The Garmin Epix 2 was released in January 2022 and showed that it was possible to make a great sports watch with a bright AMOLED display and decent battery life. Garmin has since released several other great AMOLED watches, like the Forerunner 965 and Epix Pro, and now Polar and Suunto are following suit with two great-looking watches. The Polar Vantage V3 was announced on October 11, and it was closely followed by the Suunto Race.

Athletes are notoriously superstitious, so it's a bold move for Finnish smartwatch brand Suunto to launch its new multisport GPS watch, the Suunto Raceon Friday the 13th. All joking aside, the watch is an exciting new feature, as it is Suunto's first non-outdoor watch launch in what seems like forever.

Hot on the heels of the launch of the Suunto Vertical — considered one of the best outdoor watches to buy right now — the Suunto Race is equipped witha large 1.43-inch AMOLED screen, advanced workout metrics and detailed offline maps. Regardless of its large, energy-hungry screen, the Suunto Race has remarkable battery life: up to 40 hours with GNSS positioning and maximum precision thanks to dual-band tracking (L5) at full power, and up to 10 days in mode smartwatch with heart rate measurement enabled for up to 10 days.

Available in titanium and stainless steel, the Suunto Race is tested to military standards for durability and can withstand weather conditions ranging from -20°C to +55°C. The watch is equipped witha sapphire crystal lens and is water resistant up to 100 meters.

The watch comes with enhanced training settings and functions aimed at endurance athletes, such as RaceTime, which gives you an overview of total time, pace maintenance and time to reach the finish, as well as nutritional reminders to help you drink and eat enough during the longest training and racing sessions.

A very attractive watch

Suunto couldn't help but include detailed offline maps showing trails, contours, water features and other important landmarks of the Suunto Race. Global maps are available for free and can be downloaded from the Suunto app. The watch also offers a few smart features, including controlling music from a connected phone and weather forecasts, although you don't get the music storage and NFC payments available on competing watches.

There Suunto Race will be available in France from October 17 in stainless steel at a price of 449 euros. A second version in titanium (549 euros) will complete the range in the coming weeks. Alongside the watch, Suunto is also launching a set of Suunto straps in four colors priced at €49 per strap.

If it offers the expected performance based on its technical sheet, the Suunto Race could become a real bargain for an AMOLED watch with multi-band maps and GPS.