UKH

Has anybody any experience of the suunto 5. I can get one reasonably priced and was thinking it could be an upgrade to my ambit 3 peak which does everything I want except the follow route seems a bit too basic.. I'm doing spine challenger and although I know the route Reasonably well and will be carrying a GPS the appeal of having it there on my wrist to reassure if i go off track is a real draw. Essentially what I want to know is this function actually any good on this watch? Cheers matt

I think it's basic, like a breadcrumb or waypoints so it will know if you're off course but won't be overlaid on a map. It won't be like following a car GPS or like the Garmin Forerunner 945 (which I think is a fantastic watch!)

I have been looking into upgrading as well and mountainbagger is right, the Suunto 5 just has a breadcrumb trail screen for route finding as do most models in the Suunto range, you can see what this looks like by scrolling through the watch image’s on the Suunto website. Only the Suunto 7 has maps on it but the battery life is poor at around 13 hours. The Suunto 5 also does not have a barometer unlike the Suunto 9 Baro, Peak and Peak pro. I think the big advantage of Suunto watches is the excellent battery life and quick charging for the newer Suunto 9 models but unlike some of the high spec Garmins you don’t have colour maps. Of course if you are using your watch alongside a map or handheld gps unit this may be less of an issue. 

Not specific to the model but I don't know if I'll have another Suunto. My Ambit 3 Peak has worked well but the interface and customer support has been absolutely shite.

Basically, after my Suunto experience, I would never buy another SUUNTO thing in my life.

So I'm not the only one.  All they ever did was fob me off with every single issue. Kept saying they were working on it when clearly it was their intention to do nothing.

Quite. 

It was a massive saga. My issue was they updated the phone app and this meant I could no longer sync wirelessly / access the same data / make adjustments to the watch in the app.Then they had the gall to offer me a fairly trivial discount on an upgraded device! 

I went to Garmin in the end. 

Interesting and good to know in case I start getting tempted away from Garmin.

I've used Garmin's customer service twice (both slightly cheeky out of warranty queries) and was not disappointed. They were responsive and helpful. On one of the occasions they sent me a reconditioned replacement watch when they technically didn't have to, so overall a thumbs up for Garmin customer service (and their watches!)