race S Review: The Basics

If you’re not familiar with the Suunto Race line, both the Race and Race S are endurance-focused smartwatches with a bright AMOLED touchscreen and tri-friendly multisport activities—like open water/pool swimming, cycling (with power), running (with built-in power), triathlon, and a mode to train with multiple sports (like a brick workout). Both have dual-band GPS, HRV tracking, and excellent offline mapping (though surprisingly the Race S has 32GB of standard storage, while the steel Race only has 16GB); though neither have onboard music storage, they can both control smartphone music remotely.

The Race S has substantially less battery (seven days daily smartwatch use with raise-to-wake display and 30 hours of GPS)—far less than half of what the Race has—a marginally smaller 1.32” display (to the Race’s 1.43”), a much smaller case size, more delicate glass, and lighter weight. The Race S also oddly has more accurate built-in heart-rate sensors and screen response time seems to be improved over the first release of the Race, though with recent updates the Race’s raise-to-wake is much improved.

Suunto Race S Review: What We Liked

It almost goes without saying, but I’ll put it up top because it’s important: The price on this watch is actually pretty crazy. No one else has an AMOLED-screened smartwatch at this pricepoint with this many triathlete-friendly features (the Garmin Forerunner 165 comes close, but is way short on complete functions, like offline mapping and full triathlon activities, plus it has a smaller, less-bright screen).

Elsewhere, I really did like the smaller form factor, as the Race’s case was pretty bulky (with not exactly a humongous display), and like the Vertical, this is a smartwatch you could easily wear to work or out at night without looking like you’re wearing compression tights under your slacks.

Everything else that both the Race and the Race S share—things like the screen, the storage, offline maps (and how well the AMOLED touchscreen/rotating crown works with navigation), great GPS accuracy (and now even better heart-rate accuracy), and top-level physio tracking—are also worth restating because both watches get those things very right. I was also happy to see that the display response was vastly improved from the first version of the Race from Polar-level (poor) to Garmin-level (good). This means you’ll be more likely to leave it on raise-to-wake than the early versions of the Race, which was more like “raise-to-gently-suggest-maybe-thinking-about-getting-up-sometime-soon.” (Note: With recent updates, the Race has a much improved display response, but the Race S is still slightly quicker.)

Suunto Race S Review: What Could Be Better

Now this is a tough section because if you look at the Race S compared to other brands at this pricepoint, it seems almost petty to complain, but if you compare the Race S to Suunto’s full Race version, it loses a little more luster. That said, if you only have $350 to spend on a smartwatch (which is still a lot of money, I admit), ignore my criticisms because you won’t find anything better for that price.

That said, while I greatly appreciate how the Race S has gone on a case-size diet (without reducing the display size in a meaningful way, I should note), it comes at a battery cost that makes it slightly less attractive to triathletes or those who do big GPS-intensive activities almost daily.

In my tests, the Suunto Race actually outkicked its coverage by often going above the 16-day daily smartwatch battery life it advertised. Even with lots of workouts, heart-rate tracking, and “always on” for the screen (which was necessary because of the aforementioned not-awesome raise-to-wake), it averaged more like 20 days—which is quite amazing for $450. It’s also important because triathletes work out a lot and are probably most apt to use all of the physio tracking features—battery draining things like sleep tracking, HRV, etc.—so they’ll need all of that battery life just to get through two weeks of training (plus a little bit).

On the other hand, I found the Race S to significantly underkick its advertised coverage for battery life, typically averaging around five days for all of the above—though always-on display is less necessary, but still something I bet most people like. This puts the Race S into a different realm for busy triathletes who might struggle to plug in their smartwatch every five days—especially knowing that something like HRV/sleep tracking is important and you might not want to give it up to charge the watch overnight.

This isn’t just something I pick on Suunto for, it’s also a big issue I have with Polar’s good-but-battery-light line of smartwatches. Conversely, it’s also the reason I still recommend Coros’ line for triathletes, even when their screens are so far behind the times.

Somewhat relatedly, I also had more than a few issues with the Race S’s rotating digital crown either being unpredictable, working with delay, or not working at all. I would say that this could be a one-off issue, that I’m guessing Suunto would address with a warranty, but it also wasn’t something I’ve experienced with any other rotating-crown smartwatches like the Coros line, Apple’s Ultras, and even Suunto’s own Race.

Conclusions

Like I said before, if Suunto’s Race S was the only version of the Race, I probably wouldn’t be so critical: Five days/30 hours GPS of smartwatch battery life is very good for the $250-$400 price range. Crown issues notwithstanding, the rest of the watch has so much great stuff for triathletes that you won’t find this many features for under $400 anywhere—big battery or not. The Suunto Racer S blows other $350 smartwatches, like the Polar Pacer Pro and the Coros Apex 2 out of the water when it comes to features (scroll down for a quick easy-to-read competitive analysis).

But for some triathletes, I’d guess they’d have no problem coughing up another $100 for the same watch—more or less—with nearly four times the battery life in real-triathlete-world applications. Of course, there are tons of other reasons you’d prefer the Race S—the awesome look/form factor being a big one. For some, Suunto’s Race S might literally be the perfect smartwatch at a very reasonable price point; for others, it might come up just slightly short.

Competitive Comparison: Suunto Race S vs. Suunto Race vs. Garmin Forerunner 165 vs. Coros Apex 2 vs. Polar Pacer Pro

*For more smartwatch reviews, check out The Best Triathlon Smartwatches of 2024, Reviewed