Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Overview of the Suunto Elementum Terra, The Stylish Wristop Computer Timepiece

By Steve Burgenson


Suunto Elementum Terra comes in a good, hefty, coated card board container, which is perfectly lined. In the package is a manual, a plastic material guarantee card, along with a polishing/cleaning cloth.

My initial impression was that the watch was heavier, but small compared to my Suunto Vector and Suunto Core. It does feel a tad thicker however. It's actually a very great, dressy watch. After getting it on, it doesn't come across as too hefty. It's got an excellent weight to it.

Case and Crystal: The case uses stainless steel, with a matte/satin finish to it. It appears very properly built, and extremely durable. You will find three buttons on the right hand side, that all move very nicely. Firm, however with no click. The top button is a scroll wheel, for scrolling through menus and making adjustments. I wish my Suunto Core had one. The scroller also goes easily, with confirmation clicks.The case is water resistant to 100m (~300 feet) and according to the manual, the buttons May be pressed underwater.The Terra face is a flat, sapphire crystal, which also has an anti-glare coating on it.The buttons seem to stand out a lttle bit, however in practice they just don't get in the way, or pressed by accident.

Strap: It come with several different bands, leather, stainless, or rubber. My own came with a great black leather band. It has some white stitching around the edge of it, that actually sets it off beautifully. The band is quite thick and tough, but is still comfortable to wear.

Display: The Terra I got has a positive display, which i prefer It's also available with a negative display, for individuals who like that better.It runs on the classical segment display for numbers, like the Suunto Vector. Thus, it won't plot out any charts/graphs of the elevation or air pressure like the Suunto Core does. The backlight is very bright. Much better than I've ever seen on any other Suunto watch.

Functions: Suunto has not surprisingly kept the functions to a bare minimum. I'm fairly certain that's simply because it really is intended to be a luxury dress watch. It's actually something to wear to the business office or a party, but will still perform out in the wild, although not as well as the Core. The Terra only has a couple of modes, Time/Altimeter and Compass. The primary display of the Terra shows a lot of information. In the top row, you get the current height, the middle row provides you with the time, and the bottom row shows the day. At the top of the screen, you receive the pressure pattern arrows, and around the perimeter you receive the sea-level barometric pressure. The face area of the Terra does not have a rotatable bezel like the Vector or Core. Instead, a circular graph is present for reading the Sea-Level barometric pressure.




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