SUUNTO 9 Baro: Premium GPS Watch

Ok, this has been a big disappointment. I loved the look of the watch and the hardware part of it. It looks and feels more solid than even some of the high-end Garmin, and unfortunately, that is where all the good things come to end. Cons - 1. The Suunto app is very very difficult to use. Compared to Garmin Connect, which takes about 5 mins to master, all the relevant data is laid out perfectly in one or two pages. Here, the data is all over the place and confusing. Also, my Garmin old watch will sync with Garmin Connect every time without fail, here the Suunto app fails to sync and you have to try 2-3 times before it will finally sync. 2. The lack of watch faces, even after upgrading to the latest version 2.20.30 (which requires you to connect your watch via a USB cable to a computer and requires the Suuntolink app installed on the computer..yes even in 2022!). Some watch faces are designed so you never get all the important info in one glance. You have to press multiple buttons, swipe the touch screen and then you will get some. This brings us to point 3. 3. The buttons feel very mushy and do not respond like in Garmin, and sometimes just don't activate the feature. The screen is also hit or miss, but it is much more predictable than the buttons. 4. The battery is meh. Even when I am not using GPS or any other rich features, it will last 2-3 days before it needs a charge. The Baro is also all over the place. I was on a summit of a small hill which was 575 feet and it was showing me 192 feet , even after spending over an hour there and re-acquiring the satellite data, it never corrected and showed 221 feet. 5. With all the flaws, I still decided to keep it but then out of nowhere, it stopped charging. It was at 20% and draining, but will not charge. I tried to do a soft reset and hard reset but it will not talk to the SuuntoLink app which is needed to do it. Also, it stopped communicating with Bluetooth and with my iPhone. After a few hours, the battery was dead and that was it. Amazon was good enough to take it back and refund me the money. Overall, a big disappointment. If Suunto wants to sell high-end fitness watches, they have a whole lot of challenges ahead. Even the Chinese brand Coros is much better than the buggy UI and confusing layout of Suunto. The hardware feels outstanding quality, but unfortunately, it is not skin deep as it turned out in this case.