Couple of months ago I decided to look for a replacement for my 2-year-old TomTom Runner. It was a good watch and did its job just fine, but TomTom simply did not develop the whole platform/ecosystem beyond basic hardware and a bare bones web site to analyze workouts. At the same time, for the last 3-4 months I have begun to use swimming and road cycling as cross-training complements. Neither of those activities can be accurately measured with my old watch, so the decision was made I needed a newer, better watch.After that I spent nearly a month doing heavy research in the matter -- not exaggerating, I was spending 2-3/day reading reviews, comparing prices, reading forums, etc. After all that madness, I narrowed the field to the Ambit3 and Fenix3, which are head-to-head competitors, almost feature per feature.In the weeks leading to my purchase, however, it had become apparent that the Fenix3 had unresolved serious issues. Given there was literally zero response from Garmin and wasn't clear if the bug was firmware fixable or if it was a hardware flaw, I simply lost interest. I'm not one to drop a few Franklins in the hopes a developer will be able to fix a critical bug (which, as far as I know, they have not officially acknowledged).At any rate, once I had decided on the Ambit3, the decision became about which version (Peak or regular) and color (black, blue, etc.). After deliberating about it for a day or so, I decided on the Peak version.First impressions: the watch is huge! Definitely not subtle and quite substantial. I'm ~ 5'10'', 180lbs and it looks rather big on my wrist. At the same time you can tell it's built like a tank and could take an unreasonable amount of abuse with no issues :) That said, you can tell the designers at Suunto at least _tried_ to make that behemoth more presentable and easy to carry around. Gentle curves throughout, the watch itself arches to contour the round shape of a wrist and very comfortable and snug straps.The initial setup was super easy. A guided wizard-like steps and menus make it trivial to have your watch ready to go in about a minute.*** NOTE: BEFORE YOU TRY TO PAIR WITH YOUR PHONE, UPGRADE YOUR Ambit3's FIRMWARE VIA USB CABLE AND MOVESCOUT. IT WILL NOT PAIR CORRECTLY OTHERWISE ***This watch has an amazing level of customization and a ton of features you can tweak pretty much to your heart's desire, but you can only do most of that via the mobile app. As of this writing, they have yet to release the Android version of the companion app, so, if you own an Android device, you might want to hold on for a few weeks before forking the money on this watch. The iOS app itself looks good, and, again, is the main means of taking full advantage of your watch's features. The movescout website is fantastic, IMO. I've seen workouts in Training Peaks, Strava, MapMyFitness, etc. none of them are as clean and well presented as Movescout is. I'm very happy with it.The GPS tracking for running/cycling is really great and very accurate (tested in measured paths). I have not yet tried it in unmarked trails, so cannot comment on that capability. It supports any Bluetooth 4.0+ devices, my Sosche hear monitor, for instance paired immediately and w/o issues. Another nifty thing is the "smart-ish" watch capabilities. While paired with your phone, it will show notifications as they come in. This is such useful feature, at least for me. 95% of my runs and training are during the week and in or near the city, so it's great to be able to do that while at the same time see who's calling or texting or that email from work and you can make a decision whether it's important or urgent enough to stop and reply (SPOILER: it almost never is). Note that you can't reply back or control your music via the Ambit3 like a full-fledged smart watch can do. But just having the notification covers almost 100% of my use case, so +1 from me.There are also a plethora of "apps" in movescout you can "download" to your watch and if you are technologically inclined, you can even create one of your own.The temperature/thermometer is invariably ~ 10F higher than it should be. Haven't yet found a good way to calibrate that, but I'd say it's the only sore spot I have.The compass works great and since it's not GPS based can be reliably used at all times. Calibrating it is quite easy.The Altimeter/Baromoter is an interesting animal. It can be hard to calibrate if you aren't at sea level and with good weather to create a reference. You can use GPS assisted altitude, but that sorta defeats the purpose of having those sensors on board.Overall, I'm quite happy with my decision and I highly recommend it. My only warning would be not to expect to use it as your "every day" watch since as previously stated it's quite substantial.