Leon, my thoughts and experience for you
Size and convenience have long been on the side of Suunto ABC watches, particularly in climbing where weight is an important consideration yet more so how you physically wear the instrument.
A couple of years back I went winter climbing with the legendary Dave ‘Heavy’ Whalley up to Coire an t-Sneachda, in the Cairngorms. All the routes, Jacob's Edge, Ladder and Hidden Chimney were so busy we opted to ascend the Goat Track and go on over to Beinn Mheadhoin via the Shelter Stone.
Heavy had just got the handheld satnav from Garmin, the 60Csx, and at the time I was a Suunto X10 Military. Heavy’s 60Csx was clipped to the shoulder of his rucksack, and secured using a paracord lanyard. My X10 was worn as a wristwatch.
Heavy ran into difficulties with the loose paracord catching his ice-axes and stopping to check the unit, on this relatively east climb (Grade III), he found awkward. Whereas the wristwatch X10 suffered with neither of these difficulties.
I think it is good to review why ABCs are so useful.
The Altimeter is ideal for all activities where knowing your altitude and ascent and descent rates is essential, and modern ABCs allow you to track your progress in terms of altitude climbed.
Their logs record store all your movements in altitude between the start and stop times, the duration of ascents and descents, average ascent and descent speed.
The in-built Barometer displays the current sea level pressure, usually as a graph, showing recording of the last 24 hours with a recording interval of 30 minutes and is used as a weather trend indicator, plus some of the higher spec models have a Storm alarm which works when there is a sudden drop in air pressure, which may be related to worsening weather conditions.
Suunto ABCs have an automatic Altimeter/Barometric switch, which senses the wearer’s movement. When climbing, it records changes in elevation, and when resting, it records changes in barometric pressure, so for example a drop in air pressure, if you are camping on a ridge is recorded for what it really is: a change in barometric pressure, not altitude.
The Compasses are digital and can be set to track a given bearing.
The main problem with handheld satnavs was that they relied soley upon a GNSS altimeter, and in climbing any rock face you have at least half the sky obscured from the units view, plus the satellite signals that you do receive may be subject to mulit-pathing, as they reflect off the rock face around you. The 60Csx overcame this problem by being the first handheld satnav to incorporate both a GNSS altimeter
and a barometric altimeter. More than this, the boffins at Garmin created an algorithm that correlated the readings between the two, in particular pressure spikes which may be more of an indicator of weather system changed that of any ascent or descent. However, they were still clumsy to store and use on difficult routes.
Interestingly, the Suunto X10 I was wearing had both of these measurement systems, but not the correlating algorithm.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that for some time I have been testing the new Garmin Fēnix, mainly in parachute jumps. These types of wrist-worn satnavs herald a new era for climbers, as they
add to ABC’s
satnav capabilities, and in my opinion, make the standard ABCs a fashion accessory to be prominently displayed on a well-toned wrist in the café on top of Snowdon