Suunto Race 2 Review: Suunto Re-Enters the Chat
The Suunto Race 2 ($499) has the trimmings of a high-end training watch, including a sleek yet durable build, a crisp and fun-to-read AMOLED screen, excellent battery life, and full topographic mapping. Compared to similar Garmin watches, it offers a strong value and comes in at a noticeably lower price. This was our first experience with Suunto: We went in with minimal bias, but came away feeling that the Race 2's UX is simply less polished and intuitive than what we’re used to with Garmin and Coros. That said, if you’re willing to put in a bit of time to customize the watch and learn its quirks—and you don’t need your training watch to double as a feature-packed smartwatch—it’s a high-value tool.
User Experience
Activity Tracking & Training
Health & Recovery
Mapping & Navigation
Quality & Durability
Battery Life
Battery life (w/ GPS)
65 hours
Battery life (smartwatch)
18 days
Display
AMOLED
Lens
Sapphire crystal
Bezel
Stainless steel
Diameter
49mm
Weight
76g
Mapping
Topographic
Band material
Silicone
Pros
Cons
Suunto Race 2
For this season's top models, see our guide to the Best Running Watches.
Coming from years of using a Coros Apex and more recently the Garmin Forerunner 945, this was my first experience with Suunto—and overall, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. First impressions of the Race 2 were strong: The AMOLED screen looks great and makes the whole experience of using the watch feel more polished, and I really like the rotating crown: It’s similar to what you get on Coros or the Garmin Venu, and it’s genuinely fun to use, with a nice tactile vibration as you scroll. There's also a touchscreen, though I didn’t use it much, partly because the crown makes navigation so easy and partly because I’m just not used to it. I’d lean on it more for maps, but otherwise the crown-and-two-button setup gets the job done.
That said, Suunto Race 2's interface takes some getting used to and, in my opinion, has a few quirks that feel less polished than what I’ve grown accustomed to with Garmin. It’s easy enough to navigate, but there are moments of confusion, mainly around which button is actually the “select” button. Sometimes it’s the crown, sometimes it’s the top button, and I found myself pressing the wrong one more often than I’d like. Maybe that improves with time, but it wasn’t immediately intuitive—and it seems like Suunto knows it, given the on-screen prompts that often tell you which button to push. A good example of the clunkiness is ending an activity: You have to press the top button to pause, the bottom button to end, and then the crown to save.
The activity modes have also been a point of early frustration. Suunto doesn’t let you customize existing activity modes, so if you want to tweak data screens, you have to create entirely new activity profiles in the app—unlike Garmin's sports watches, you can’t make quick edits directly on the watch. Given that some of the prebuilt layouts feel redundant (for example, in the gravel cycling mode, the first two screens each have two fields with identical data), I ended up starting over for all the activities I use. Everything functions well after some tweaking, but it’s more effort than it should be.
The app experience also leaves something to be desired. Many customization features don’t work while the watch face is active, which is frustrating when you’re trying to get things set up at the outset. And while I’ll get into this more in the mapping section, downloading maps takes a surprisingly long time—we’re talking overnight in some cases. Compared to Garmin, where maps come preloaded and ready to go, the difference in user experience is pretty noticeable.
On the smart features side, Suunto keeps things pretty minimal. There’s no contactless pay, no ability to take calls, and no music streaming integration. (You can control music from your phone, which I’ve found to be a helpful feature.) Compared to Garmin, there’s just less going on here in terms of everyday smartwatch functionality. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—it helps keep the watch simpler and more affordable—but it’s worth knowing going in. If you want your watch to double as a full-on smartwatch, this probably isn’t it. If you’re more focused on training and don’t care about those extras, it could be a good way to save some money.
