Polar - Vantage M3

The Suunto Run is newer than the 9 Peak Pro. It has gorilla glass but since you are considering the pacer pro that shouldn’t be an issue. You do get breadcrumb navigation on the Suunto Run as well. I believe it has climbing but if it’s an issue for you, you could try the Suunto Race S. Those are cheaper than the M3. (In Canada so might be in your country as well). If I recall you need shift adapters or some such for Polar Pacer watch bands while the M3 and Suunto Run/Race S use industry standard bands 22mm.

If you can afford it, Polar has amazing analytics. Suunto is using algorithms from Training Peaks which fills the gap a bit. I prefer Polar but I can’t yet afford an M3 which is the best option. I can settle for Suunto, I do like some of metrics Suunto provides like telling me if I’m getting faster on a route (similar to Strava premium without Strava subscription), It will also tell if I added some distance to a regular route. There is a feature where you can see on the map all the places/routes you’ve been in a year which is unique to Suunto. I dabble in all the platforms but only own a Garmin watch and H10 so the rest is app or web dashboard dabbling. Coros is interesting but you can’t record a workout from the app like you can with Polar and Suunto. Polar has a web dashboard, Suunto is app only. Suunto is cheaper, but is also owned by a Chinese company (may bother some people). When I manually input data into Suunto I can get pretty close to my actual Training Peaks numbers which is interesting. You can also use the Suunto app to see heatmaps of where other have travelled a lot easier than Garmin (it’s a little buried in Garmin web). I do prefer Polar’s web dashboard but Suunto does have some interesting features and is more budget friendly. Suunto also lacks five buttons, but has an extra button compared to Coros Pace series.

In my experience Precision Prime is way better than Elixir. I returned my M3 for that reason.

This is in line with my observations. Polar Precision Prime is better than Elixir (Pacer Pro better than M3, in my case). I'm glad they went for Precision Prime on the new loop band. Garmin (various watches) was almost always worse than Polar Precision Prime for me.

I think if you dig in my posts you could find a few detailed comparison answers.  I personally would stay away from Run, as it’s a different underlying platform from the rest of Suunto family and is thus incompatible with many Suunto features like S+ apps. Moreover, it seems it was more of a one shot attempt at alternative to the development that started with S9PP and isn’t going forward. Race S is a great watch though, which brings me to my next point. V3 is more akin to Race, so your real comparison is down to S vs M3. Both size, screen size, weight, and price wise.  Sleep, recovery, and general activity tracking is absolutely better on Polar assuming you can stomach their embarrassingly outdated app. They promised to overhaul it next year, but for now it is ass ugly and keeling over. That said Polar does have a web version (Suunto doesn’t anymore), with tons of useful reports and features. Also included are several adaptive fitness programs, from their  running programs to FitSpark to paid Fitness program. I think their training load and training load status are far easier and more intuitive for most people to deal with than Suunto’s stuff licensed from TrainingPeaks. On a flip side, Suunto has a very gorgeous and super informative app with ton of features (and sadly ridden with many bugs) and many great watch features targeting more advanced users, from ability to import workouts from third party systems, to track running mode, to structured workouts targeting specific intensity ranges not just plain 5 zones like Polar, to ZoneSense, to climb guidance, S+ apps and device integrations, and so on. I believe Suunto and Race S do have an edge for more training and fitness oriented people.  Getting to things like accuracy I’d say Suunto owns Polar on GPS (M3 is quite decent but not as good as Races). Also Polar tends to do some weird altitude thing that results in elevation gains 20-30% lower than other watches. On OHR, it’s the opposite. I find Polar far more stable and accurate. If you care about heart rate, unless you go for the latest gen, you’ll want that chest strap with Suunto for sure. Accidentally, Race S is better than other Suuntos, but far from perfect.  I’d say if your focus is more on general wellness and activity tracking and your fitness needs are generally to support that, M3 will be a great choice. If you need something sportier and with more advanced modern day training features go Suunto.  One other consideration is Suunto does update their watches with new features regularly (like 3-4 times a year) and does so for years. On a flip side, those updates lately bring unwanted bugs like HR dropping out in the middle of an activity, sleep tracking not working, etc.  Now my personal solution when faced with a similar dilemma?  I have Vertical 2 on one hand and Polar Loop on another. I do have V3 too for morning orthostatic, jump, and VO2 Max tests and a few other things Polar does well.   It’s either that, or get a single Garmin really… 

Also glad for my M3, light, good battery life, discrete, same software as V3 etc.

As a polar vantage m3 owner I'm hoping this means some polar flow updates to support the new fitness band. Also hoping it can be concurrently used with a polar watch so I can wear my nice watch on non-workout environments while wearing the hand on the opposite wrist. Polar needs to survive the review onslaught though for me to consider buying it though.

If your primary needs are; sleep tracking, training/exercise programs/suggestions and recovery tracking, then Vantage M3 beats Race S/Run by a long shot. It is not even close.

For me Vantage M3 in greige sand color is good both in its look and the functions

Interesting point of view. Here in Australia, our prices are very different from the US… I actually have an M3 not the V3 (I couldn’t justify an extra $300 for build quality) which is $600, equivalent to about $400USD. Polar sells the Vantage V3 for $899 here which is about $600 US. For comparison, Garmin sells the forerunner 970 for $1,399 here (over $900 US dollars) which is a whopping $400 difference. The Grit X2 Pro here is about $1100 in most stores (including Polar’s website), which is equivalent to less than $750 US dollars. Garmin Fenix 8 is about $1600+ ($1849 on Garmin’s website) which is a whopping $500 more ON SALE, $750 with Garmin’s price. As you can see, here in Australia, Polar’s value is FAR AND ABOVE what Garmin can offer. The cheapest watch Garmin advertises on their website with maps, is the 970 for $1399. The cheapest Polar does is $599. That is half the price.

Dang, I have a Polar vantage M3. A little old, but it does the job

By properly you mean the exact hours or not detecting at all ? In almost a year of daily sleep tracking I've had only two instances where it didn't detect my sleep. I do not systematically control the exact detected hours but the total time makes sense and the few times I've actually checked the hours they were correct. Vantage M3. I wear my watch pretty tight because I record bike rides that can be a bit shaky, maybe that helps.