Suunto M5 Men's Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Training Watch (Black)

List Price : $209.00
Price : $164.89
You Save : $44.11 (21%)

Product Description

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A large, crisp, easy-to-read face displays detailed training information.The Suunto M5 women's heart rate monitor and fitness training watch provides versatile guidance with optional speed and distance information for a wide range of sports. Set your goals, and the m5 provides an ideal daily workout schedule to help you achieve them, including telling you when it's time to rest. Simply enter your personal data once, choose your target�fitness improvement, weight management, or free training�and the m5 does the rest, providing:

• A personal exercise program
• Suggested workout for the day
• Real-time guidance during your workout
• Workout achievement summaries

The m5 is optimized for any aerobic activity. The optional Foot POD, Bike POD, and GPS PODs send real-time data to your heart rate monitor on your wrist. So when you go jogging or cycling, you'll see your speed and distance covered. An optional Suunto Movestick can wirelessly transfers your m5 training data to Movescount.com, and download any program from Movescount.com to you m5.
Key Features

• Three personal targets to choose from�improving fitness, weight management or free training
• Daily exercise instructions with ideal duration and intensity
• Automatically adapting exercise program for the next seven days
• Real-time intensity guidance during workout
• Recovery time recommendation after exercise
• Motivational feedback messages
• Suunto Dual Comfort Belt, compatible with most gym cardio equipment and Suunto Fitness Solution
• Upload exercise data to Movescount.com with optional Suunto Movestick (sold separately)
• Download any training program from Movescount.com with optional Suunto Movestick (sold separately)
• Track speed and distance with optional Suunto Foot POD, Bike POD, and GPS POD (sold separately)
• Supports nine (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, and Finnish)

WarrantySuunto products include a limited manufacturer's warranty against defects in materials and workmanship of two years for sports instruments and heart rate monitors, and one year for accessories such as heart rate monitors, chargeable batteries, chargers, docking stations, straps, cables, and hoses.
About SuuntoSuunto is a leading designer and manufacturer of sports precision instruments for diving, training, mountaineering, hiking, skiing, sailing, and golf. Known for intuitive design, accuracy, and dependability, the company's precision instruments combine the aesthetics and functionality of watches with sport-specific computers that help athletes at all levels analyze and improve their performance.
The Suunto M5 provides versitile guidance for multi-sport exercise. Set your fitness goals with the easy-to-use interface and the M5 provides an ideal daily workout schedule to help you achieve them - including telling you when it's time to rest. Choose from improving your fitness, weight management or free training, and the Suunto M5 automatically prescribes an exercise program with ideal intensity and duration for the next 7 days. The Suunto M5 measures heart rate in context of your fitness level and provides motivational feedback and guidance in real time. The included Suunto Dual Comfort Belt is compatible with most gym cardio equipment. Exercise data captured by the M5 can be quickly and wirelessly uploaded to MovesCount.com for tracking, analysis and sharing, and custom training programs can be downloaded to the M5 (requires optional Suunto Movestick). Add speed and distance data to your logs with the optional Suunto PODs (Peripheral Observation Devices), sold separately.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 3.5 x 3 inches ; 5.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B003UJQEQM
• Item model number: SS015859000
  

Product Features

• It provides versatile guidance with optional speed and distance information for wide range of sports
• Optional foot POD, Bike POD, GPS POD's send real-time data to your heart rate monitor on your wrist
• Real-time intensity guidance during workout and motivational feedback messages
• Includes limited manufacturer's warranty of two years for sports instruments and heart rate monitors
• One year for accessories such as heart rate monitors, chargers, straps, etc

 

Suunto M5 Men's Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Training Watch (Black)

 

