4 Suunto Ambit Review

Reviewer: douglas service, BURNLEY   (4-5-2012)

I bought the Ambit to replace my aged x10. I have to say so far its a big improvement in several ways, the main one being the time taken to acquire GPS. On the x10 I could be waiting 5 minutes but the ambit generally takes less than 30 seconds. Battery life when using the GPS is a lot longer as well.

I bought the ambit with the HR monitor(an extra £50) this comes into its own when you load your exercise data onto the Movescount website. It displays all your training data eg heart rate,VO2, speed, distance etc in a series of graphs. Its like being followed round by your own team of scientists.

The only downside so far and the reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is that Suunto have launched it without GB Map data which makes it pretty useless if trying to use it with OS Maps. I have heard this data may become available in May via Movescount so fingers crossed.

3 Suunto Ambit Review

Reviewer: Derek Blackburn, Glasgow   (6-4-2012)

I already have a Suunto Core, bought from Facewest a couple of years ago. I use it all the time when out to check altitude and record total ascent. I use a Garmin Oregon to keep track of position, both on screen and by grid reference to a map. I also have a Garmin forerunner which logs a multitude of information when out running.

Enter the Suunto Ambit, and I thought - this could replace all of those.

First BIG disappointment - it does not display UK national grid coordinates. You would have to make do with lat. and long. and estimate these from the scant markings on the ordinance survey maps. Secondly, when in running mode it will display pace in min/mile or min/km, but on termination it summarises the run with an average speed in mph or km/h. In fact It does not have a tenth of the features of a Garmin forerunner as far as running is concerned.

The Core can have its battery replaced easily with a spare when outdoors, but the Ambit needs to be charged from USB. However it charges easily from a portable battery pack with USB output the same way as my iPhone does.

However despite the above, it still has the advantage that it is an all-in-one unit, and looks good too. Pity about the lack of UK nat. grid coords, I don't understand why they would market them in the UK without them. Just about all of us use them on maps. I couldn't even find an app to change lat/long to UK grid. Hope the folk at Suunto sort this, then it would be 5 stars.