At a Glance: Quick Ratings
Heart Rate Functions
Fitness / Sport Features
Ease of Use
Battery Life
Where To Get It
A Deep Dive Into The Suunto Spartan Trainer
Well this is a refreshing change … Suunto have taken their best GPS sports watch ever, the Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR, made it a bit smaller & lighter, dropped the touch screen display and almost HALVED the price!
The new Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR is a genuine BARGAIN of a GPS sports watch. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, the Suunto Spartan Sport can do is covered by the Spartan Trainer.
They even use the SAME base firmware.
This is the BEST Suunto sports watch since their innovative Suunto T6 way back in 2010.
If you’ve been considering a Garmin Forerunner 235 / 735XT or Polar M430 / V800 then please take some time out check out the Spartan Trainer.
The Suunto Spartan Trainer has been reviewed by Tristan Haskins aka CardioCritic
I loved the old Suunto Ambit range, all versions. I was disappointed when the Suunto Spartan Sport and Ultra came out as they were released too early, incomplete and buggy.
The Spartan Sport and Spartan Ultra are now solid 4/5 Star Review sports watches after several software updates.
This amazing new Spartan Trainer is EVERYTHING the Spartan Sport wrist HR version is (functionally) but nearly half the price. Released with clean, quick, reliable and bug free firmware. A perfect 5 Star Review from day 1
Video Review
Quite simply the Spartan Trainer is for everybody and anybody who takes their training seriously. It is suitable for athletes of all sports including Triathlon.
The watch can store up to 20 different Sports Modes customised from the Suunto Movescount website.
Each sports profile can be customised by adding a CUSTOM mode giving the user the option to select precisely what training metrics are displayed and how much data is shown on each training page.
Main Features and Functions
Compact and Durable
- Battery life up to 10h with best GPS accuracy (up to 30h with power saving options)
- 14 days battery life in time mode
- Convenient wrist HR measurement
- Compact size and optimal fit for sports and daily wear
- 50 m water resistant
For Versatile Outdoor and Indoor Training
- Ready to go: swimming, running, cycling, gym, hiking, and more
- GPS tracking with speed, pace and distance
- Customizable sport modes with graphs and automatic laps
- Create intervals on watch and follow on-screen guidance
- Find back safely with breadcrumb view of traveled route
Activity Tracking & Mobile Notifications
- 24/7 tracking of your daily steps, calories and sleep
- Track your daily rest-HR value to know if you are stressed or over-trained
- Personalize your watch with customizable watch faces
- Get incoming calls, text and calendar notifications to your watch
The heart rate proved itself to be accurate and reliable. There were a couple of spikes at the start of ONE training session from 5, but nothing too serious.
Suunto are using the Valancell sensors for heart rate monitoring, one of the best on the market. (Garmin and Polar use their own technology)
One of the best features of the Spartan Trainer is the SUPER CLEAR colour display, the brighter the sun the easier it is to see.
Marketing Video by Suunto
Please watch our own videos of the Suunto Spartan Trainer on the CardioCritic YouTube Channel
Top Alternatives
Next Model UP
The model up is the Spartan Ultra.
Improved battery life (from 10 hours to 18 hours for GPS recording) and the inclusion of a barometric pressure sensor are the key differences.
The Spartan Ultra utilises a barometric pressure sensor making it more sensitive to pressure changes and also providing feedback on temperature.
Remember, all the watches in the Spartan range use the SAME firmware. There is very little functional difference. It’s more to do with case materials & water resistancy.
Closest Competitor
Products from other brands with the closest functionality to this Spartan Trainer wrist HR are the Forerunner 735XT and Garmin’s top of the range Forerunner 935 both with wrist based heart rate acquisition, GPS and Triathlon mode.
Forerunner 735XT another from Garmin, this one with wrist based heart rate (aimed at Triathletes)
Forerunner 935 released in May 2021 – an amazing technical sports watch with wrist based HR
Differences – Spartan Trainer / Sport / Ultra
The Spartan Trainer does NOT feature the barometric pressure sensor of the Ultra. Neither does it have the touch screen display nor the digital compass found on the Ultra and Sport models.
The Spartan Trainer is smaller and lighter and comes with a 218 x 218 pixel display. The watch glass is polyamide and not sapphire or mineral as found on the more expensive models. It’s swim proof at 50m unlike the Ultra and Sport that are both 100m rated.
The Spartan Trainer Wrist HR uses only GPS chips for location and navigation.
The Ultra and Sport use GPS and GLONASS.
Here’s a few pictures I took while testing the Spartan on holiday in France. Trust me here, this is the BEST Suunto Sports Watch E V E R with regard to value for money and comprehensive training features.
Spartan Trainer Wrist HR in time of day mode, chilling by the pool …
Data Fields per Training Page
It is possible to select between 3, 4, 5 and 7 data fields per training page and 2 or 3 column view for the LAP summary pages as shown below.
Each data field can be one of over 100 different training metrics, everything from heart rate, speed, pace, distance and duration to 10 second power, average cadence, elevation, max speed etc.
Spartan Trainer Battery Life
The Spartan Trainer has a slightly inferior battery life of 10 hours GPS against the 18 hours of the Spartan Ultra. But, it’s BETTER than the Spartan Sport (at 8 hours). HOWEVER, for the regular athlete whether amateur fun runner or elite cyclist the Spartan Trainer’s 10 hours is perfectly adequate.
If necessary, the battery life can be extended to 14 hours in 1 second sampling and GOOD GPS mode or even 25 hours in battery save mode with 60 second sampling & GOOD GPS
Review Summary
I can’t say this enough times, the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR is simply brilliant.
It offers excellent value for money coupled with serious performance monitoring and recovery tracking.
It’s the perfect size for those who don’t want their watch to dominate their wrist, at the same time the display is large enough to read easily while training.
The battery life is as good as any competitive products and the battery saving mode makes it perfect for those looking to train 7 days a week for up to 2 or 3 hours per day.
The display is precise and bright and can be read in ALL light conditions.
The Valancell Heart Rate monitoring is 95% accurate for more than 95% of the time.
It may drop out or spike on rare occassions (normally due to vibration e.g mountain biking) but this is something suffered by most wrist based heart rate monitors.
The build quality is exceptional with a light polyamide and glass fibre reinforced case attached to an extremely comfortable silicon strap.
The Spartan Trainer is available in various colours including black, blue and jade green plus various more expensive models with smart steel bezels.
It was a pleasure to test the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR and CardioCritic has no hesitation awarding it a 5 Star Review.
Hola, por casi igual precio sobre 150 €. Cual recomiendas el suunto spartan trainer o polar m430?.Me interesa precisión del gps. Buen análisis y gracias, un saludo
Hola Jose Manuel, yo te recomendaría el m430 en ese rango de precios
Perdona por el retraso respondiendo! todavia andamos liados reestructurando la web…
saludos