All told, I haven’t been super blown away by the Suunto Race 2’s user experience: It’s noticeably less polished and intuitive than what I know from Garmin, and requires some real time and attention to set up for smooth use. However, I also anticipate adapting to it over time. On the other hand, I love the AMOLED screen, and the two buttons and rotating crown make it simple enough to navigate most features. The watch is significantly more affordable than the competition, given what it offers in terms of build quality, mapping and navigation, and battery life, so the trade-offs could prove worth it for many.
The Suunto Race 2 delivers all the core performance features you’d expect from a high-end running watch. It supports all five major satellite systems—GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou—along with multi-band GNSS, improving accuracy in challenging environments such as dense forests or mountainous terrain. Like most running watches, it also includes a barometric altimeter, which provides more reliable elevation data than GPS alone. In practice, tracking felt consistent and trustworthy, and it’s a watch I’d feel confident taking into more remote terrain.
In terms of training tools, the Race 2 has a lot to offer. It packs in over 90 preloaded activity modes, including triathlon and multisport tracking (it has a 100m water rating). You can also build custom activities with detailed data screens in the Suunto app, which is fairly straightforward and offers a ton of flexibility with layouts and data fields. I do miss being able to tweak these directly on the watch (as I’m accustomed to on my Garmin), but once I got used to doing it in the app, it didn’t feel limiting.
A wide range of structured workouts is available through SuuntoPlus guides, and it’s also easy to build your own—I actually found that process smoother than what I’m used to on Garmin. That said, the workflow gets a bit clunky after that: You have to make sure you select the correct activity in the workout builder, go into a separate part of the app to pin the workout to your watch, then sync the two. It took me about an hour of Googling to figure out the full process, but now that I have it dialed, it’s manageable. And speaking of workouts, one gripe: When I press the lap button, the lap screen doesn’t automatically pop up—you still have to scroll to it. I don’t know about you, but when I’m redlining, I don’t really have time to be flipping through screens. I’m hopeful there’s a fix for this, but I haven’t been able to find one yet.
The Race 2 also includes a solid set of training and recovery metrics, including VO2 max estimates, a lactate threshold test, training load and stress insights, and heart-rate–based zones. That said, much of this data is buried behind unfamiliar acronyms such as TSB, CTL, and TSS. After digging a bit, I realized these are TrainingPeaks metrics—Suunto clearly has some integration with the popular training platform. In my opinion, this adds an extra layer of friction if you’re not already familiar with the TrainingPeaks ecosystem. But gripes aside, the Race 2 packs a ton of performance features—it just takes a little more effort to access and understand them compared to offerings from Garmin and Coros.
Suunto took significant steps to improve the optical heart rate monitor on the Race 2, and all reports indicate that this was a success. However, I still didn’t find it to be especially accurate during higher-intensity efforts. Notably, it logged Z1 heart rates during a max-effort track session. That said, I’ve learned to place very little value on wrist-based heart rate data, and, admittedly, I could have had the watch a notch tighter around my wrist. If you care about precise heart-rate data, I recommend picking up the Coros Heart Rate Monitor.
All told, the Suunto Race 2 is an excellent training watch for most users—especially those who don’t need the full depth of Garmin’s feature set. You won’t find the highest-end metrics like running economy or running tolerance (as seen on the Forerunner 970), and it also lacks some of the deeper cycling and swimming data Garmin offers. But for the majority of athletes, it covers all the essentials and then some.
The Suunto Race 2 covers the core health and recovery metrics most athletes will actually use, without going as deep into lifestyle tracking as Garmin. For the basics, it tracks steps, calories, activity history, and daily heart rate, along with simple activity targets to help keep you consistent. Women can also log their menstrual cycle in the app. On the recovery side, you get daily resource levels (akin to Garmin’s Body Battery), stress and recovery status, and HRV measurement, which together give you a general sense of how ready you are to train.
Like most users, I found myself tuning into the Race 2’s sleep tracking. The watch tracks sleep duration, time awake, sleep stages (deep, light, and REM), sleep quality, and average and minimum overnight heart rate. It also pulls in HRV data from sleep, which feeds into recovery insights. That said, unlike a Garmin, it doesn’t offer much in the way of actionable guidance. So you’re saying I’m not getting enough deep sleep, but what should I do about that?
