Suunto Race 3S review: a feature-packed sports watch for smaller wrists

It’s been a good year for those with thin wrists, because wearable manufacturers have embraced a smaller form factor on several of the best sports watches to come out so far in 2026.

As a slender-wristed gentleman, I’ve already enjoyed testing the Suunto Run 2, Garmin Forerunner 170 and Apple Watch 12 this year, and even the Coros Pace 4 Pro, which has a large screen, is thin and light enough to sit snugly on my wrist.

On top of all these launches comes the Suunto Race 3S, which brings premium materials and long battery life to a small watch.

Its key improvements on the Suunto Race S (confusingly, there was no Race 2S, despite there being a Suunto Race 2) include a brighter display, longer battery life and better heart rate accuracy.

However, these improvements come with a major price increase, and it’s the high price of the Race 3S that make it a tough sell, especially with strong alternatives like the Coros Pace 4 Pro and Suunto Run 2 coming in cheaper.

Suunto Race 3S review: price and availability

The Suunto Race 3S launched on 15 October 2026 and costs $599 in the U.S. and £435 in the U.K., a significant price rise on the Suunto Race S titanium model, which was $449/£395 at launch, and is currently $329 on the Suunto website.

It’s the same price in the U.S. as the Suunto Race 2, and pricier than the Suunto Run 2, which costs from $349/£265. The Coros Pace 4 Pro is also cheaper at $449/£389, and I do think the price of the Suunto Race 3S will make it a tough sell compared to some rival options.

Suunto Race 3S review: design and display

The S is the watch’s name is a key part of its appeal, because the Suunto Race 3S aims to offer a premium experience in a smaller design, something that is often lacking in sports watches — the pricier and more feature-packed the model, the larger it tends to be.

It has a titanium bezel and sapphire crystal screen and a 2,000-nit, 1.32in AMOLED display that’s three times as bright as the one on the original Suunto Race S. I found this screen bright enough to read easily in all conditions, including bright sunshine.

The 46mm case isn’t as small as some watches, like the Forerunner 170 or Coros Pace 4, but the Suunto Race 3S has a more premium feel and is thin and fairly light at 56g with its silicone strap, and was comfortable to wear 24/7 in my testing.

There are three buttons on the watch, one of which is a digital dial. I sometimes found the watch slow to respond to the dial when rotating it, but mostly the user interface responds rapidly without any lag.

The Suunto Race 3S has an upgraded optical heart rate sensor compared to the one on the original Race, and I’ve found it to be considerably more accurate on this front than its predecessor. It also offers multi-band GPS tracking and can connect to external sensors via Bluetooth.

There is no built-in flashlight on the Suunto Race 3S unfortunately — Suunto only offers this feature on the top-of-the-range Vertical 2 — but there is a flashlight mode that uses the screen.

Suunto Race 3S review: sports tracking and training analysis

Scroll up from the watch face on the Suunto Race 3S and you’ll find a vast array of preset sports modes, and you can also create your own sports modes in the app.

Indeed you’ll need to do the latter if you want to customize the stats on show, as you can’t make changes to default sports modes (something you can do on any other brand’s sports watches I’ve tested), and there’s a limit of three customizable screens when making your own sports mode.

Unlike the cheaper Suunto Run 2, the Race 3S has access to the SuuntoPlus Store, where you can find a variety of extra sports features you can add onto your sports modes.

Some of these are handy additions, though I will say I personally didn’t miss these extras when testing the Suunto Run 2, which also has a simpler approach that allows you to edit default sports modes.

The training analysis on the watch is very heavy on the three-letter acronyms, so it can be quite impenetrable at first, but it does provide a wealth of useful information you can use to judge your training load.

Garmin and Coros do a better job of making their training analysis easier to understand in my opinion, and Garmin in particular has some extra analysis features including a useful training readiness score.

Suunto announced the launch of its new Suunto AI Coach feature alongside the Race 3S and I’ve not been able to test it out yet. It aims to create a conversational-style approach to guided training, and will be a paid-for service, though people who buy the Race 3S can register for three months of Suunto AI Coach for free before 31 December 2026.

Suunto Race 3S review: GPS and heart rate accuracy

I’ve been impressed by the GPS accuracy on the Suunto watches I’ve tested over the past couple of years, and that remains the case with the Suunto Race 3S.

