Suunto’s new sports watch is super thin, super tough, and super expensive

Suunto 9 Peak
(Image credit: Suunto, Shutterstock, Easy Camerse)

Suunto has launched a new premium sports watch, the Suunto 9 Peak, which is its thinnest and lightest device to date.

There’s been a growing interest in smaller, lighter fitness watches over recent years. Garmin, for example, has created compact 'S' versions of its most popular running watches (including the new Garmin Venu 2), and the recently released Polar Ignite 2 packs serious training tools into a super slim case.

The Suunto 9 Peak continues this trend, and is 37% thinner and 36% lighter than its predecessor, the Suunto 9 Baro. By our calculations should make it around 10.6mm thick and 51.8g, though at the time of writing the official specs have yet to be released.

That’s substantially thinner than the Ignite 2, but also heavier – likely due to Suunto's choice of premium materials, which include more metal and less plastic than Polar's watch.

Suunto 9 Peak

Suunto 9 Peak (Image credit: Suunto)

The Suunto 9 Peak is a premium watch, with a price to match, and will be available with either a titanium or stainless steel case. The titanium model comes in Granite Blue or Birch White, and costs £629 (about $900 / AU$1,200), while the stainless steel version comes in All Black or Moss Gray, and costs £519 (about $750 / AU$950).

The Suunto 9 Peak will be available to pre-order from May 26, and will go on sale at Suunto.com and third-party stores on June 17.

Peak performance

Battery life was one of the original Suunto 9’s strongest features, and the company says it’s achieved some big improvements without compromising that longevity –  something we’ll be testing when we put the watch through its paces ourselves. 

In addition its predecessor’s functions, the Suunto 9 Peak features an SpO2 sensor for monitoring blood oxygen saturation (particularly useful when training at altitude), an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts screen brightness to balance visibility and power usage, and faster charging that allows the watch to be fully juiced up in just one hour.

There are also new watch faces to display weekly training metrics, and help you create new workouts and training plans – a feature that’s enhanced by the Suunto app, which shows sport-specific heatmaps (rather like Strava) and allows you to transfer routes to the watch for offline navigation.

A watch like this is a big investment, so we’ll test the Suunto 9 Peak and bring you a full review as soon as possible.

Cat Ellis

Cat is the editor of TechRadar's sister site Advnture. She’s a UK Athletics qualified run leader, and in her spare time enjoys nothing more than lacing up her shoes and hitting the roads and trails (the muddier, the better)