Suunto Core

I have had 2 Suunto core watches over the last 13 years. I have put them through all of it, sky diving, bike crashes, dirt bike crashes, scuba diving, lots of electrical shocks, and hard impacts. To me this watch is worth 10x what they charge for it. But I wrote this review today because it did legitimately save me today. I am an electrician, and today about 40 feet above concrete I dropped a 90 pound failed solar assembly. It snagged my watch as it fell, thankfully the band broke almost immediately, I stayed on the ladder the watch didnt. If the band had not broken it would have been really bad. The watch fell 40 feet to concrete with 90 pounds on top of it. The watch is fine obviously, but because of the engineering they put into the band, I drove home to my wife instead of her driving to the hospital to meet me. If you need a daily watch that can take more beatings than life can give it, buy a core. Thank you Suunto.

Súper practico

I just received my first Suunto watch. The Core All Black. I was needing a watch with basic functions plus a compass. I did not want a GPS watch or a watch that needed to be charged every couple weeks. The Suunto Core is the perfect watch. The functions work great and it wears really well. Thank you Suunto for a great product.

the watch is awesome. The only thing i would change would be the display brightness. Other than that this watch is solid

Great watch

Everything looks great and functional as an off grid and harsh adventure usage, 4 star is due to no adjustment to the intensity of the brightness of the led readout for daytime and specially at nighttime. its too dim. Otherwise its a great watch, I paid full price and after a day placing my other it reduce the price by $50.00.

Love it!!!

Just what I was looking for. Really wanted a tough, reliable watch that doesn't need to be recharged every day and doesn't continuously put out a battery draining RF signal. Simplicity with just a few perks like day, date, a timer, compass and off wrist temp. The orienteering direction guiding feature is really nice I have often wanted to go off trail to meet up with a map feature. Overall well designed - perfect for me.

So far it’s been two weeks and I have zero complaints. It’s comfortable, easy to read and use, all the features and functions are spot on. I may pick up the red one next for work. Definitely recommended

Love the Core. Just the right size and features I need. Built like a tank.

I love this version of the Suunto Core, it’s a little more money but I like the red backlight, the Zulu strap and it’s nice to own a watch not made in China.

I owned a suunto watch in the past and unfortunately was damaged, and I couldn’t get it repaired. The core came up to my price range and I bought it. I absolutely like this watch

It's a fantastic watch, but the backlighting is still disappointing. It is still difficult to read. Even just normally without the backlight, it's tough to read.It's the only thing wrong with this watch. It's perfect in every other way!

I’ve had my Core for 5 years now and the only thing I have done is changed the battery and put in a new rubber seal 1 time. It has definitely taken a beating, I’m retired Army Infantry so I put a watch through the test.

They are a well built watch, this is my second one, my first one lasted three tours in IRAQ. So thank you.

They are a well built watch, this is my second one, my first one lasted three tours in IRAQ. So thank you.

I has the possitive display version several years ago. I wore that watch everyday for 4 or 5 years before moving on to a smart watch. I am not a smart watch kind of guy. I have a Garmin Fenix 5x I use for working out to keep track of heart rate and such. When I am at work I needed a practical watch that did not have to be charged all the time. I went back to Suunto based on my possitive experience before. My brother still wears my old watch. The only change from my first is the band. It is softer and has no break in period. I prefer this softer band. I also chose the all black version since it looks cleaner than a big white face. I was worried it would be hard to read. I did have to adjust the contrast from the standard setting of 7, up to 10. The contrast setting goes from 1 to 13. A quick Google search will show you how to adjust the contrast, it is not in the standard menu setting. It was easy to follow the instructions on the suunto web page. The build quality is just as good as my original and I fully expect it to provide me service for years to come. Batteries last me 12-14 months. I have the back light to turn on with any key push and I keep the button tones turned on. The only setting I keep off is the storm alert. I turn that on when I am camping or hiking only. Some people may care to know, this watch does not have a split lap stop watch. I know it is important for some to have this feature but I have never needed that sort of function. The other down side is it only has 1 alarm. Again I have never had a need for more than one alarm, I know some people need that function. I was really hesitant to buy the negative display, but I am sure glad I did. It streamlines the look of this watch. I can see why this is the most popular Suunto watch they sell since it was introduced. If you are on the fence, just buy it. You will be happy you did. On a final note. When I change my batteries, I always change it with a new rubber O-ring. I put a VERY VERY small amount of silicone grease on the O-ring prior to installing the new battery. It may be overkill but I never had any leaking or water resistance issues. The O-rings are cheap to buy. I like how Suunto trusts its consumers enough to swap out their own batteries! Fantastic watch. And the price it is now on Amazon, snag one up before the broke hikes back up.

