SUUNTO T3c Heart Rate Monitor- Brown - SS013574010

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $189.00

Amazon Price: $184.99

The Sununto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch allows runners to easily adapt their training according to their body’s needs.

The Sunnto T3c features a built-in training effect programming that provides you with an accurate training routine that matches your personal fitness level. Using its chronograph and heart rate monitor, it gathers enough personal fitness data such as calorie burn and heart rate and tries to determine how intense the runner’s training should be.

Now you have a guide as to whether you should go for a full out competitive training program or just take a leisurely stroll around the park.

Despite all of the loaded features, the Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch is very easy to carry around. The lightweight but durable plastic used in the housing and the included chest strap ensures that you won’t have to worry about the watch interfering with your training.

Product Features

• Material: [Housing] plastic; [Strap] rubber
• Altimeter: No
• Barometer: No
• Heart Rate Monitor: Yes
• Chronograph: Yes
• Thermometer: No
• Digital Compass: No
• Adjustable Declination: No
• Low Battery Indicator: Yes
• PC Compatible: Yes
• Waterproof: Water resistant to 100ft (30m)
• Backlight: Yes
• Alarms: Time & heart-rate
• Battery Type:
• Battery Life:
• Size: Large
• Weight:
• Recommended Use: Training
• Manufacturer Warranty: 2 Years
• Country of Origin: China

Buy/More Info

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.

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

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.

Buy/More Info

Related posts:

1. Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Polished
2. Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Volcano
3. Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Deep Green

Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch (Black Volcano)

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $239.00

Amazon Price: $204.99

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

Buy/More Info

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.

Buy/More Info

Related posts:

1. Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Polished
2. Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Deep Green
3. Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Frost

Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch (Deep Green)

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $189.00

Amazon Price: $148.00

The Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer watch is best for people looking to personalize their training according to their body’s needs.

Powered by a built-in training effect programming, the The Sunnto T3c is able to help you create an accurate training routine that is in accordance with your level of personal fitness. The chronograph and heart rate monitor of the T3c allows it to gather enough personal fitness and exercise data such as calorie burn and heart rate and tries to determine how intense the runner’s training should be.

Now you have a guide as to whether you should go for a full out competitive training program or just take a leisurely stroll around the park.

Despite all of the loaded features, the Suunto T3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch will not hinder or get in the way of any of your training activities. Crafted from lightweight but durable plastic and nested in the included chest strap, the Suunto T3c works without bogging you down or interfering with your movements.

Product Features

• Material: [Housing] plastic; [Strap] rubber
• Altimeter: No
• Barometer: No
• Heart Rate Monitor: Yes
• Chronograph: Yes
• Thermometer: No
• Digital Compass: No
• Adjustable Declination: No
• Low Battery Indicator: Yes
• PC Compatible: Yes
• Waterproof: Water resistant to 100ft (30m)
• Backlight: Yes
• Alarms: Time & heart-rate
• Battery Type:
• Battery Life:
• Size: Large
• Weight:
• Recommended Use: Training
• Manufacturer Warranty: 2 Years
• Country of Origin: China

Buy/More Info

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

Related posts:

1. Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Polished
2. Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Volcano
3. Suunto t4c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Frost