Overall, Suunto’s approach feels more training-focused than lifestyle-focused. You won’t find extras like a jet lag advisor, respiration tracking, meditation, or hydration tracking. For some, that’ll feel like a limitation. But for those who find Garmin’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach a bit overkill, the Race 2 hits a nice middle ground.
The Suunto Race 2 offers full topographic mapping, which includes all the key details you’d expect—contour lines, trails, roads, and landmarks—displayed in a clean, full-color format. Paired with the crisp, high-contrast AMOLED screen, the experience feels sharp and easy to read. The combination is a rarity at this price point (the Coros Apex 4 features topographic mapping, but no AMOLED screen), and a huge selling point for the watch.
I’ve never really been one to use wrist-based mapping, even though I’ve had access to it for years on my Garmin Forerunner 945. But the Race 2’s AMOLED screen genuinely changes the experience, making maps feel far more accessible and easy to read. On a recent early-season outing in the local mountains, I was struggling to stay on trail as it disappeared under patches of snow. I didn’t even have a route loaded to my watch, but I could still see exactly where we were relative to the trail, and glanced down at it every so often to stay on track. It felt way easier than constantly pulling out my phone. Honestly, it kind of felt like a breakthrough moment—I can see myself actually using watch-based mapping more often now.
Getting routes onto the watch is straightforward. You can upload GPX files through the Suunto app, save them as a course, and then toggle the “Use in watch” setting (a redundant step, considering that the only reason I would upload a file to the Suunto app is to put it on the watch). From there, the course is available within any activity, with optional turn-by-turn navigation and clear on- and off-course alerts. The main limitation is that Suunto’s wrist-based maps aren’t routeable; in other words, they can’t think for themselves. If you go off course, the watch can’t reroute you back onto the course—it’ll just show a compass area pointing to the direction of the course. Garmin’s sports watches with topographic maps, on the other hand, are fully routable.
Another key drawback of Suunto’s mapping is that maps don’t come preloaded. You’ll need to download them manually, and it takes time—syncing just the Washington State map took around eight hours. Once they’re on the watch, everything works smoothly, but the upfront setup requires some patience. Compared to Garmin, where maps are ready to go out of the box, it’s a noticeable difference. Still, once you’re up and running, the Race 2 delivers a strong mapping experience that punches above its price point.
The Suunto Race 2 strikes a strong balance between premium materials and everyday usability. It features a stainless steel bezel and a sapphire crystal lens, both of which resist scratches on the screen and around the watch face. Compared to watches that use aluminum or polymer bezels and standard glass lenses, this setup feels noticeably more robust and built to last. And it’s a rarity at this price point—the Garmin Forerunner 570 ($550) uses a less-durable aluminum bezel and a Gorilla Glass lens. On the other hand, the Coros Apex 4 ($479) features an even more premium titanium bezel, but it also has a more utilitarian look that might not suit all runners.
I’m typically pretty hard on my gear, and the Race 2 has held up well throughout testing. I scraped it pretty aggressively against a wall while moving boxes, and the wall came out looking a lot worse than the watch. But granite got the upper hand on a trail run and scramble in my local mountains, leaving a couple of small chips on the crown. Surprisingly, the screen still looks untouched. No watch is truly safe on my wrist (my three-year-old Forerunner 945 looks like it’s been through a war), but overall, the Race 2 is like a solid choice for rough use—even if you’re okay with a few inevitable nicks along the way.
The overall construction feels sturdy without being bulky—similar to a Garmin Forerunner, but with fewer buttons and a slightly larger display. The silicone band is simple and easy to clean, making it a great match for sweaty runs and daily wear (I will note that it's not as secure as I'd like—during the aforementioned mountain mission, the strap came loose four times). It doesn’t feel as bombproof as something like a Fenix, but it strikes a nice performance-first balance without veering into cheap or plasticky territory.
