Suunto X10

The X10 is a timepiece, barometric altimeter, compass and GPS receiver in a large but still wearable watch. It has a battery which is recharged via a USB cable. With occasional use of GPS it lasted through a two-week trip without charging.

The time, compass and altimeter functions seem to work well (although you wouldn't consider this as a replacement for a specialised compass). One disappointment is that it does not appear to have the ability to log ascent/descent from the altimeter alone, without engaging GPS. On the plus side the altimeter reads down to 1m intervals.

The GPS receiver can be operated either on demand, at 1 min intervals or every second. It needs a fairly clear view of the sky and a minute or two to establish a fix; wasn't much use in trees or built-up areas. Occasionally it needed several attempts to obtain a fix even in the open. If the fix is successful then the position can be viewed in a variety of grid systems including UK and WGS84, and it can give distance and bearing to a given waypoint. GPS-derived altitudes seemed rather inaccurate, but the horizontal positions were fine.

Overall I found that it behaved as advertised and was a useful navigation aid.

This watch promises much; I've been testing it every day and it delivers but there are disappointments.

The initial impression is good; a bit larger than a normal watch, but not obtrusive, looks ok with a suit and is neither bulky nor heavy.

This is my second Suunto computer, and as with the Gekko the command tree is simple and intuitive.

There are five buttons, and their use quickly becomes second nature. Suunto are brilliant for ease of use; e.g. the backlight has multiple options, you can activate it manually just to read the display, or you can set it to night mode, where the backlight comes on whenever you press any button.

In use:

1. Supporting map and compass with precise grid references when navigating. Here the X10 is perfect and justifies the expense; set the GPS to manual mode, so it only updates when you press a button, thereby imposing a minimal drain on the battery, select position from the menu and press the button. Under open skies it will usually give you a position within a minute or two. For walking, mountaineering and climbing this will be good enough. You can select Ordnance Survey 10 figure grid reference, or lat. and long.

2. Cross-country running/marathon/ half-marathon training and events. When I read that this watch can monitor distance travelled, speed, average speed, and time from start I immediately thought of how good it would be when running to know exactly how far it is to the next mile marker, and to be able to constantly monitor your speed. To do this you have to set the GPS to be on, for it to update every second and for the activity mode to be on. You need to wait for the GPS to get a position lock from reading the satellites before starting, otherwise some of your run won't be recorded; this would be fatal to the use of the device in an event and would leave you with some expensive ballast on your arm. I have been attempting to test this walking to work and back, and frustratingly still have not managed to get it to do what I want: I keep losing the GPS link; running through a tunnel, or going into the newsagents I would expect this, but then I would expect the GPS to re-establish connection within a few seconds. No. Sometimes it re-establishes within a minute, which is just about ok, but loses some of the accuracy of the distance measure unless you are running in a dead straight line; sometimes it takes up to five minutes, severely compromising the distance accuracy, and sometimes not at all. Yesterday I arrived at work, a 2.5 mile walk, with the GPS telling me I'd travelled 1.53 miles. Sometimes it drops out under an open sky for no apparent reason. Secondly, the starting procedure is so protracted that I'm always standing outside the front porch in my running shorts getting cold for up to 5 minutes whilst the GPS wakes up. I have now given up using it for urban runs and am back with the old stopwatch.

3. Measuring top speed on a ski slope. Set it to 1 second GPS measurements, throw yourself off the top off a suitable looking piste, and when you get to the bottom you can show your friends the top speed you attained. Of course it won't be as accurate as a radar gun, and only recognises the horizontal component of your movement so will under-record a downhill ski run, but I can't wait to get onto an Alp with this thing. I can see five of us taking it in turns to take the X10 and see who can get the highest speed, (we're not hooligans, honest). You can also use this when driving/cycling/land yachting/bog snorkelling etc. Think of all those times as a kid when you were desperate to know how fast you were travelling when your bicycle went off the breakwater and into the sea, well now you can.

4. Barometer; this gives real-time pressure settings, with a graph line of the previous six hours. This has proved to be remarkable in that the weather always seems to be doing exactly what the watch predicts. Totally unexpected, I didn't think I'd be using it much, but seem to be checking it all the time.

5. Altimeter; to help with spot locations when navigating so you know which contour line you've just passed. In practise I think I'll be using the GPS if I need to confirm my location, and will only use this in countries where there isn't a grid system.

What I won't be using it for:

1. Main navigational tool. You can plan routes on Memory Map apparently, load them onto the watch and then follow a list of waypoints, be guided back to base etc. etc. Although I have Memory Map on my computer I won't be doing this; I much prefer map and compass, and suspect the battery life would be inadequate for any real navigation by GPS. You'd need to recharge the battery every evening, which may not be practical in a tent on the side of Snowdon.

2. Electronic compass. Doesn't have a sight line so can only be used as a rough indicator of bearing.

So, is it brilliant and amazing? Yes. Is it frustrating and disappointing? Yes.

I purchased this watch about 15 months ago and initially was pleased with it. However 16 months later it has been returned to Suunto twice and replaced.
The first one started randomly turning itself off and the second device simply came apart.
Now with only 9 months left on the guarantee I'm expecting that at some point quite soon, after the guarantee runs out I'll be left with a 3rd device that has, like the others developed a fault.
Luckily I got a good deal from Amazon at the time of purchase and only paid £226, otherwise I'd be quite a lot more irritated than I am (still fairly irritated though).
Suunto to their credit are fast at replacing them , but I can only assume that they cost so little to make that they can afford to do this as many times, in the two year guarantee period, as needed and still make a healthy profit.
OK what's it like when you have one that's working, well the GPS I used quite successfully when biking,it got a fix easily, if placed face upward for a couple of minutes and then due to it remaining in that position due to hand position on the bike handle bars, usually kept it for the whole trip. I found 1sec refresh was the only useful setting, but navigated successfully quite a few times using it. Running however was a different story due to the aerial not being in the optimum face up position and even on 1 sec refresh, if I even whispered the word 'foliage' it promptly lost its satellite link and didn't seem that bothered about trying to get it back again. I did manage to create a few tracks when not biking , but only walking on 1 sec refresh, abroad with no cloud cover and never running.
The barometer and altitude functions are OK , but I didn't find them that accurate. I like the digital compass though.I also found the limit of 50 waypoints a bit restricting, although it interfaced with my PC and Memory Map software without any problems.
If I was being honest if they didn't seem to be built on the cheap and keep breaking I'd put up with its short comings as I do like having the wide range of functionality on my wrist. I now use a hand held with O/S mapping for main navigation but still liked to wear the X10 as well.
After 15 months of ownership I've learnt that instead of buying the X10 I should have purchased a hand-held for navigation, as that does a proper job,in any conditions and should then have bought a Casio watch with all the functions of the X10(except the gps) for half the price. I'd expect that to last a lot longer from my past experience with Casio. If only the X10 was built like my Suunto dive computer from 10 years ago.
It's worth mentioning that I only used both of the first two devices for general use and did not put them under any pressure above what a normal watch would expect. I'm still deciding what to do with the third.
If you decide to buy one then I hope you're lucky, but would give it about 9 months before you write your review if you do.