Song Tuo Spartan Sport start: a very elegant sports watch

Tencent Digital (Compiler: Mi Ke) To be honest, Songtuo is not as famous as Garmin in the field of outdoor GPS sports watches, but this does not mean that Songtuo's products are not good. For example, Songtuo's Ambit3 is a very good product, but it seems to be a little “clumsy” compared to the rival Garmin Fenix ​​3.

Therefore, Songtuo now brings a brand new Spartan product line as the successor to the Ambit3 series. After the previous Spartan Ultra, Songtuo also brought a Spartan Sport sports-style GPS watch, and added a touch screen display and 24 x 7 hours of motion tracking.

Spartan Sport sells for 549 US dollars (about 3738 yuan), but does not contain an additional heart rate monitor, and if you want to purchase additional, the total expenditure of about 599 US dollars (about 4078 yuan). Maybe you still use the price of Garmin Fenix ​​3 as a comparison, but it is still a lot cheaper than the latter's 800 US dollars (about 5447 yuan), including Spartan Ultra.

At the time of the release, the apps for the Spartan Ultra were not mature enough to be developed, and many users complained. Is it now possible for Spartan Sport to repair the previous shortcomings? At the same time is Spartan Sport worth Ambit fans upgrading or competing with Garmin? Let's take a closer look.

design

It must be admitted that this loose extension Spartan Sport design is quite good, it looks very sporty style, and it has a lot more than the previous generations of products. Our evaluation of Spartan Sport is equipped with a metal frame and a bright blue silicone strap, while a large screen is also extremely eye-catching.

Spartan Sport's screen uses a coating, so the touch and reaction are quite sensitive, although some people say that wearing Spartan Sport sometimes muds a lot of dirt on a muddy field, but we have not encountered any similar problems. Whether it is muddy trail running or swimming, Spartan Sport does not have any use and waterproof problems.

Spartan Sport's screen resolution is 320 × 320 pixels, which is a good level, a lot more delicate than the 218 × 218 pixels of the Garmin Fenix ​​3. Both the icon and the text display are relatively clear, but reflections sometimes occur. At the same time, after a long time of use, Spartan Sport's interface will have a certain delay, and at the same time there is no back physical button means that you want to operate through the screen, but in muddy, wet or extreme environments, such operations still have a certain difficult.

When we use it, we have a problem that even though Spartan Sport has a 100-meter dust-proof and waterproof rating, there is still a gap of less than 1mm between the screen and the frame, so after the extreme environment is used, it usually plugs. Dust, we must use the tip to clean up.

The Spartan Sport has a large screen that looks effortless, while the dial is also well-controlled and light-weight, and is also suitable for everyday wear sports watches.

Tracking

Spartan Sport has many different kinds of sports tracking features to choose from. Spartan Sport offers over 80 presets including cycling, running, swimming, chemistry, yoga and cheerleading. However, although so many programs seem to be a lot better, but at the same time it also limits the possibility of users configure their own sports model, easy to pick flowers. So if you want a particular scene, such as a spinning bike in the gym, it seems Spartan Sport can't help. At the same time, more than 80 kinds of preset programs need a good while to finish browsing. We need to use our fingers to continuously slide down on the screen.

At the time of use, Spartan Sport's GPS positioning speed surprised us. It was almost a GPS wristwatch with the fastest positioning speed, and it can be positioned successfully in just a few seconds. The Garmin Forerunner 630, which was previously comparable to Spartan Sport, has all the other GPS watches that are not as fast as the Spartan Sport. Therefore, this shows that in fact it is not just good, Songtuo's GPS positioning function is equally good, even smoother and more advantageous.

When using Spartan Sport to track swimming, we can monitor many indicators, including the number of return trips. Although it can be used with a heart rate belt, we cannot view the heart rate in the app during swimming. It seems that under the water, Spartan Sport's heart rate monitoring function still has some problems, and even the average time heart rate data is in a missing state. However, even if you have the opportunity to turn this feature on the screen, the heart rate tracking is not very useful for the swimming pool.

