Review of the Suunto X9i

At 52mm by 16mm, all this is packed into a watch only slightly larger than the average Suunto. With integrated band and plastic case, the luxury gift is lightweight and comfortable to wear. It's noticeably smaller than some of its competition, and the addition of GPS has been done tactfully -- if you didn't recognize the watch, you wouldn't know it was a GPS.Suunto describes the X9i as a "wrist top computer", and they're not kidding. Plan on spending some quality time with the manual before hitting the trails.The GPS portion of the X9i is definitely the marquee feature, so let's dive into that first. Modes and features include:Find Home. Mark a position as "home", and this features easily gives you a vector back to it. Useful in a wide variety of settings, from hiking to flying and exploring.Track back. Similar to find home, but in this case, you're trying to follow your same route back.Activity mode. Tracks speed and distance.Time calibration. You can also use the GPS to set the gift for man' time for super-accurate timekeeping. Atomic watches, take notice!Navigation mode. Use waypoints and routes as downloaded from the computer to follow a route.Each time you use the GPS, you can have it log data into internal memory for later downloading. This is then displayed in either the Suunto Trek Manager software, or on Google Earth.The GPS, interestingly, cannot display raw latitude and longitude. View the Suunto X9i Photo GalleryIf you like your watches with long feature lists, have we got a gift for man for you! The Suunto X9i is a wrist-top computer, adding GPS to the usual laundry list of modern digital watch features. There's no question that the Suunto X9i is designed for the great outdoors.Let's get right down to features. The X9i packs in:GPS navigation with a 12-channel receiver.USB data and power inte***ce, with PC software and a free inte***ce to Google Earth.Altimeter.Barometer.Thermometer.Compass.Three alarms.Stopwatch.Dual time (with good multi-time zone support).Rechargeable Li-Ion battery, good for about 500 charge cycles.Bitmapped high-res display with electroluminescent backlight.Waterproof to 100m or about 330 feet (but see below for more on this).Tough resin/plastic case with scratch-resistant mineral crystal.Integrated plastic strap with metal teeth, vented for warmer climates.