S-Lander Watch

Comments about Suunto USA S-Lander Watch:

I really like the S Lander and gave considerable thought prior to Purchase. I also considered the highgear watches as well as the Suunto observer.I also own a timex helix my first multifunctional altitude watch where the band broke and could not be replaced. It did last 4 years and the battery has still not been chnged. the S Lander is nice as its bigger with bigger display than the observer so its easier to read. I really like the brometric trend indicator graph in the altitude screen. It is really helpful since the altitude is based on pressure I know that when the atmospheric pressure is changing to compensate for altitude readings. I hope the band lasts longer than writeups in previous reviews. The reason I chose this over the other watches is that it looks like the band can be changed by the user or any watch shop and any kind of aftermarket band could be used. A watch is only as useful when you have a band for it. Since this appears to be the achilles heel of all of these watches I thought this would be an advantage. I am so glad I downloaded the instruction manual and read it priot to puchase as I was ready to use the watch once it arrived. The instruction manual really helps clarify what the watch can and can't do much better than the advertisements which can be deceiving and its a pretty complex watch. Kudo's to suunto for having the manuals on their web site. There are two shortcomings which I noticed. One is that the alarms are useless. Even when I was looking directly at the watch in a quiet environment awaiting the alarm ot go off it was so quiet I realized it could never be depended on to alert me. ( My Timex Helix is the same size and it has a loud alarm that continues till you turn it off. You can't miss it.) I know Suunto says that this is because there is so much in such a small package but the S landr does not have a compass like the X lander and I was hoping that they would use the space for the compass to improve the alarm so its usable. the second issue is the log book. It should really allow the user to clear it rather than be self erasing. I am not sure if my watch is defective but the log book is full and I have not been able to start a log book. According to the manual the old logs self erase but mine has not.
It also does not have split time capability on the stopwatch and I really would have liked this but I knew this prior to purchase as it was delineated in the manual and it was a compromise i made
Overall I think its a great watch providing you do not need ot measure split stopwatch times and do not need an alarm. The watch band is stiff and probably just needs ot be broken in.

If they could
1. Add split times in the stopwatch mode
2. Make it so you could erase the old logs
3. Make the alarm so it could be heard and would continue to go off till you stopped it

It would be SUPERB.
As it is now it is a great watch with some faults