- Love Wellness Papa
- Posts
- Comparison Suunto 7 versus Garmin Fenix 6 Pro: the differences, which one to choose?
Comparison Suunto 7 versus Garmin Fenix 6 Pro: the differences, which one to choose?
2 sports watches with intelligent functions
Price and physical characteristics compared
Autonomy: a weak point of Suunto 7!
The sensors
Compared features
Our opinion on Suunto 7 and Garmin Fenix 6 Pro: which is better?
Where to buy these models
Buy Suunto 7
Trader
Price (from)
Pope
€ 479 € 455.05 (* 1)
i-Run
€ 479
(* 1) Discount of -5% on this product with the promo code 5A15 !
Buy the Fenix 6 Pro
Trader
Price (from)
Pope
€ 699 € 664.05 (* 1)
i-Run
€ 599
Alltricks
€ 599 € 570
Amazon
€ 599 € 521
Rakuten
599.99 €
(* 1) Discount of -5% on this product with the promo code 5A15 !
Commercial links. Non contractual prices. Please consult the merchant website.
2 sports watches with intelligent functions
The Suunto 7 and Fenix 6 Pro (with mp3 player and payment solution) are two very different high-end watches that we have chosen to compare because they both offer advanced sports functions and very useful tools. popular and rarely offered together: music, payment and cartography.
Suunto 7: combining everyday life and sport with downloadable apps
Released in January 2020, the Suunto 7 is the first Suunto watch to run on Wear OS, Google's operating system for watches. Unlike current smart health connected watches, this one offers advanced sports functions. It is therefore ideal for people looking for a watch with mixed use (sport and city). The advantage of Wear OS is to offer the best of the smart functions of the moment thanks to downloadable apps.
It has a high definition AMOLED color touch screen and all the sensors useful for sport including a barometric altimeter. It has topographic maps, a payment solution and allows you to listen to music without a Smartphone. Wear OS gives access to the Google assistant (the watch has a microphone to interrogate it), health monitoring (Google Fit), access to information (Internet). In terms of sporting functions, this watch is close to the Suunto 5 but with the extra mapping. However, its autonomy is much lower, it does not offer adaptive personalized training and GPS navigation is limited.
Read our detailed review and our opinion on Suunto 7Buy Suunto 7
Garmin Fenix 6: the most complete sports watch on the market in 2020
Improved model of the famous Fenix 5 Plus, the Fenix 6 Pro is a watch with extraordinary features available in 9 versions including one with solar charging. It is currently the most complete cardio GPS watch on the market. But this luxury comes at a price! … It offers record autonomy and intelligent battery management. In addition to numerous sports support functions (performance analysis, physiological measurements, health monitoring, coaching, etc.), it also includes color mapping (roads, cycle paths, paths, ski slopes) and an mp3 player. It has advanced smart health connected functions (live monitoring of other athletes, possibility of being tracked online, etc.), full GPS navigation, a contactless payment solution Garmin Pay, assessment of blood oxygen level . It offers more than 41,000 golf courses. The Fenix 6 exists in 3 case sizes (for fine to wide wrists) and 3 versions (Standard, Pro and Solar).
Read our detailed review and our opinion on the Fenix 6Buy Fenix 6
The main differences between Suunto 7 and Fenix 6 Pro
In the comparison table below, we highlight the differences between the main characteristics of the 2 watches. Certainly the Suunto 7 is cheaper, its AMOLED screen displays rich and vibrant colors and the downloading of apps offers limitless possibilities but it offers less advanced sports functions, limited GPS navigation, significantly shorter battery life and a format one little big for small wrists. Its advantage is that it offers a remarkable screen and the possibility of downloading many apps, which makes it more durable than classic sports watches.
(1): depending on version (Pro, Pro Solar) and options (glass, Wi-Fi) (2): depending on version / case size: 6S, 6, 6X
Go directly to our opinion
Price and physical characteristics compared
The price: a justified difference
The basic Fenix 6 (without music and without mapping but with payment) starts at € 599. For music and cards, you have to pay € 100 more, or € 699. The Suunto 7 has the advantage of offering these functions and a significantly better screen for much less (€ 479). The Fenix 6 remains cons far more complete in terms of sporting functions, which justifies its higher price.
Design, structure and robustness
Suunto 7
Suunto offers a robust watch presented in a single size reinforced polyamide case (50 mm) with a stainless steel bezel and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla glass (this is the glass often used for smartphone windows). People with small wrists will therefore have to put up with a slightly bulky watch, an unfortunate point for a product intended to be worn every day.
It is available in 3 colors: black and black lime (black case and black and yellow bracelet), White Burgundy (white case and black and white bracelet) and Black (black case and bracelet). The straps are 24 mm wide and can be replaced without tools. The watch comes with a silicone strap, but Suunto also offers fabric and leather straps to be purchased separately.
