Coros Pace 2/Apex Pro Review

The Unflinching Athlete’s Choice: A Coros Pace 2 & Apex Pro Deep Dive

In a market long dominated by the duopoly of Garmin and Suunto, Coros has carved out a significant niche with an almost belligerent focus on one thing: athletic performance. The brand’s lineup, epitomized by the value-king Pace 2 and the rugged Apex Pro, eschews the “smartwatch-first” philosophy for a spartan, data-driven approach. This isn’t a watch for answering emails on your wrist; it’s a dedicated training partner engineered to track, analyze, and outlast, making it a compelling proposition for athletes who demand substance over style.

Design: Function Over Form

Picking up a Coros watch, the first thing you notice is the weight—or lack thereof. The Pace 2, at a featherlight 29 grams with its nylon band, is practically unnoticeable on the wrist, a deliberate choice to eliminate distractions during a run. Its all-polymer construction is unapologetically utilitarian, prioritizing performance over premium feel. The Apex Pro steps up the materials game with a titanium alloy bezel and a sapphire glass screen, offering the durability required for trail running and mountaineering without a significant weight penalty.

Central to the user experience on both models is the Digital Dial. This oversized, rotating crown is Coros’s answer to the multi-button confusion of its rivals. It allows for effortless scrolling through data screens mid-activity, even with sweaty hands or thick gloves. While it takes a short period of adjustment, the dial-and-button combination quickly becomes a more intuitive and efficient control scheme than anything else on the market.

Performance and Battery: The Unbeatable Core

If Coros has a killer feature, it is unequivocally battery life. The numbers are, frankly, category-defining. The Pace 2 boasts up to 30 hours of full GPS tracking and 20 days of regular use, while the Apex Pro extends that to 40 hours. In real-world testing, these claims aren’t just marketing fluff; they hold up. For marathoners and ultra-endurance athletes, this means completing an entire race without a flicker of battery anxiety. For the rest of us, it means charging the device once or twice a month, not twice a week.

This endurance doesn’t come at the cost of accuracy. GPS acquisition is rapid, locking on within seconds, and tracking is consistently precise, thanks in part to Coros’s proprietary algorithms. The addition of native wrist-based running power—a feature that often requires a separate, expensive pod on other platforms—is a massive value-add, providing runners with a crucial metric for gauging effort. While the optical heart rate sensor is solid for steady-state efforts, like all wrist-based sensors, it can struggle with high-intensity intervals; pairing an external chest strap remains the gold standard for absolute precision.

Software and Ecosystem: All Signal, No Noise

The Coros app and watch interface reflect the hardware’s focused philosophy. The experience is clean, fast, and packed with meaningful data without being overwhelming. Post-workout, the app provides a deep dive into metrics via the EvoLab suite, calculating everything from your VO2 Max and lactate threshold to your overall training load and fatigue levels. It presents this complex information in a digestible format, helping you train smarter and avoid overtraining.

However, this streamlined approach is also where the primary trade-offs appear. If you’re looking for on-board music storage, contactless payments, or a third-party app store, you must look elsewhere. Coros has deliberately omitted these features to maximize battery and focus the device on its core purpose. Navigation is another area of divergence; the Pace 2 offers only basic breadcrumb trail navigation, while the Apex Pro provides more robust course-following, though it still falls short of the full topographical mapping found on top-tier Garmin Fenix models.

The Final Verdict

Coros has successfully built a tool, not a toy. Its watches are for the athlete who views a GPS watch as essential training equipment rather than a lifestyle accessory. The choice between the Pace 2 and Apex Pro comes down to your specific needs and budget.

The Coros Pace 2 is arguably the best value performance watch ever made. For under $200, it delivers features, accuracy, and battery life that challenge devices costing more than double. It is the perfect choice for road runners, from dedicated amateurs to elite marathoners, who need a reliable, no-nonsense data-capturing machine.

The Coros Apex Pro is for the multisport adventurer and ultra-runner. It takes the core DNA of the Pace 2 and wraps it in a bombproof chassis, adding enhanced navigation, a blood oxygen sensor, and even longer battery life to withstand the harshest conditions. It’s a specialized instrument for those pushing their limits in the mountains and on the trails. If your priority is pure performance data and an unwavering battery, the Coros ecosystem is not just a viable alternative—it’s the superior choice.

Where to Buy:

Check it out on Amazon