Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Deep Green

November 7, 2009 by Running Watch Reviews
Filed under Running & Sports Watch Reviews, Suunto

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Stylish and functional
I’ve had the Suunto T3 for a couple years now and it’s worked well for me. It looks nice, so I can wear it as my everyday watch at work, and I’m also able to use it for all the heart rate monitoring things. It’s a little hard to read in low light or with polarized sunglasses. It reads my heart rate well without many problems. Only on long hikes in cold weather have I had issues with it reading. It definitely works better if you’re sweating. I usually put a little water on the electrodes and it does great from the get go.

You can set up the heart rate to exercise in heart rate zones which works great for interval training. It can also warn you if you’re training too hard or not enough with an alarm. I also like the ‘training effect’ because it gives me a rough estimate of how effective my workout was. The software that you can use to look at your workout info isn’t that great, but it’s somewhat interesting.

I don’t use it with any of the pods other than the PC pod to download information to my computer. Annoyingly, you can’t get the information to a computer without buying the add on PC Pod for this watch.

I had it replaced under warranty without difficulty as water somehow got inside the watch. Suunto was a pleasure to deal with and sent me a new watch. Battery life has been great. The band is starting to crack a bit (though it hasn’t broken through) and $25 seems pricey for a band, but I’ll probably do it since I’ve been happy with the watch.

2 Stars No good for variable intervals!!!!
I will likely be returning this watch soon, in favor of a Timex Ironman HRM. The Timex is not as stylish, but in my experience they are great training watches; unfortunately I cannot say the same for the Suunto.

The T3c has two basic modes: time and training. Pretty self explanatory. However, many timing options (like a countdown (interval) timer or stop watch) are not available in the timing mode–this could be just a minor inconvenience–and, more importantly, are buried in a terribly CLUNKY INTERFACE.

INTERVAL training is where this units truly falls flat. The T3c allows you to store only 2(!) interval periods plus a warm up period; effectively, interval #1 is your interval period and #2 is your recovery time (they alternate in immediate succession…for instance 5 on and 2 off). Unfortunately, the setting to change the interval duration is buried in the training menu and nearly impossible to get to while kicking hard or while in a brief recovery period between intervals. If you only use one constant interval period in your workout, this will not be a problem for you. But, if like me, you vary your interval durations throughout each workout you will be mightily disappointed by the Suunto. For instance, I like to warm up for 20mins and then jump into 2×10 min intervals with 2 off, followed by 3×5 min intervals with 2 off and then wrap up with 4×1 min intervals (with 30 sec off); and this is really an impossibility with the T3c (I could just count the mins/secs but I shouldn’t have to for the price of this unit). BOTTOM LINE: This “watch” is NO GOOD for someone who trains with varying interval lengths within each training session.

On the plus side, I find the belt to be very COMFORTABLE and I have no complaints with the general HRM function. Unfortunately this is just not a good training WATCH, despite its redeeming features as a HRM. I cannot recommend this watch until the interface is improved such as to make this a real training watch, not just a HRM.

5 Stars Very Pleased Overall
HR Monitors aren’t very cheap. After conducting some research, the Suunto brand seemed to be the best balance for performance and features that was of good value. It was also the most reasonable looking unit and very usable outside of training as it doubles as a watch. I was concerned about other reviews reporting issues with the HR/watch face being quite easy to damage/scratch. To prevent this I also purchased a Zagg Invisible shield to protect the face. The Zagg and T3C combo has been flawless and has kept the T3C in pristine condition in the couple of months I’ve had it. I train 10 times a week, 5 of those sessions I use the T3C for both steady-state cardiovascular exercise and high intensity interval training.

As far as build goes, it’s been able to hold on it’s on quite strongly despite my level of activities. A fair few people have also commented on the appearance of the T3C as a nice watch but as soon as I mention that it’s more of an HR monitor they would not believe me.

I only have two negative points about the T3C, but they aren’t worth worrying about when taking in consideration what the T3C does right. First thing is that the armband out of the box appears to be made for an extremely obese person and had to have a watch repair professional adjust and cut a fair bit to ensure it fit’s right on my wrist. The process was extremely quick and if anyone had the right tools this could be done with ease, the manual has some details on how to do this. Secondly, the interval trainer beeps aren’t loud enough. When I do high intensity training (usually in the form of sprints), both my vision and hearing are very much affected. This has made the T3C a little more difficult to hear. It’s not extremely bad and so far I haven’t missed any beeps from the interval trainer however if I trained any harder and if the beeps were any fainter then I am certain I’d start missing intervals. Otherwise, I am absolutely enjoying this product and have had no regrets with my purchase.

3 Stars Good looks, mediocre menu system, poor visibility
First off… I really like the overall looks of this watch/heart rate monitor. Very sleek and cool. One of the things that makes it look good (the black face) also makes the digital numbers, letters, etc difficult to read in dim/low light without using the watch’s back light feature. The Suunto watches with the white face and black readout is most likely better for low dim lighting situations.

The menu system takes a while to get used to and a little time to remember how to do certain things. There’s nothing straight forward or intuitive about it.

The chest belt seems to work fine in conjunction with the watch, keeping track of heart rate and calculating all the other information (calories burned, average heart rate, etc).

If you are thinking about using this watch and it’s Training Effect feature for when you are weight lifting… I would think twice. Of course it may differ for each individual but I don’t workout long enough to make a dent in the training effect.

There is no software support for the mac platform which stinks. This means I’ll never have access to my training logs anywhere but on the watch itself unless I go out and buy a pc or install windows on my mac. I knew this ahead of time but I still think it’s a shame.

Would I buy this again? No. I’d buy one that had a more easily read face and possibly look for one that was compatible with a mac.

1 Star Poorest Battery Life
This is a CRAPY Watch. As for the design it looks nice, but the overall quality of the watch is extremely poor. The face of the watch scratches very easily and the wrist band is not comfortable to wear when exercising. The battery only lasted 3-4 months and I barely used the watch!

Also, Suunto’s website is poorly designed and difficult to use. It took me a while to run some queries on it. This watch is designed in Finland, but unfortunately is made in the world’s worst quality and cheapest place-China!

Steer away from buying it

Buy/More Info

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