The Suunto weighs 70 g, which is ok for an outdoor watch but a bit heavy for a smart health connected watch. It is waterproof up to 50 meters (5 ATM) and the push buttons can be used without problem underwater.
Fenix 6 Pro
We particularly appreciate this model for its 3 case sizes (42, 47 and 51 mm) for adaptation to all wrists, in particular thin wrists! Finally, here is a high-end cardio watch that knows how to be discreet (see also our comparison of the best cardio watches for women). The strap is interchangeable without tools and its width varies according to the size of the watch case (thin straps for fine wrists, etc.).
The brand offers chic leather, steel, titanium and braided nylon bracelets in addition to the silicone bracelet designed for sports. The scratch-resistant sapphire crystal is available as an option on the Pro version. Otherwise, it is in Corning Gorilla 3.
The screen
Suunto stands out here from Garmin for its smart health connected watch by offering a high definition touch screen (454 x 454 px!) And AMOLED technology (read our explanations here and the advantages of an AMOLED screen). It offers a brighter display, shimmering colors and a clearly richer color palette than the 64 colors of conventional MIP transflective screens. This type of screen allows you to display high quality animated watchfaces. In return, it consumes much more.
For its part, Garmin offers a non-touch color screen (less practical for navigation with maps) and clearly more modest in definition.
Go directly to our opinion
Autonomy: a weak point of Suunto 7!
Long battery life for the Fenix 6. Restricted use for the Suunto 7.
The big black point of Suunto 7 is its autonomy, limited to 12 hours in GPS mode or 5 h in outdoor use (8 h if you train while listening to some music). In a smart health connected watch, it only lasts 2 days, barely more than the Apple Watch, or 6 p.m. if you do a little sport with it. This low autonomy is linked to the AMOLED screen which consumes a lot. To limit battery usage, Suunto offers a screen that turns off after 10 seconds of inactivity. A "watch" mode (deactivation of all functions except the clock and the display of the battery status) can last 40 days.
We also regret, on this model, the absence of intelligent battery management, as on the Suunto 5 and Suunto 9, which allows to adjust the battery mode (and therefore the accuracy of the measurements) along the way. FusedTrack (extrapolation of the GPS track in the absence of GPS signal) is not offered either. This intelligent algorithm made it possible to switch to an energy saving mode by reducing the frequency of GPS measurements without greatly affecting the quality of the track.
Given its limited autonomy, the Suunto 7 therefore does not allow use over long distances (long hikes, ultra-trail, etc.).
For its part, Garmin offers a very long autonomy watch (up to 120 hours in Ultra mode on the 6X Pro model) including a solar model allowing to gain up to 10% more autonomy. It's not for nothing that Garmin unveiled its watch during the UTMB 2019 (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc).
Charging without stopping the watch
The 2 watches in our comparison can be recharged during the activity, without stopping the current recording. It will however be necessary to remove the watch from the wrist for a pause because recharging takes place via a connector located under the watch.
Go directly to our opinion
The sensors
The 2 watches are well equipped: cardio on the wrist (the Garmin's works underwater), GPS, ABC sensors (barometric altimeter, barometer, compass). Suunto benefits from Wear OS and downloadable apps to offer certain functions without having to develop them internally: compass, access to the weather, storm alerts.
Garmin also offers a thermometer and a pulse oximeter for measuring blood oxygen levels and evaluating acclimatization at altitude. This sensor will particularly interest mountaineers, divers but also competitors who train at an altitude very different from that where the competition will take place (the watch corrects the VO2max).
The big difference between the Suunto 7 and the Fenix 6 is mainly in the external sensors. The Suunto 7 is not compatible with any external sensor, not even a cardio belt. On the Garmin, you can connect a power sensor, a footpod, speed and cadence sensors for the bike and more.
Go directly to our opinion
Compared features
Mapping and navigation: advantage of Fenix 6
GPS navigation (route monitoring, route planning, return to departure, navigation to waypoints, etc.) is an essential function for hiking, exploring, trekking but also for organizing a bike or running outing on unknown paths. With cartography, it's the ultimate.
If Suunto 7 offers color maps including heat maps (routes most used by the community), these are limited in size (50 km x 50 km at most). The watch itself downloads a new map depending on the location, provided you have a connection (smartphone or Wi-Fi nearby). The touch screen makes it easy to move the map or zoom. The big disadvantage of the Suunto 7 remains GPS navigation: the Suunto records the track but gives no indication to follow a programmed route or retrace its steps. You will have to do your best to follow the trace displayed on the screen and zoom in if necessary.
