The Bottom Line
- You can plan a route using digital mapping services worldwide
- Tracks your performance, including speed, distance and time from start
- Great features for outdoor lovers: altimeter, barometer, thermometer,compass
- Good backup staff to call when help is needed
- Charge lasts up to 12 hours if a GPS fix is checked every minute
- Charge only lasts 4-to-5 hours if GPS fix is checked every second
- Initial GPS fix hard or impossible to lock-on if foggy or snowing heavily
Description
- The Suunto X9i is a multifunction GPS watch with navigational tools to determine specific location data.
- The Suunto X9i uses 27 satellites and a network of computers to calculate the user's location within a few meters.
- You can plan a route at home with a map or tracks from National Geographic TOPO software or other mapping software.
- The unit displays coordinates in degrees, has a MGRS and stores 50 routes, 500 waypoints and 8,000 trackpoints.
- The watch has an altimeter that registers the change in vertical as you ascend or descent.
- The Suunto X9i has a GPS/Barometer weather alarm, a compass, a stopwatch and alarm.
- The Suunto X9i has a USB charger and PC Connector so it can be recharged through a computer.
- Water resistance rating of 330 feet so should work normally in wet conditions, but it's not a dive watch.
- Battery life at 70 degrees is four to five hours with a one second update rate.
- Suunto X9i weight is three ounces plus rubber strap.
Guide Review - Suunto X9i Multifunction GPS Watch
It takes time and some patience to set up and learn how to use the Suunto X9i. It’s not as easily an intuitive process as learning how to use a digital camera, for example. You need to have an interest in downloading or pre-planning a route if you want to use the navigation mode, set up the GPS mode, make sure the compass is calibrated properly before every hike, and check that the altimeter and barometer are set, for starters.
We took it on a hike through some remote canyons in Mesa Verde National Park and even the guide, who had a GPS with her, couldn’t quite figure out how to set up the watch so we could track the trip. (Suunto has a service department that will answer questions about using the watch.) On the flip side, according to some of the reviews on the Suunto website, some of the soldiers in Iraq are using the watch and love it.
Suunto has also released a new version, called the Suunto X9M/i, which was designed specifically for the military.
