Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Volcano
November 24, 2009 by Running Watch Reviews
Filed under Running & Sports Watch Reviews, Suunto
| Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch (Black Volcano) |
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Overall Rating: |
| Retail Price: $239.00 |
| Amazon Price: $144.53 |
The Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch enables you to create and track the very best training program for your body.
The Heart rate monitor allows you to track just how intense you’re workout is through its built in heart rate monitor functionalities. You would be able to see if your body is getting the burn it needs from the work out that you are doing. It provides data for real-time heart rate; calories burned, and even heart rate alarms.
Aside from simple monitoring the Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch even has built-in training software. It has the Coach software that enables you to know how to long and how intense to train each day. It even adjusts the rest of your ten-day cycle to ensure you get enough exercise during each phase of training.
With all of these features, the Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch is a great training partner for people looking to get the best for their body.
Specifications:
- Color: Black volcano
- Stopwatch: Yes
- Max number of split times in memory: 50
- Timers (interval and warm-up): Yes
- Average heart rate: Real time
- Training effect: Real time
- Calories: Real time
- ANT digital coded signal: Yes
- Memory capacity: 15 logs
- HR limits and HR zones: Yes
- Suunto heart rate belt: Compatible, sold separately
- Suunto comfort belt: Included
- Suunto memory belt: Compatible, sold separately
- Water resistance: 100 feet
- Selectable metric/imperial units: Yes
- Menu-based user interface: Yes
- Dot-matrix display: Yes
- Backlight type: Electro-luminescent display
- User-replaceable strap: Yes
- Software: Suunto Training Manager Lite
- Low battery warning: Yes
- User-replaceable battery: Yes
- Suunto Coach personal training program: Yes
- Button lock: Yes
- Compatible with pods: Yes
- Watch: 12/24 hour
- Calendar clock: Yes
- Dual time: Yes
- Daily alarms: 1
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star Useless!
I loved the look, feel, and the features this heart rate monitor provides, and I so wanted to keep it. However, if you use it while you move your arms around other than a stationary position you will lose your HR and therefore not have an accurate picture of your workout. I replaced the batteries in both the belt and the watch, paired the belt to the watch but it continued to lose the HR if my wrist went behind my back or over my head. I even returned it and bought it from a different store hoping to correct the problem. Both watches experienced the same situation. In desperately wanting to keep it, I researched and found this to be a common problem with Suunto. I have been a long time Polar user, but HATE the look of every single one of them, so I really was looking for the same quality. Unfortunately,Suunto isn’t the one.
5 Stars perfect HR m.
SO I bought this watch, in need of a heart rate monitor and since I already owned a Suunto watch I thought I would love this one too. I LOVE IT! It’s comfortable, it’s easy to use once you figure out all the little applications, it’s a good size for women. I’m still finding cool little things out about the watch. I suggest you buy the wireless PC Pod too and it will also log your RPMs if you buy a bike pod or even distance if you buy a GPS pod or foot pod. The PC pod will log all your workouts on your PC. I am about to purchase that. The coach on the watch give you the option to follow it but it does not punish you if you don’t. The training effect is confusing at first but when you log your workouts it gives you a range to categorize each workout. I love this watch/ HRM and would recommend it to active women who are into gadgets.
2 Stars excellent but you have to praid for function works
this watch is excellent but mine works really bad, i bought it 3 weeks ago and never works on calories burned.. for example, I did 40 min of a hard spinning class and the watch said that I burned 30kcal at 84% average,,, poor watch… if you can buy a polar! i realized that a lot of users have severals problems with T series, pls find differents forum on the web and see them….
5 Stars I Lovit I Lovit I Lovit I Lovit
This is a sweet piece of gear. I’ve been using it for about a month now. It works great and gathers a lot of data.
The watch itself is comfortable the band works especially well, (mine is the black volcano). A friend has a Suunto T4C as well, (his is the black frost), but his band is a little different. I will agree with other reviews that the face is prone to scratching. With this in mind I use mine only for workouts. The interface isn’t too difficult to figure out. Had it totally figured out after about 4 workouts. I saw a lot of reviews complaining about the complexity however with all the things this thing does the 5 buttons are easy enough to work with. My Timex was about as difficult to figure out.
The chest strap is OK. About as comfortable as a chest strap is going to be. It took a week or so to figure out exactly where to place the strap on my chest and how tight was tight enough. Once the chest strap placement is determined this thing rarely loses heartrate once it has captured it.
I could take or leave the coach function. It usually tells me to do long low intensity workouts or to rest. I haven’t really done much with the coach function as a result.
The data that the T4C can store is pretty extensive. There is detailed workout data available for the 14 most recent workouts. This data includes duration, training effect, average heart rate, peak heart rate, calories burned, and lap times (if using the lap timer). I don’t have the PC interface but transfer the infomation manually to a spreadsheet every few days. Long term data is available (totals) for the current week, the previous week, current month, and the previous 11 months. This data includes the number of workouts, total workout time, total running distance (Foot Pod), total bike distance (Bike Pod), total GPS distance (GPS Pod), and total calories burned.
I don’t have the Foot, Bike, or GPS POD paired devices.
I’ve found it most helpful when lifting. I’ve set heartrate targets for starting my next set so my weight workouts remain in a cardio zone. Prior to having the watch I’d just wait until if felt like my heartrate had dropped enough. Now I have hard data to start the next set.
Spent a lot of time researching before buying. I recommend buying something really cheap that you won’t mind throwing away when it fails/battery dies or buy something decent. This is something decent. Things that drew me to the Suunto T4C is a coded system. You won’t get crosstalk in a spin class with others using a monitor. With the Suunto you can change your own batteries. Most of the Polar monitors have to be sent back to the manufacturer for battery replacement, (read the reviews). The only other monitor that I considered was the Garmin Forerunner 305. Picked the Suunto T4C based on word of mouth of a friend, and I have no regrets.
That’s about all I have to say about that.
4 Stars Suunto T4C
I have had the watch for a little more than a month now. I would say it is a very large step up from my Polar RS100. However I have a few complaints:
1. The backlight only works some of the time.
2. The screen scratches very easily
Other than that the watch is awesome.