The Fenix 6 offers a more complete navigation tool. It embeds the entire color map of the country or continent of purchase (city maps, roads, cycle paths, paths, hiking maps with contour lines according to the options, ski slopes in more than 2000 stations worldwide), heat maps, as well as powerful sports assistance functions: loop, road or cycle path generator, from a given distance, popular route generator (Trendline function based on heat maps) , future route profile (ClimbPro function). It also allows you to find a hotel, a refuge, an inn around you and to be guided turn by turn to go there. A voice guidance function allows you to navigate without looking at your watch.
In addition to these functions, Garmin has generalized the LiveTrack function on its watches, which allows it to be followed on the Internet. The Fenix 6 also offers the GroupTrack function to follow other athletes wearing a Garmin watch that has this function.
Sport profiles and sports functions
If Suunto offers many profiles, those of Garmin, more limited, are studied to provide relevant data for each sport: race dynamics for running, number of strokes and cadence for rowing, number of descents for skiing , etc. Other profiles can be downloaded via Garmin Connect. Also note that the Fenix 6 is very complete for golf with advanced functions and more than 41,000 on-board courses.
Aside from swimming where the Suunto is very complete, Garmin offers richer features. The possibility of connecting external sensors also makes the measurements more complete. The watch is also a real multisport watch and can be used for triathlon. On Suunto, it is not possible to chain activities without stopping the recording and restarting a new exercise.
Garmin offers numerous sports assistance functions: training program with taking into account previous outings, split, race against an opponent or against yourself, estimate of the race time, mountain assistance for cycling and ribs for running, audio coaching, alert programming, goal setting, etc. These functions, combined with physiological measurements, offer powerful tools for demanding athletes.
Physiological measurements
Physiological measurements help the athlete to manage his training and optimize his performance or even predict a race time according to the distance to be covered, the level of training and the physical condition of the athlete. The watch can estimate VO2max, stress level, lactic threshold and more. At Garmin, these estimates are provided by the algorithms of the company Firstbeat. At Suunto, this is delegated to Google via Wear OS.
smart health connected functions: 2 different worlds
Suunto offers endless possibilities thanks to downloadable apps. The Suunto 7 has a microphone and allows you to consult the Google intelligent assistant. We can ask the watch a question and get an answer, as long as it is smart health connected to a Smartphone and the network is available. The watch allows you to access services on the Internet or on your Smartphone (agenda, weather, calendar, reservations, consultation of flight schedules, etc.). It does not have an mp3 player but a dedicated app allows you to listen to music. A payment function is available. You can also respond to text messages by dictating a message. All the functions offered by Garmin (except those using the oximeter) can potentially be offered on the Suunto 7 as long as a dedicated app exists in the Google Play Store.
Garmin offers monitoring and assistance functions: LiveTrack and GroupTrack to be followed on the Internet or to know the position of the other sportsmen in the group, a payment solution, the control of compatible devices (3D VIRB camera, etc.), a fall detection function and assistance in the event of an incident (SOS call with GPS coordinates). The Fenix 6 Pro has an mp3 player and allows you to listen to music from the watch or in streaming with Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music. The watch displays smart notifications (emails, calls and SMS) and offers the possibility of rejecting incoming calls from a Smartphone or sending predefined SMS.
Activity monitoring
Garmin provides the classic activity tracking functions. At Suunto, this function is delegated to Google Fit.
Our opinion on Suunto 7 and Garmin Fenix 6 Pro: which is better?
These 2 watches are excellent but aim for different uses and a different audience. One is a smart health connected watch with advanced sports functions. The other is a purely sporting watch offering some smart health connected functions and a design allowing it to be worn on a daily basis.
Suunto 7: for everyday life and sport
The Suunto 7, with its intelligent functions bringing it closer to an Apple Watch (but much less elegant and much larger) will appeal to people who are looking above all for a smart health connected watch for everyday life and who, in addition, want to be able to use for sport. You can hardly imagine seriously training with an Apple Watch.
If it benefits from all the Suunto experience in terms of sports functions, it has a certain number of limitations which can be prohibitive for many athletes. Its functions are less developed than those of other Suunto watches (Suunto 5, Suunto 9). Its autonomy is too low for some sports (ultra-trail, hiking over 5-6 h). It does not allow the connection of external sensors, in particular a cardio belt. Training possibilities are therefore limited. It could be a good outdoor watch thanks to the on-board cards and its heat maps. Unfortunately, navigation is limited (no route tracking). As for physiological measures, they remain limited. In short, of the three characteristics that make the strength of the brand (autonomy, reliability and advanced outdoor functions), two are not respected.
