The Suunto Race 2 looks like a battery beast for ultramarathoners

What you need to know

• The Suunto Race 2 trail running watch launches on August 27 with a 1.5-inch AMOLED display, dual-band GPS, and 16-day battery life.
• Key upgrades over the Race 1 include doubled display brightness with 60Hz refresh rate, a thinner design, and five extra hours of dual-band GPS.
• Suunto also announced its new Wing 2 bone conduction headphones with 12-hour battery life and richer audio.

The Suunto Race 2 has arrived as a new high-end running watch option for serious athletes who need the most possible battery life without the bulky design of a Garmin Instinct 3 or Coros Nomad.

Announced on Wednesday, the Race 2 tweaks the template of the original Suunto Race but adds a revamped LTPO AMOLED display that's smoother, brighter, and has smaller screen bezels to jump from 1.43 to 1.5 inches.

This new model also shrinks the thickness from 14.7mm to 13.9mm, so it won't jut out from your wrist as much during runs. And depending on whether you pay $100 extra for grade 5 titanium or get the 316L stainless steel option, the Race 2 weighs 4g or 8g less than its predecessor.

The Suunto Race 2 is rated to last 16 days with continuous HR, stress, and sleep data, or up to 55 hours with dual-band GNSS tracking. While most "normal" athletes would never need this level of tracking, it ensures the Race 2 can last for 200km trail running events or multi-day hiking excursions without ever needing to worry about charging it.

For comparison, many of the best running watches fall into the same two-week span for "normal" use, but an hour of dual-band GPS usually has twice the impact or more on battery life.

Like many of our favorites, the Suunto Race 2 will judge the Training Stress Score (TSS) for each workout on your body in order to calculate your cumulative training load; it then judges whether you're slacking, improving, or overtraining as an athlete. It also calculates your post-workout Recovery Score so you know how long to rest.

The Race 2 also supports "SuuntoPlus" apps that pair the watch with third-party running accessories and marathon training tools like TrainingPeaks. It also syncs with popular platforms like Strava, Adidas Running, MapMyRun, and Runkeeper.

We were impressed by some aspects of the original Suunto Race, but we're hoping that the Race 2 will do better for heart rate and GPS accuracy than the original. Other complaints, like the lack of native workout recommendations or contactless payments, weren't addressed on this new model.

The Suunto Race comes in All Black, Feather Gray, Coral Orange, or Wave Blue for the $499 stainless steel option, or Titanium Black and Trail for the $599 option.

Suunto also launched new Wing 2 bone conduction earbuds alongside the Race 2 for $179, with IP67 protection, 12-hour battery life with a 24-hour powerbank, dual mics with wind noise reduction up to 30 km/hour, and improved audio quality compared to the original Wings. They'll compete against other open-ear workout earbuds like the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 or Shokz OpenFit 2.