If you want to pick the bones in the eggs, Spartan Sport only supports indoor 25 meters or 50 meters in the tracking of the number of movements and only starts to track pauses or turns during the last few seconds of each venue. For example, when I deliberately swim for two seconds, and then continue to start, Spartan Sport actually increases the length of a reentry, so Spartan Sport needs further improvement in this most basic movement tracking accuracy.

In the tracking of cycling, Spartan Sport can provide good global data tracking and details, but in fact, despite Spartan Sport's large screen, it is still too late to see all the content while riding. You need to know that frequent support is in a hurry. In addition, Spartan Sport's speed tracking and heart rate banding are more accurate. At the same time, GPS positioning can also be used to view cycling routes in the community and share with others.

Once you start practicing or tracking, don't start or cancel. In fact, Spartan Sport will make a comprehensive rating based on all your sports performance.

After each sport statistics, we will get different ratings. Spartan Sport uses smiles, general and bad to distinguish. This idea is very good, we can see the effect of each exercise. However, we still hope to present the summary and performance of each exercise in a more specific form than just an expression or a word or two.

Activity tracking

In daily activities, Spartan Sport is also good enough, that is, the dial is still somewhat oversized. Most of the time, Spartan Sport will not block the cuffs and will not be as rough as Fenix ​​3, but Spartan Sport also has room for improvement in specific event tracking details.

Sliding down the main screen of Spartan Sport we will see a large "circle" that will show you the number of steps and trends in your day. With one click, you can see the calories burned. At the same time, you can see the time, distance and other data. The bottom of the screen is the distance from the last movement. Basically all activity tracking data can be clearly expressed on the Spartan Sport interface.

However, in more details, including heart rate, sleep tracking and goal completion rate, Spartan Sport can not be reflected on the watch's screen. In addition, the accuracy of the work is not bad.

App and notification

Spartan Sport's Movescount app was just when we first got the watch, or even just the beta version. However, we found that under Spartan Sport's new platform, it is very intuitive to display various data such as heart rate, speed, and calories. In fact, we can also upload our own data to the online motion platform for detailed analysis.

Every time you open the app, Spartan Sport automatically connects your smartphone via Bluetooth, which is better than our experience with Garmin.

Spartan Sport's notification display function is more comprehensive, and you can set prompts and ignore lists in the app, including text messages, calls, calendars, and third-party applications such as Skype and WhatsApp. However, there is a problem. Although the screen of Spartan Sport can show the time, it is a bit too short. If you do not look at it in time, you may miss it.

In addition, if you do not set up a list of notifications in the app, then Spartan Sport's frequent alerts will also become an annoyance. Even after 1 minute there will be many reminders, so I still suggest that everyone close the voice of Spartan Sport and just use the vibration method.

One of the nice little features in the App is Suunto Movie. After touching the icon, we can edit some of the information marks on our bike or running route. For example, that part of the heart rate is high, or intercepted 6 seconds or 20 seconds of the fragment, and then share it with others. However, although the interface provides a 3D map, it does not look realistic, but at least this idea is very good.

Battery life

Songtuo said that Spartan Sport's continuous use of GPS in the case of continuous use of 16 hours, and different GPS positioning accuracy on the impact of life is also more obvious. In our tests, 10 minutes of cycling, heart rate monitoring, and 1 hour of swimming after turning on the GPS, Spartan Sport consumed only 9% of its electricity.

Spartan Sport's endurance can easily reach the level of one week if it is just activity tracking and notification reminding. It is very easy to charge, and can be filled in less than 2 hours by USB.

to sum up

In comparison with competitors, Spartan Sport looks like an elegant lady, its style is not rough, accuracy in basic sports and activity tracking is good, GPS positioning is very fast, but in the system configuration and The limitations of App customization are relatively large. Of course, this is a new series of products just released by Songtuo, so there are still many problems on the hardware and systems that need to be updated. But for now, Spartan Sport has already demonstrated the potential to be as good as competitors like Garmin.

advantage

Beautiful design;

High tracking accuracy

The screen is clear;

Supports multiple sports modes;

insufficient

Lack of App support;

No physical back button;

Not enough support for notification;

Operation has a delay;

Source: wareable

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