Its interest remains the use in town with sporting functions much better than the classic Smartwatch (Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, Garmin Venu) and a superb screen. Aside from its bulky design and a little too sporty, it will appeal to people who would like to wear an Apple Watch but who only have an Android Smartphone.
Read our detailed review and our full review on Suunto 7.
Garmin Fenix 6: for experienced athletes, competitors and triathletes
It is without a doubt, with the Garmin Forerunner 945 the most complete watch on the market today, whether in terms of sensors, functionalities, physiological measurements, GPS navigation, user-friendliness of the interface. The autonomy of the 6X model is also excellent and suitable for ultra-trail racing. Elegant, she is doing well in town and at work in addition to sport.
With the Forerunner 945, a model more suited to competition and triathlon, it is the watch that we recommend for professional use or for demanding athletes looking for tools and advanced statistics who, at the same time, are looking for a watch to wear everyday.
This watch has the advantage of adapting to all wrist sizes, including thin wrists. Garmin also offers many chic bracelets for the city and the workplace. Hard to beat ! The downside is its high price.
Read our detailed review and full review of the Garmin Fenix 6.
For exclusively sporty use, we recommend the Garmin Forerunner 945, which is lighter than the Fenix 6 and cheaper depending on the model (but less chic too).
Verdict
Suunto takes a giant step forward by integrating Wear OS into a sports watch, thus offering a smart smart health connected watch adapted to sport. The model must however gain in maturity to really seduce. The slightly too sporty and bulky look is not to attract the envious of the Apple Watch. Les fonctions sportives, trop limitées par rapport à la Suunto 5 et la Suunto 9, et la faible autonomie limitent son utilisation pour le sport. La Fenix 6 Pro, en contrepartie reste chère et elle n'offre pas les fonctions intelligentes d'une Apple Watch mais des fonctions sportives ultra-complètes en plus de fonctions d'aide au sportif hors du commun.
Comment choisir entre Suunto 7 et Fenix 6
Les 2 montres sont en fait très différentes et visent chacune un public distinct. C'est surtout la cartographie qui reste le point commun entre les 2 modèles. Si l'on recherche une montre avec carto et que l'on ne veut pas payer le prix d'une Fenix 6, alors la Suunto 7 est un bon choix. A condition de ne pas compter sur la navigation GPS pour être guidé… Si l'on recherche une montre connectée qui permette aussi de faire un peu de sport, la Suunto 7 est un bon compromis. A condition là aussi de ne pas être trop regardant du côté du design. Enfin, pour une utilisation purement sportive, la Fenix 6 reste le meilleur choix.
Où acheter ces modèles
La Suunto 7 et la Garmin Fenix 6 sont disponibles sur internet. Découvrez ces modèles chez nos partenaires et profitez de nos codes promos.
Acheter la Suunto 7
Marchand
Prix (à partir)
Lepape
479 € 455.05 € (*1)
i-Run
479 €
(*1) Réduction de -5% sur ce produit avec le code promo 5A15 !
Acheter la Fenix 6 Pro
Marchand
Prix (à partir)
Lepape
699 € 664.05 € (*1)
i-Run
599 €
Alltricks
599 € 570 €
Amazon
599 € 521 €
Rakuten
599.99 €
(*1) Réduction de -5% sur ce produit avec le code promo 5A15 !
Liens commerciaux. Prix non contractuels. Veuillez consulter le site marchand.
Philippe Baudoin
Reproduction interdite – Copyright © Sport Passion
Ces articles peuvent aussi vous intéresser
–>
Comparaison Suunto 3, Suunto 5, Suunto 7 et Suunto 9 : les différences, laquelle choisir ?
Comparaison Suunto 3, Suunto 5, Suunto 7 et Suunto 9 : les différences, laquelle choisir ?
Lire la suite
Garmin Fenix 6 : le nec plus ultra des montres sportives
Garmin Fenix 6 : le nec plus ultra des montres sportives
Lire la suite
Comparaison Garmin Forerunner 945 vs Fenix 6 : les différences, laquelle choisir ?
Comparaison Garmin Forerunner 945 vs Fenix 6 : les différences, laquelle choisir ?
Lire la suite
Apple Watch 5 : un écran allumé en permanence
Apple Watch 5 : un écran allumé en permanence
Lire la suite
Garmin Venu : une montre connectée avec écran AMOLED et suivi complet de la health
Garmin Venu : une montre connectée avec écran AMOLED et suivi complet de la health
Lire la suite
Samsung Galaxy Watch : la montre connectée qui rivalise avec l'Apple Watch
Samsung Galaxy Watch : la montre connectée qui rivalise avec l'Apple Watch
Lire la suite
Crédit photos : Fotolia.com. Cet article contient des liens commerciaux.
AB SMART HEALTH REVIEW