I waited for quite a while to buy this Suunto Core as I wanted to see if the Apple Watch was something that would interest me. It wasn't. This replaces a Casio Pathfinder that I wore for about five years. After two months of ownership, I am now writing a review as I think I know enough now to relate an educated experience. First off, the looks: This is a really, really gorgeous watch. It makes the Casio look like very clunky in comparison. It's lightweight (more than I expected) and is extremely comfortable to wear. I did switch out the band for the optional Suunto black rubber/aluminum one and think the look and comfort improved even more. The original band had a "brittle" feel and it was either too big or too small for me with the adjusting holes available. The optional band's satin black aluminum lugs and matt black rubber sheen really works with the highly polished lens, the matt black case and the satin black bezel. I added photos to show the difference in appearance. Also, if you opt for the other band, the screws that fasten the crossbars are teensy and have been reported as easily lost. I used Loctite when installing mine.I thought the contrast was a bit low as shipped so bumped it up a few notches. That has a tendency to reveal some of the LED zones as they show up a bit lighter than the surrounding black mask, but it's a tradeoff in the ability to see the time.The battery life has started out badly as I received the watch on 4/29 and had to replace the battery on 5/18. Hopefully that was due to being powered up in inventory for a while before I got it. I'm going to keep track of changes to see what the trend is like. Changing the battery is easy and is best accomplished with a coin (I used a US nickel since it's the thickest). It uses one inexpensive and readily available CR2032 3V coin cell.Edit: I finally had to change the battery 16 months after installing the new one on 5/18/15 so no real complaints with battery life.The operating system is very easy to use (much more so than the Casio's). I really like the "guide ticks" that show up around the dial to indicate which buttons are active in each mode. I keep the watch locked in barometer mode for day to day wear. This has a tendency to trigger the storm alarm constantly so I turned that off. It was getting irritating. The stopwatch is the biggest disappointment as it is way too small and shows up as a sub-display of the time rather than having its own screen. If you are hoping for the big stopwatch like on Denzel Washington's Suunto in "The Equalizer" you will be disappointed. From what I have read, those displays were digitally added to his watch for the movie and Suunto did not do a special firmware for him as reported in several places. I would really love to see Suunto offer a firmware with a large stopwatch mode.I have not had much occasion to use the compass, but it's easy to activate and will be useful on hikes. The temperature function is useless unless you remove the watch and let it stabilize on ambient temperature instead of your arm temperature. Mine usually reads 82 degrees F.So to sum up, I'm extremely pleased with the All-Black Core. If you track the prices, they will dip to around $200 from time to time so if you are patient you can save enough to buy the extra band.

I waited for quite a while to buy this Suunto Core as I wanted to see if the Apple Watch was something that would interest me. It wasn't. This replaces a Casio Pathfinder that I wore for about five years. After two months of ownership, I am now writing a review as I think I know enough now to relate an educated experience. First off, the looks: This is a really, really gorgeous watch. It makes the Casio look like very clunky in comparison. It's lightweight (more than I expected) and is extremely comfortable to wear. I did switch out the band for the optional Suunto black rubber/aluminum one and think the look and comfort improved even more. The original band had a "brittle" feel and it was either too big or too small for me with the adjusting holes available. The optional band's satin black aluminum lugs and matt black rubber sheen really works with the highly polished lens, the matt black case and the satin black bezel. I added photos to show the difference in appearance. Also, if you opt for the other band, the screws that fasten the crossbars are teensy and have been reported as easily lost. I used Loctite when installing mine.I thought the contrast was a bit low as shipped so bumped it up a few notches. That has a tendency to reveal some of the LED zones as they show up a bit lighter than the surrounding black mask, but it's a tradeoff in the ability to see the time.The battery life has started out badly as I received the watch on 4/29 and had to replace the battery on 5/18. Hopefully that was due to being powered up in inventory for a while before I got it. I'm going to keep track of changes to see what the trend is like. Changing the battery is easy and is best accomplished with a coin (I used a US nickel since it's the thickest). It uses one inexpensive and readily available CR2032 3V coin cell.Edit: I finally had to change the battery 16 months after installing the new one on 5/18/15 so no real complaints with battery life.The operating system is very easy to use (much more so than the Casio's). I really like the "guide ticks" that show up around the dial to indicate which buttons are active in each mode. I keep the watch locked in barometer mode for day to day wear. This has a tendency to trigger the storm alarm constantly so I turned that off. It was getting irritating. The stopwatch is the biggest disappointment as it is way too small and shows up as a sub-display of the time rather than having its own screen. If you are hoping for the big stopwatch like on Denzel Washington's Suunto in "The Equalizer" you will be disappointed. From what I have read, those displays were digitally added to his watch for the movie and Suunto did not do a special firmware for him as reported in several places. I would really love to see Suunto offer a firmware with a large stopwatch mode.I have not had much occasion to use the compass, but it's easy to activate and will be useful on hikes. The temperature function is useless unless you remove the watch and let it stabilize on ambient temperature instead of your arm temperature. Mine usually reads 82 degrees F.So to sum up, I'm extremely pleased with the All-Black Core. If you track the prices, they will dip to around $200 from time to time so if you are patient you can save enough to buy the extra band.