Suunto Vertical 2 Review: Catching Up to the Pack

Welcome, AMOLED! Strong tracking and mapping support. Solid battery life.

Limited feature set with iPhones versus Android. Training insights need to be better presented. A little too big. Unreliable sleep and heart rate tracking.

The Suunto Vertical 2 is a fitness tracker that’s going to please a lot of Suunto’s loyal fans. It’s also going to pull in some new ones, especially those that can’t stomach the cost of an alternative, like Garmin’s Fenix 8 Pro.

Those fans feared the worst when Suunto’s parent company Amer Sports was acquired by Chinese technology company Lieshing in 2022. The first Vertical was the first major launch under that new ownership. I tested it, and given my previous experiences with watches like the Suunto 9 and Suunto 7, I kept my expectations low. I was pleasantly surprised. It was a Suunto with some unexpected design charm. It had offline maps and delivered both an impressive GPS and battery performance, while undercutting the competition on price.

Strong launches continued with the Suunto Race and Suunto Run ($199), but the Vertical that brought Suunto back into the conversation of a fitness tracker worthy of both your money and wrist space. The Vertical 2 has a big battery, a ton of sports modes, and finally made the hardware and software upgrades to bring the Vertical in line with outdoor watches from Apple, Garmin, and Coros. The updates have paid off, but Suunto now has to contend with the fact that there's just a lot of competition in this particular market category.

Flashy and Colorful

The Suunto Vertical 2 is hefty, but it's manageable. Like the previous Vertical, the Vertical 2 comes with either a stainless steel or titanium grade 5 bezel. Both are hardy, but the main difference is the weight. The titanium is lighter, at 3.07 oz versus 2.61 oz for the steel. To put that weight into context, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 weighs just over 2 oz. This isn’t a watch you forget is there.

It’s always pleasing to see an array of physical buttons, and you get sizable ones too. You’re not going to miss these wide flat ones even when picking the pace up. The silicone strap has a nice stretch to it and while the button clasp is a bit awkward to get into place, this watch does not budge.

Suunto has jumped on the flashlight trend, with an LED light strip sat on the front of the case. You can adjust brightness levels and there’s SOS and alert modes to emit a very noticeable pulsating light pattern. This is a light I found useful rooting around indoors as well as on nighttime outings.

The biggest change is the introduction of a 1.5-inch, 466 x 466 AMOLED display. This replaces the dull, albeit very visible, memory-in-pixel (MIP) display. Suunto also ditched the solar charging that did require spending a significant amount of time outside to reap its battery benefits.

Adding AMOLED screens to outdoor watches has been contentious. The older MIP displays are just more power-efficient. The Vertical 2 is down by about 10 days from the older Vertical for what Suunto calls daily use.

Still, even if you're putting its tracking and mapping features to use, you're not going to be reaching for the charger every few days. After two hours of tracking in optimal GPS mode, the battery only dropped by 2 to 3 percent. The battery drop outside of tracking is also small and the standby performance is excellent as well.

Software Updates

A more streamlined set of smartwatch features helps reserve battery for when it really matters. Unfortunately, I probably got better battery life because you don't get phone notifications or responses if it's paired to an iPhone instead of an Android. There's also no onboard music player, but you do get a pretty slick set of music playback controls that are accessible during tracking.

However, Suunto doesn't shortchange you when it comes to sports modes. There’s over 100, with core ones dedicated to running, cycling, and swimming. You can go free diving, quickly access a digital compass, or check storm alerts. There’s plenty here, you just might need to spend some time getting to know what this watch is truly capable of.

This is a watch with multiband positioning technology, joining the many other watches that are starting to drop the old single-band setups, although you can still opt for single-band here to conserve battery. The first Vertical was a good showcase for multiband support and how it can boost positioning accuracy near tall buildings or traipsing through heavily built up wooded areas. It’s still great on the Vertical 2.

The offline maps and navigation tools you have at your disposal are a lot nicer to use on the new color screen. The mapping refresh rate isn’t as jarring as it can be on other outdoor watches, while the software sitting beneath the touchscreen runs much smoother than it did on its predecessor. While it doesn’t match Garmin for the level of mapping modes and settings, it’s still more than capable. I was able to use it to get back home and quickly load up routes to follow.

You do have to drop the watch back on the charger if you want to load more maps, however. I made a trip to Spain and left the charger, thinking that the battery life was fine. Then I had to make do with simpler navigation support while abroad.

Suunto says you should now enjoy improved heart rate tracking from the optical-based PPG sensor on the case back. I struggle to get reliable heart rate data from big watches like this. I’ve been wearing it for all of my workouts alongside a heart rate monitor chest strap and found that both the average and maximum heart rate readings from the Vertical 2 varied significantly during less intense workouts.

If you want to use the Vertical 2 as a training tool, you can follow Suunto's proprietary training plans, and the watch is also compatible with apps like TrainingPeaks. There’s some pretty standard insights to guide you into making better decisions about training volume or days to train, with recovery advice seemingly in tune with how I was feeling.

The problem is that the data in the Suunto app and on the watch isn’t very engaging or all that glanceable. This is a watch platform that still feels a bit stuck in the desktop age.

The biggest compliment I can give the Suunto Vertical 2 is that I wasn’t desperate to take it off. What made the difference was the massively improved software, the solid tracking and reliable battery performance. The color screen helped as well. It’s a big upgrade on the Vertical.

My main issue is that in addition to the Run, Suunto has another very similar watch. That’s the Suunto Race 2 ($499). It has a similar feature set, can deliver an equally great performance and costs a similar amount, though you will miss out on the flashlight and better battery life. I’m not sure Suunto needs both of these watches.

Garmin does still have the more complete adventure smartwatch in the Fenix 8, along with better software and better battery life. It costs a lot more than the Vertical 2 though. If you want something that can cover everything from diving to multiday hikes, this is worth considering. Suunto may be on a hot streak.