Customer Reviews

I ordered the black model M5 and was very pleased with the watch except that I found the negative display ( white numbers on black background ) to be very difficult to see at dusk or in any low light conditions. It is not nearly as bright as the product photos show except at high noon sun. If you exercise mostly during full sun, it's very readable, in fact probably less glare than the white face. Consider your exercise venue before you order. Could be my eyes, but after searching other forums on negative faces, I'm not alone. I wound up exchanging the black face for 2 white face women's M5s. I was concerned about the women's band on my wrist, but it still fit with a hole or 2 to spare. Trinow fitness was very helpful and I got them next day. The watch bodies are the same, so if I really decide I want the man's band, I'll order one, but don't see the need right now.
If you're looking for a training aid to get you on track, this is it. I ordered the foot pod and bike pod and they both connected flawlessly and are pretty accurate when checked on a known distance. The chest strap is the most comfortable I have tried and it also links up quickly. We've been using them for about 3 weeks and so far I'm still very satisfied. We were hit or miss with our exercise routine, but the M5 takes the guesswork out and keeps you on track. You really need to maintain your heart rate at a training level for the correct amount of time to get a full workout, and the M5 has helped us do that. A big plus is all the devices use a user-replacable, common watch battery. Remember that Suunto is currenlty offering a free Movestick interface with the M5 ; M4, so if you buy, log on to their site and print out the rebate form. Waiting on delivery of ours as of today 8/16/10. It allows you to upload and store your training logs. I'll post a followup review in about a month.
UPDATE 1/28/11
I had to downgrade my review mainly because the software ( Movescount ) is pretty dismal when used with the M5. It's mostly a social networking tool that misses even simple tools like plotting your current fitness position versus your goals. If you want to help Suunto design a Beta quality attempt at fitness software , you'll love it. Not very intuitive.
Some points I have learned:
1. The foot POD and bike POD are fixed in their calibration with the M5. It's close, but if you're expecting a cycle computer , you're out of luck.
2. The chest strap is the most comfortable I've worn and stays wirelessly connected to the watch pretty well.
3. If you should happen to fall off your excercise plan over a certain of days, the watch will keep repeating the same day. Suunto's way to fix it, reprogram it to a lower level and the restart at the bottom of the level you were at.
4. If you really need athlete quality reporting. This watch is not for you. It's also not $500.
5. Still like the watch. It will keep you on track. For someone trying to get in cardio shape, it's a good tool.
6. I paid $189 for mine. The price today is an indication that it's not exactly flying off the shelves. I would wager you will see this watch settle in at about $125 or a little less.
7. The PC POD does connect flawlessly and tranfers data with no problem.
8. The standard watch battery is a good idea and battery life has been very good.
9. So.....Buy the watch and enjoy it, it has surely helped improve my cardio fitness. At present, don't bother with the PC POD unless you like social networking more than fitness tracking.

First, do not get the black face. It's completely illegible except in direct bright overhead light. Even the white faced version is hard to read without direct lighting.
Second, if you've been wowed by Suunto's high tech EPOC, Training Effect, yada yada yada, don't get excited to buy this watch because the M5 doesn't take advantage of any of those high-tech features. The M5 is really a very basic heart rate monitor with some additional features which you may not even use.
Of the additional features, I'm thinking about these:
1. Has PC connectivity with the additional Movestick, which adds $40-$70 to your overall price. Also, the web site really is just so so. Not that Polar offers much better.
2. Has POD connectivity. The most useful one might be the GPS pod, but those don't really do much more than track your speed. Your smart phone will do better.
3. Has built in reminders about when to train, when to rest, etc.
One thing I found particularly disappointing with the Suunto is that it's fitness test is the Rockport walking test. You walk a mile as fast as you can, measure the results. Despite all of the technology Suunto has at it's disposal, and for close to $200, the M5 does not have anything more convenient than this. So, about every two weeks you should retest in order to ensure that the M5 program is setting the right intensities for you, which in winter without access to a treadmill could be difficult.
Lastly, to properly use this watch you will absolutely have to download the manual from their web site. The little folded paper manual is sometimes just wrong, and the rest you can figure out for yourself.
For about the same the Polar F11 watches can measure V02max at rest, allowing you to take it every day if you want to with little effort and studies show it's as good as the Rockport test in estimating V02max plus you only need a good microphone to connect to the polar online web site. If you only want the fitness test and heart monitoring the Polar M52 is an even better deal.