The Suunto Race 2 posts some seriously impressive battery specs. In smartwatch mode, Suunto claims up to 18 days of battery life, which tops most of the Garmin watches we tested, except for the solar-powered Enduro 3. In GPS modes, battery life ranges from roughly 55 to 200 hours, depending on your settings—things like how many satellite systems you’re using, whether multi-band is enabled, and if wrist-based heart rate is turned on all make a noticeable difference.
I recently wore the Suunto Race 2 during a 15-hour day in the mountains, linking up nine peaks in the Teanaway range near my home in Leavenworth, Washington. I charged the watch to 100% the night before, and it was at 98% when I started tracking the activity in the morning (using Performance mode). Fifteen hours later—after keeping the screen on the entire time and using the map extensively for about an hour—it was down to 56%. That’s not quite in line with Suunto’s stated specs, but it’s still an impressive result for a long day out. I’m also confident it would have used significantly less battery if I had the screen set to turn off when not in use—something I’ll definitely tweak before my next big outing.
One feature I really appreciated is how Suunto surfaces battery modes, which can feel quite buried on a Garmin watch. Every time you start an activity, you can scroll down to “Exercise Options” and choose between four presets—Performance, Endurance, Ultra, and Tour—each with a clear battery time estimate. As you toggle between them, the watch shows exactly what you’re gaining and giving up, including GPS accuracy (best to low), data logging frequency, wrist heart rate, touchscreen use, vibration, Bluetooth, and whether maps are enabled. For those embarking on long missions who want to get the most out of their watch, it’s refreshing to have this option so readily accessible at the start of an activity.
The Suunto Race 2 uses a magnetic charging puck that snaps onto the back of the watch. Suunto claims a full charge (0 to 100%) takes about 60 minutes, and even a quick 10 to 15-minute top-up can deliver roughly 20 to 30+ hours of GPS tracking. Most users probably won’t care that much about this, but I’m pretty psyched about it given how often I’m out on long mountain missions, juggling a battery pack between my watch, phone, and inReach.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t been blown away by the comfort of the Suunto Race 2. I have relatively small wrists, and the 49-millimeter case feels on the large side. Not only that, but the watch is heavy for its size, weighing 20 grams more than the 47-millimeter Garmin Forerunner 970 and 13 grams more than the 51-millimeter Garmin Enduro 3. The silicone band isn’t particularly breathable and tends to feel clammy during all-day wear. (Furthermore, the snap closure doesn't stay as secure as I would like, popping out with minor brushes of the wrist against rock, brush, or my clothing.) Put simply, it’s not a watch I’ve been able to forget about once it’s on. To be fair, I’m not accustomed to wearing a watch 24/7 as I have been with the Race 2, but I find it noticeably more cumbersome on my wrist than my Garmin Forerunner 945 (47mm).
Suunto does offer the Race S, which comes in a smaller 45-millimeter size, but it’s not at all the same watch. It’s $150 cheaper and comes with some tradeoffs, including a less durable Gorilla Glass lens, shorter battery life, lower water resistance (50m vs. 100m), and a slower processor. It would be great to see Suunto bring a smaller size option to the full Race 2 platform.
The Race 2 comes in just one size, which is worth noting—especially if you have smaller wrists. The version I tested featured a stainless steel bezel, but Suunto also offers a titanium option for an additional $100 (bringing the price to $599). Titanium is more scratch-resistant and noticeably lighter: the titanium version weighs 65 grams, compared to 76 grams for the stainless steel model. Given that comfort is one of this watch’s main drawbacks, I’d be pretty tempted to spend the extra $100 for the lighter build.
