Suunto traverse alpha - full test

SUUNTO is a brand well known to anyone who has considered a high quality outdoor watch with full GPS capabilities. 

The SUUNTO TRAVERSE ALPHA is a new version of this premium product for trekkers and mountaineers with one important new aspect - the SUUNTO TRAVERSE ALPHA has been designed to be a hunting and fishing watch as well. Designed in Finland to military grade specifications, the watch has a highly appealling appearance, The version I tried at this years red deer rut stalk, is both subtil with an olive coloured strap and dial, and made of materials clearly designed and manufactured with high quality in mind. 

SUUNTO is also world famous for its diving watches, and the TRAVERSE ALPHA has taken the elongated trap concept that allows the watch to be word on the wrist or on top of a fleece for example. This is both practical and useful, as no movement or noise is required to check for example how many minutes there are to sunrise. The TRAVERSE ALPHA is bluetooth enabled, meaning that it connects to your mobile phone, and all messages and notificaciones are shown on screen. Again from a practical standpoint this is something I really like, you'll never miss a call again, unless that is you want to :-).

Getting back to the hunting features, they centre around the ability to start recording the start of a stalk. You then forget about everything and let the watch do the rest. It tracks your exact stalk vía GPS and even automatically records each shot fired with the exact position of the shot. At the end of the hunt you can stop the recording and something interesting is the trackback feature that lets you use the watch to guide you back to your start point or any other GPS coordinates. 

The TRAVERSE ALPHA is packed full of useful tools. It has GPS time synchronisation, allowing it to autoamtically tell you sunríse and sunset times, as well as the moon phase. All features you can control whether they appear or not and easy “scroll” through to get to what you want to see, including temperature, a barometer, altimeter, and a compass useful for double checking your bearings. The watch has a memory that allows you to store a logbook of recorded trips that you can connect to software to create eye-catching 3D routes. It charges vía a USB cable and the charge lasts for a week or so under normal usage. 

Some minor things that I hope SUUNTO will improve on in the future is the temperature reading that is fine when worn ontop of clothing, but seems to gets affected by skin temperature by a couple of degrees when worn on the wrist. Also, the elongated strap is great for wide wristed hunters, but an extra ring to hold in place would be useful. Finally, at the shooting range and on a clay day, the watch recorded every shot effectively, but also one or two extra ones for good measure. That said, with its extensive functionality, and looks (it really does look great I think), and rugged outdoor all weather waterproof capabilities, it has become my new outdoor hunting watch, and I hope to be able to tell you more about my experience with it throughout the season. Just looking at it as I write, reminds me that I have just under 5 days for a really exciting high class Spanish monteria.

9/10 - Highly Recommended. Part of my basic kit I take along on all hunts.