Suunto Elementum Terra Watch

Great watch by Suunto, they kept this watch simple without cutting on the Suunto tradition. The modes are easy to go trought with the jog dial and the watch will change mode (ie Altimeter-Barometer) automatically unlike the other Suunto Model. The negative face take a bit to get use to and is sometimes hard to read. The night light is excellent and the rubber band is very confortable ( very soft rubber), no 2nd time zone.

I had an Observer for ten years, it got me through two Leadvilles but it is scratched badly. So I decided on the Elementum Steel. First thing out of the box that is quite obvious; this watch is bomb proof, solid, and a bit heavy (steel is real) but I got used to it quickly. Slightly larger than my Observer. The buttons took me a day to get used to them. The compass is simple just one button. I found the best way to calibrate the compass is this: put it in calibration mode, it will say Level and Level will blink if it isn't level. This is hard to do if you try rotating the watch. So get it level and just turn yourself while holding the watch. Simple and works. It is large but it's a beauty, quality, design, construction all add up and this one has it.

Got this watch as a replacement for a Suunto Observer, which had started to fail after almost ten years of regular use. Considered the Suunto Core, but wasn't convinced it would last long. The Elementum, like the Observer, is made in Finland, and feels like it's built to higher standards. The Elementum has the same basic functions as the Observer: date and time, alarm, stopwatch, compass, altimeter/barometer, and trip log. However, it only has one time zone, doesn't show seconds (except in setup mode), and doesn't let you adjust the declination for the compass. The altimeter/barometer mode selection is automatic, based on the rate of change. This is convenient, but a consequence of this is that the watch often misses some elevation gain when hiking, while also ending up with wildly inaccurate numbers after a few days in town without calibration. The watch has been accurate so far, losing no more than 5 seconds during the past month.