I used the watch in the most accurate multi-band mode and it produced accurate GPS tracks and pace and distance stats in line with other top watches, including the Garmin Forerunner 970 and Coros Pace 4 Pro when testing them all side-by-side.

The heart rate accuracy was also pretty good for me, which hasn’t always been the case with Suunto watches. The improved optical sensor on the Race 3S is much better than the one on the Race S, and also proved more reliable than the sensor on the Race 2 in my testing.

I compared it to the readings from a chest strap on all my runs and during other workouts like indoor bike rides and strength sessions, and it generally matched up closely with the strap throughout.

There was the occasional erroneous spike in the watch’s readings though, and at the start of outdoor runs on colder days it did sometimes take a minute or two to lock into the correct reading, and lag a little behind a chest strap’s readings.

These aren’t uncommon issues with optical sensors and I do think the Race 3S and Run 2 are a considerable improvement on what I’ve experienced in the past with Suunto watches, but I’d say the best Garmin watches and the Apple Watch 12 are a little more reliable on this front.

Suunto Race 3S review: battery life

The Suunto Race 3S offers impressive battery life for a small watch with an AMOLED display, with the brand listing it as lasting up to 12 days in watch mode and offering up to 38 hours of multi-band GPS tracking.

In my testing I had the screen set to high brightness and always-on, and I ran every day with the watch using the GPS. It lasted me five to six days on a charge, which is pretty good going though not as long as the Coros Pace 4 Pro, which hits seven days for me with the same use.

The Race 3S is particularly strong on GPS battery life though, and will handle even extremely long events like ultramarathons easily in its most accurate GPS mode.

You charge the watch with a proprietary puck-style charger, which is the same one as used on the Suunto Run 2 but differs to other Suunto watches, which is less convenient than the systems used by Garmin and Coros where their watches all share the same charger.

Suunto Race 3S review: smart features

The Suunto Race 3S offers some basic smart features including offline music storage for files you drag and drop onto the watch (it doesn’t link up with streaming services like smartwatches or Garmin watches).

This feature was only meant to be available following an update after launch, but I was able to sync music to the watch and listen to it via Bluetooth headphones during testing.

It doesn’t offer NFC payments, but does have access to the SuuntoPlus store, where there are extra watch faces and data screens you can add to the Race 3S. This isn’t nearly as extensive as a smartwatch’s App Store or even Garmin’s Connect IQ store though.

You’re not going to be buying the Suunto Race 3S for smarts, I’d say. If those are important to you then a true smartwatch like the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is a better buy, or at least a Garmin watch with NFC and the ability to link with music streaming services.

Suunto Race 3S review: maps and navigation

With 64GB of storage you can download all the maps you want to the Suunto Race 3S via the Suunto app, and I found it easy and reasonably quick to get the areas I needed onto the watch when I set it up.

I found the maps to be bright and clear during activities and they loaded quickly when panning and zooming.

It’s also simple to create and sync routes to the watch through the partner app. The Race 3S also gives guidance on the elevation you’ll be tackling through an overall plot of your route and alerts when significant climbs and descents are coming up.

The maps on the watch are non-routable, meaning they plot your course over an image of a map rather than actually knowing where you are — Garmin watches do offer routable maps so can create a route for you on the fly, an occasionally handy extra feature.

Suunto Race 3S review: specs compared

Should you buy the Suunto Race 3S?

Suunto has significantly improved its watch line-up over the past couple of years and at first it was doing this while pricing its watches aggressively to undercut its biggest rivals.

The improvements do keep coming with the Suunto Race 3S, but it’s still not perfect and the price has rocketed, making it a hard watch to recommend over cheaper rivals, including some within the Suunto line-up like the Run 2 and original Race S.

I also prefer the Coros Pace 4 Pro myself as a watch that’s easier to use and still feels small on the wrist despite its larger display, and the Coros is cheaper too. You can also grab the old-but-gold Garmin Forerunner 965 in sales for less, though it’s not as small a watch.

Overall, the Suunto Race 3S is a very good smaller sports watch that looks great and mostly works well in my experience, but I think the price will hold it back, at least until it hits the sales.