Serious adventure and training watch

The Suunto Spartan Ultra is one of the latest watches for serious adventurers and athletes. The watch has a powerful battery and a large touchscreen with Sapphire glass. It sits well on your arm no matter what you do with it.

The watch is 50 mm in diameter, is 17 mm thick and weighs 73 grams. The touchscreen has a resolution of 320 x 300 pixels. Despite its relative size, the watch is very comfortable on the arm with its silicone strap. The quality problems of previous generations of wristbands are completely gone. The shape, which lacks a protruding GPS antenna, is smooth and works even under a sweater or shirt.

The Spartan Ultra has a touchscreen but also three large buttons on the right side. You wake the watch from sleep by pressing the center button first. Once you've pressed the button, you can use either the top and bottom buttons or the touchscreen to scroll through the easy-to-find menus. Having to wake up the clock initially felt a little strange but the advantage is that you can't access any functions by mistake.

Spartan Ultra is water resistant to 100 meters and can work in temperatures between -20 and +60 degrees. The watch has a barometric altimeter, an electronic compass and several navigation functions.

The Spartan Ultra has special and multiple menus for more than 80 sports and I have so far used it mostly for trail running, hiking, skiing and cycling.

The watch has three separate GPS settings. The first connects once a second at full power, another connects once a second at low power and the last connects once a minute at full power. The latter setting is intended for those who do not need such high accuracy and want to save battery power. The connection to the satellites is almost instantaneous.

During an activity, you can pause the watch and/or switch between different screens including those showing a map or the compass. You can also set the watch to give you a signal and a vibration at certain intervals. The screen is easy to read even in bright conditions. At the end of the ride or workout, the watch displays basic data such as distance, time, pace, ascent and descent, and training effect. In Movescount you can get additional almost crazy statistics.

The Spartan Ultra still has a chest strap with Bluetooth to measure heart rate. The simpler but newer model, the Spartan Ultra Sport, has this built into the watch.

For logging and deeper analysis of your training or rides, connect the watch to Movescount.com which has a good and simple interface. There is also an app for this (Android/Iphone) but this still has, to put it kindly, a lot of development potential.

You can also use the Movescoin app to make your Spartan Ultra receive the same messages you receive on your cell phone.

The watch charges for the first time in about two and a half hours. That may seem like a long time but you don't have to do it often. Suunto says the battery lasts about two weeks in normal mode, 18 hours with the GPS on full power and 26 hours with the GPS in power saving mode. The charging cable is magnetic and snaps easily into place on the back of the watch.

Summary The Suunto Spartan Ultra is a stylish, durable and good watch for serious adventurers and athletes. The color touchscreen with its graphs makes it easy to use and read although it requires some interest to fully utilize all the features and settings.

As usual, Suunto offers a world-class purchase and service experience.