Garmin Forerunner 570 ($550): Trade Mapping for User Friendliness
The Race 2 and the Forerunner 570 are closely matched in core training performance, offering similar GPS accuracy, activity tracking, and overall capabilities for running and everyday workouts. The main difference lies in their UX design and features. The Forerunner 570 leans into a polished, easy-to-use interface with strong smartwatch functionality—music, contactless pay, and a more intuitive app ecosystem—whereas the Race 2 feels more stripped down. In return, the Suunto offers full topographic mapping, significantly longer battery life, and a more premium sapphire-and-steel (or titanium) build. Ultimately, your decision will probably hinge on whether you want a smoother, more refined user experience versus better battery life, mapping, and overall value. For more, read our Forerunner 570 review.
Coros Apex 4 ($479): Less Flashy, But a Better Value
Like the Race 2, the Apex 4 has a performance-first philosophy that prioritizes battery life, durability, and training features over smartwatch frills. It stands out for its longer battery life, titanium-and-sapphire build, and a simpler, more streamlined interface that feels easier to navigate. The Race 2 takes a different approach, with a bright AMOLED display and a more modern, polished look. Both offer full mapping, but Suunto’s interface is more visually intuitive, while Coros keeps things minimalist and efficient. If you want simplicity, durability, and max battery life, the Apex 4 is the better tool; if you prefer a more refined display and a smartwatch-like feel, the Race 2 has the edge. To learn more, check out our Apex 4 review.
Garmin Forerunner 970 ($750): Polished Performance vs. Raw Value
One of the most popular training watches on the market, the Forerunner 970 offers a more refined and complete package, with a highly intuitive interface, deeper training and recovery insights, and a full suite of smartwatch features like music, contactless pay, and a developed app ecosystem. The Race 2, by contrast, feels stripped down—it skips most of the smart features and requires more effort to learn, but counters with excellent battery life, full topographic mapping, and a durable build at a much lower price. If money is no object, the Race 2 has enough trade-offs that we’d lean toward recommending the Forerunner 970. But if you want a durable watch with strong core features and just enough UX to get you from point A to point B (and analyze your performance after the fact), there’s a strong case for the Race 2. For more, read our Forerunner 970 review.
A high-end training watch without the Garmin price tag, the Race 2 combines excellent battery life, full topographic mapping, and a durable yet sleek build. It’s not the most polished or intuitive option, though, and it lacks many common smartwatch features.
User Experience
Activity Tracking & Training
Health & Recovery
Mapping & Navigation
Quality & Durability
Battery Life
The Forerunner 570 is a training-focused watch that delivers high-end tracking and robust exercise and recovery metrics in a lightweight, everyday-friendly package. It lacks advanced features like mapping and premium materials, but for frontcountry runners and multi-sport users, it occupies a tempting middle ground.
User Experience
Activity Tracking & Training
Health & Recovery
Mapping & Navigation
Quality & Durability
Battery Life
The Apex 4 is a high-end watch at a mid-range price point, making it an excellent choice for trail runners and other mountain-focused endurance athletes. Highlights include exceptional battery life, in-depth training metrics, topographic mapping, and a premium build. It lacks some smart features and the visual pop of an AMOLED display.
User Experience
Activity Tracking & Training
Health & Recovery
Mapping & Navigation
Quality & Durability
Battery Life
Is the Race 2 for You?
The Suunto Race 2 is an appealing option if you want a high-end training watch at a lower cost than a comparable Garmin and don’t mind a slightly clunkier UX and minimal smart features. Its sleek, training-focused feel (with a bright AMOLED display and premium materials), excellent battery life, full mapping, and durable build check a lot of the right boxes for serious athletes and adventurers—whether you’re logging track workouts, heading out on multi-day mountain objectives, or mixing in a range of activities. You’ll likely spend more time learning the system and interpreting your data, but for some, that’s part of the appeal.
Go for it if you want a durable yet sleek training watch with topographic mapping and a long battery life, and don’t care much about smartwatch extras or having the most polished interface.
Pass on it if you want a seamless, plug-and-play experience or if you plan to use your watch as an everyday smartwatch with features like music, payments, and advanced health metrics.
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