Has anyone any experience of Suunto watches as GPS devices for MTB?

I’m considering a new GPS anyway and my old Casio watch is pretty knackered. I’m not inclined to give any more money to Garmin ever until they learn to behave (still angry about the Communicator/Connect fiasco), and dislike the heavy road data focus of Edge series anyway.

Obviously any GPS device still needs you to carry maps etc if going seriously off the beaten track – I was just thinking it looks like a good overall package. It would be useful to hear back from anyone that’s used it… 🙂 Probably looking at a Traverse. Some of the Ambits also do this, but the range gets very confusing…

I’ve been using the Sunnto ambit 2 for over 3 years now and its been reliable and never failed on me, you just plug it in to upload your ride and charge.

Never used it to follow any tracks or waypoints but its the best gps watch I’ve ever used.

you just plug it in to upload your ride and charge.

The new ones have bluetooth and can upload via the Suunto phone app. Don’t know that much about them otherwise

Have Suunto Traverse – cracking bit of kit.
OutdoorGB are cheaper for the watch + HRM than Suunto direct for the watch on its own.
As above – bluetooth, multi devices, etc.

Hm. I’ve been ogling an Ambit 3 Sport as an alrounder – but there’s no barometer so no weather apps. In practice, how useful are the weather apps/storm warnings?

I can’t quite get my head round Ambit 2/Ambit 3 differences. Is the Traverse massively ‘better’, and if so, how?

Have an Ambit 1 and have done so for about 4 years now. Never let me down and holds a good charge. Use it mainly for running but have used it on the bike and skiing. Bit on the chunky side but overall I’m happy with it.

Can’t honestly say what the differences are in real life but mine has been great.
OH hates the chime when you get any notification on the phone though so that had to be turned off – still buzzes though 😆
Happily tracked a route in Iceland last week for over 8hrs whilst in the car, on foot, etc including whilst behind a waterfall.

I use an Ambit 2 daily for recording my commutes and recreational rides. Great piece of kit. Good GPS lock, the movescount software is easy to use and links automatically with Strava. Battery life is good too. Buy one.

Hmmm, so, following hammyuk’s suggestion I’m now sitting with an Ambit3 Peak Nepal very close to buy. Big discount and still gives a lump to Nepal. It’s also got the Barometer and a battery twice the size, so 30 day runtime without GPS and 20hr at 1sec samples and 200hr at 60sec samples once GPS is on. That’s enough to cope with anything I’m likely to ever throw at it.

The last thing that bothers me though: everyone talking about the GPS so far has been focussing on the logging aspects. This thing is meant to do navigation too if you load a breadcrumb GPX to it (presume from Movescount). Does anyone actually use theirs for navigation like this? Is it good?

Ooh…interested…