Suunto, the Finnish makers of premium GPS watches have today announced a brand new outdoor watch built for mulitsport adventurers. It’s called the Suunto Spartan Ultra, and it’s here to succeed the Suunto Ambit3, and compete with Garmin’s high-end offerings.

The new high-end GPS watch is hand-made in Finland with build-quality to survive the roughest conditions. Four models will be available, all with a reinforced glass fiber polyamide case, and either a stainless steel or titanium bezel, each with two color options.

Keep in touch with your activities via a color touchscreen which has been optimized for legibility in bright sunlight, and offers a wide viewing angle. The display has durability to match the rest of the watch and is protected with Sapphire crystal which is scratch proof and even stronger than Gorilla Glass 3.

The Spartan Ultra has more sports modes than Daley Thompson..

Suunto haven’t held back with the Spartan Ultra’s feature set. Onboard you’ll find dozens of advanced sports modes and dynamics for running, hiking, cycling, swimming, triathlon, adventure racing, snow sports and plenty more. The super GPS watch also keeps tabs on your recovery status, how you feel after training, personal bests, and progress on your training plans.

GPS

The Suunto Spartan Ultra GPS offers in-depth, guided navigation, along with a digital compass and barometric altitude – basically it won’t be easy to get lost..

Suunto are updating their web-based sports service, Movescount.com to bring a new range of features. The revamped platform offers GPS heatmaps for specific activities uploaded by millions of Movescount users. This feature enables you to find the best locations for your next adventure.

To use the heatmaps, simply choose a sport, select an area on the map and zoom in to discover which trails, tracks and routes the locals are using for their runs, bike rides, open water swims, skis, etc. Suunto have also announced that the heatmaps are arriving in June for the Movescount app for iOS and Android.

Activity Tracking

In addition to its outdoor capabilities, the watch is pretty smart on the activity tracking front. It will keep track of your steps, calories burned, and time active 24 hours a day. You can also get smart notifications by pairing the Spartan Ultra with the Movescount app for iOS and Android. Slightly confusingly, the watch will be available either with or without a built-in heart rate monitor, with a price difference of $50.

Water-Resistant

If you’re planning on visiting any ship wrecks to find a treasure chest full of gold, you won’t need to take the GPS watch off, as it’s water-resistant up to 100 meters. If you do strike it lucky and find Long John Silver’s loot, remember not to add it to the heatmaps..

Battery Life

The Spartan Ultra provides a battery life of 18 hours training /racing time with Full Power 1 second GPS fix rate; 26 hours of training/racing time with Power Save 1 second GPS fix rate; and up to 15 days in Time mode.

Price and Release Date

Without a built-in HRM, the titanium models will cost $799, the stainless steel models will cost $699. Add an extra $50 if you want a built-in HRM.

The Spartan Ultra will be available in August 2016.

• Now Available

          

 

There’s no doubt the main competitor of Suunto Spartan Ultra will be the Garmin Fenix 3 HR..  Both watches track just about every sport apart from Quidditch..