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There are lots of new smartwatches available right now, with two days of battery life often earning high praise. In contrast to those limits, the Suunto Core 2 ups the ante with some of the longest battery life of any sports watch on the market. I've been wearing this model over the past month and come to appreciate both the marathon battery and key metrics that support my summer outdoor adventures.
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There are some trade-offs, though. Since there is no heart rate sensor on the back or GPS for accurate outdoor tracking, I also wore a Casio G-Shock GBD-H2000 to compare how these two devices stacked up given their rugged good looks, monochrome displays, long battery life, and limited smartwatch connectivity.
Step-counting accuracy
One of the daily life metrics tracked by the Suunto Core 2 is step counting. I wore the Core 2, G-Shock, and a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro while manually counting steps during several outdoor walks of more than 10,000 steps. The Garmin matched the manual count the closest, just 90 steps over 10,000 steps taken, with the Suunto Core 2 in second place, with about 200 steps over the actual count, and the G-Shock showing more than 350 steps over the actual total.
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Out of the box, the step-counting option isn't enabled, so use the physical buttons -- there are five on the watch -- to move to the settings and enable step counting. Press the lower-right button to see the step count on the main watch display. Your daily step count can also be synced to the Suunto smartphone app, and the results will appear on your Suunto dashboard.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
Key outdoor metrics
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