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One minute review
It’s hard to stand out in a crowded field of imaginative, classy fitness trackers, and while the Sonto Race had plenty of ideas, its execution was always far off.
We awarded it 3.5 out of 5 starsprimarily finding issues with heart rate tracking accuracy while noting that it’s cheaper than many of its competitors despite having a premium feel.
That gives the Cinto Race 2 a let-up for being one of the best fitness trackers around, right? Fix the minor issues, and it will be a winner. Thankfully, the Suunto has taken advantage of the legwork done by the first race, and its successor is better in every way.
It looks great, performs well, and is just as intuitive for a fitness tracker newcomer as it is for someone who’s been tracking their body rhythms for years. With a two-and-a-half-week battery life and relatively lightweight design, it’s comfortable to wear to bed even for sleep tracking.
It comes at a price (it’s more expensive than the original), but it’s easily one of our favorite fitness trackers of 2025.
Soto Race 2: Specifications
Ingredients | Sinto Race 2 |
Price | 9 429 / $ 499 / au $ 899 (stainless steel) or £ 529 / $ 599 / au $ 999 (titanium) |
Dimensions | 49 x 49 x 12.5mm / 1.93 x 1.93 x 0.49″ |
The weight | 65 g |
Case/Bezel | Glass fiber reinforced polyamide |
Display | AMOLED display with 466×466 resolution |
GPS | GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, Beido |
Battery life | 18 days in smartwatch mode, 30 days in standby time mode, up to 200 hours in power saving mode |
Connection | Bluetooth |
Water resistant? | 100m |
Soto Race 2: Price and Availability
- Two versions: stainless steel and titanium
- Steel starts at £429 / $499 / au $899
- Titanium is £529 / $599 / $999
A big draw of Soto Race was its price, but Soto Race 2 fixes the problems with the original Race at the cost of a higher price tag. The stainless steel model is more expensive, while the titanium model increases the price again.
It’s now around the price of a Garmin Forerunner 570, so even with the increase it’s hardly ahead.
Expect discounts around the usual sales seasons like Black Friday, but this will definitely give Sonata Race 1 owners some ‘sticker shock’ trying to upgrade.
Soto Race 2 Review: Design
- 1.5 inch display
- Feels premium to hold and wear
- Straps feel comfortable
As mentioned, there are two versions of the Soto Race 2: stainless steel, and titanium. Our review unit is the former in the Coral Orange colorway. In all honesty, three out of the four stainless steel models have the same black chassis color but with different straps, while the feather gray is a white color.
The Titanium models are, again, the same chassis, but with two different color options. Outside of the material choices, you’re getting the same general design.
The straps are attached with a pin system, which – somewhat simply – makes them more secure than other competitors. The display is 1.5 inches (slightly larger than the Race 1’s 1.43-inch panel), and is still bright, now, up to 2,000 nits.
Two hardware buttons rock a digital crown for scrolling through menus, and the display is also touch-sensitive, giving it a leg up over non-touchscreen rivals that can feel a little less intuitive.
On the underside, there are sensors, and a difference in the straps, which makes them feel more breathable than fabric-based alternatives.
The Cinto Race 2 has a pleasant weight. It doesn’t feel flimsy or too light, but it’s not too light to the point where it feels cheap. It’s a difficult balance to find, so the team at Soto had to find a way to make Kudos feel premium while not being too bulky to wear to bed.
Sinto Race 2: Features
- Built-in GPS
- There is no music storage
We’re still sad that offline music streaming isn’t more common in fitness trackers, since it feels like such an obvious inclusion, but at least if you don’t need a killer playlist, you can take your Sonto Race for a run without your phone knowing it has built-in GPS.
It’s also accurate, doing a good job of pinpointing my location whether I’m busy on the streets of London or along the riverside paths closer to home. It fits perfectly with my Apple Watch Ultra, which is my main tracker of choice. You can download maps for offline use, too, something Garmin’s Instinct line doesn’t have.
It also includes more than 115 sports modes, ranging from the usual suspects like running and cycling to more bespoke workouts like strength training and mountain trail runs.
Battery life is also very good. In smartwatch mode you can expect 16 days, while GPS mode reaches 55 hours – five hours longer than the Soto Run 1.
As you’d expect, it connects to the Soto Coach app to offer much more detailed workout metrics than what’s available on the watch, and that data can be easily imported directly into the likes of Strava to track and share with friends (and competitors).
Sinto Race 2: Performance
- Bright display
- Fast processor
- A better heart
We’ve already noted the improved display brightness, and that means the Sonoto Race 2’s always-on panel is much easier to read in direct sunlight.
Another issue we had with the last model was its clunky UI, and there’s not a whole host that differs here from the fact that performance has been improved thanks to a processor that Suunto claims is twice as fast as the last generation. This allows for much more maneuverability through widgets on the device.
While some sleep tracking often feels binary, requiring you to activate a specific mode (see the Apple Watch lineup), the Sonto did a great job of picking up on the occasional afternoon nap when I was feeling under the weather, as well as offering sleep stages and phase breakdowns.
Still, the elephant in the room is heart rate. Can Suunto fix the biggest problem with Race 1? As it happens, yes, yes, it can, offering similar results to those found on the Apple Watch Ultra 2, which we tested against the highly accurate Polar H10 heart rate monitor and find it the current gold standard for wrist-based heart rate measurement.
Not only that, but the Race 2 tracks heart rate variability while you sleep. As someone with a heart condition, which means overnight monitoring is especially important, this is a huge boon. Still, it only provides an average rather than ad hoc information about your HRV.
Scorecard
Description | Comments | Score |
|---|---|---|
Price | Great price on the low end, but the stainless steel version is a bit more expensive | 4 |
Design | Great, stylish design that is comfortable to wear all day | 4.5 |
Features | No music storage is a shame but everything else is great | 4.5 |
performance | Significant heart rate improvement | 4.5 |
How we tested Soto Race 2
When testing the Suunto Race 2, I took it on some very light exercises and rides around the local, rural area.
To test its GPS, I visited London to assess its accuracy amid large buildings and high signal noise, and wore it regularly during the day and night to judge heart rate and sleep tracking.
If you buy it…
If you don’t buy it…
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First review: October 2025
1 Comment
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