User Review: Suunto X9i

Suunto X9i
Above: The current X9i, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed July 24, 2008 by Simon Lewis

Rating:
Price Paid: £200

I wanted a wrist mounted GPS unit that I could fall back on to tell me where to go in poor weather when out in the mountains, and that I could use to download where I'd been when out mountain biking, skiing etc.

My first comment is that the product is extremely difficult to use. In an era when most people have grown used to fairly intuitive products this one fails dismally. In consequence I had to read the manual quite carefully to get the thing to work. Then I read it again, convinced that I must have missed something when it failed, categorically, to track my movements when out running. It seems trees are a problem, bushes too can be a bit tricky, in fact simply holding the unit on its edge appears to cause it to loose signal.

If it was just a matter of loosing signal however I would simply describe the X9i as junk. Mine logs random locations while it is supposedly tracking my position - if you genuinely tried to follow its Track Back feature based on a stored route it good quite literally guide you over the edge of a cliff.

As a navigation aid this product is dangerous DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY.

Why did I give it half a star? - The clock seems to work OK.