Walking Equipment and Accessories

Suunto 5 Peak GPS Watch | Review

A lightweight GPS watch boasting enough features and compatibility to sit at the heart of your adventurous lifestyle

Why We Chose the Suunto 5 Peak: Lightweight, feature-rich, compatible.

New for 2022, Finnish navigation and technology brand Suunto’s 5 Peak is a feature-rich GPS watch that boasts a high degree of compatibility, both with other Suunto products and with partner apps and platforms. It’s a data gathering beast, operating at the heart of your adventurous lifestyle to give you insights into your training and allowing you to share your progress and escapades with others.

OM editor Will using the Suunto 5 Peak while running on Rannoch Moor in the Highlands. Photos: Mike Drummond

Before we delve into its features – and there are a great many – let’s consider the bread and butter. The 5 Peak is designed to be lightweight, durable and reliable. Its battery life is impressive, lasting up to a week even with daily activities and sleep monitoring, while the Tour battery mode gives you up to 4 days of continuous GPS tracking, well suited to long-distance trails and the like. The 5 Peak will also cope with heavy downpours, as it’s 30-metre water resistant. It works in tandem with your Suunto app to provide GPS navigation and benefits from regular software updates too.

Who Is The Suunto 5 Peak For?

With over 80 sport modes and comprehensive range of features, the Suunto 5 Peak is a general-purpose sports watch that will appeal to a broad market. Feature-wise, it has all the main bases of a smartwatch covered, while its low weight makes it an attractive proposition for fast and light activities like day hiking, cycling and trail running. It lacks many of the compass, alitmeter and weather features of the Suunto 9 range, which are pricier, heavier but more suited to mountaineering and long-distance expeditions.

Features

Suunto have crammed an incredible array of features (too many to list here) into a watch that weighs just 39g. All the usual smartwatch features are there, like heart rate monitoring, a step counter, sleep tracking, notifications from your phone and so on – so let’s focus on some of it’s more unique features. The Burner feature enables you to analyse the real-time rate with which you burn fat and carbs during exercise, yet another string to your training analysis bow. If you run or ride to music, you can control the volume, skip tracks or pause direct from your watch.

When used in conjunction with Suunto’s app, 3D heatmaps reveal popular routes in the region you’re exploring, while also allowing you to seek out serenity on less-frequented trails. You can also sync routes from the app to your watch for turn-by-turn nav, while a breadcrumb feature enables you to retrace your steps if you take a wrong turn. If only Theseus had enjoyed the nav benefits of the 5 Peak in the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, he could have left his ball of string at home! Back at basecamp, you can share your achievements and make your routes visible to the Suunto community on the app.

Compatibility

These days, if it ain’t on Strava, it didn’t happen, right? As well as working with your smartphone and the Suunto app, the 5 Peak is only going to be as good as its compatibility with the other apps and platforms you already use. Fortunately, Suunto have a huge portfolio of over 120 partner platforms and counting. Many of the main players are there, such as Strava for running, komoot for cycling and hiking and Relive for viewing 3D videos of your routes. Suunto products now also come with Value Pack, a constantly evolving package that includes benefits and treats like discounts, bundled map content and free trial periods.

Tester’s Verdict

Milo Wilson, Editorial Assistant at Outdoors Magic

“The Suunto is so much fun to wear and use. Don’t let the minimalist design fool you – once you get a hang of the buttons on the side, you unlock a massive range of cool features. I’m someone who prefers to throw my phone in a backpack rather than let it bounce around in my pocket, and the 5 Peak is an ideal middle-man to keep me connected in a few key ways. The GPS function is accurate and easy to follow, and the ability to skip songs on spotify or read notifications as they come in is super valuable.

It’s a tiny detail, but I’m very pleased with the amount of vibration that comes with each notification. Some smart watches can be jarring and abrasive when they want your attention. The Suunto is subtle – maybe even gentle! – but always noticeable, which is especially important if you’re using it to its full capability. Between setting daily goals for steps, calories, distance, receiving navigation instructions, and getting texts from your phone, this thing is liable to buzz a fair bit, so thanks to Suunto for getting that right. Overall, this watch makes me feel more engaged with my daily exercise; I enjoy seeing long-term updates and insights into my progress, and it’s the only screen I need to use for a full day on the trails.”