COROS - APEX 2 Pro GPS Outdoor Watch - Black

Great product, with an easy to understand UI. Two thumbs way up!

The Coros Apex 2 Pro is the perfect companion for outdoor fitness enthusiasts who are ready for anything and value data, tracking features, and a lightweight extreme build quality. The 1.3" 260x260 64-color always-on LCD touchscreen sapphire display is effective and power efficient. Included for easy customization are 22mm quick-release watch straps. This means I can use my collection of 22mm watch straps to save more money and so can you! With 32 GB of internal storage, you can store a combo of 500 hours of activity or music to listen to offline using Bluetooth. The ultra-lightweight watch comes in under 54g, including the nylon band. To shed weight, grade 5 titanium alloy on the bezel and housing makes a big difference. We can brave the elements together in temps on-wrist ranging from -4°F to 122°F or -20°C to 50°C and water resistance down to 5 ATM or 164ft. Setup is easy. Just create a Coros account and charge your watch to full before first use. Follow the prompts in the Coros mobile app and the watch will be setup. The instruction manual is organized well if you know what you are looking for, but if you want to browse and learn in sections it doesn't work well. I need a PDF to reference anytime and offline. You can only get access to the manual online. The sapphire glass protects against ANYTHING but a diamond so keep moving. Inside, the inclusion of a new dual-frequency GPS chip enhances accuracy during navigation and tracking with support for GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and QZSS satellites so you are covered no matter where you go. With GPS, there are a slew of sensors to include: Optical Heart Rate Monitor [May not work over tattoos], Barometric Altimeter, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, 3D Compass, Optical Pulse Oximeter, and Electrocardiogram Sensor. I recommend getting a keychain charger if you are a true outdoor's person who doesn't want look for a cord. On-the-go, you will have your keys and can charge in your vehicle or battery bank on trails. A replacement cord is $20 so consider getting one of those too because of the proprietary connector. Buy the Coros Pod 2 for the analysis of run tests/form for those really looking nuanced data capture and performance. User Interface and Training Planning. The watch interface and mobile app complement each other and have tons of usability and features. My favorite part of this experience is the Coros route planning. You just draw on the map where you want to go, and it will give you turn-by-turn directions when you actually start running somewhere you haven't been. Get an idea of your course with distance and elevation changes to plan mentally and strategize. There are also many workouts and regimens you can use and customize to your needs within the Coros ecosystem. This alone is worth the price of admission and you get a watch to track your progress, essentially. There is a treasure trove of ways to get ready for anything you need. I love there are options to use as templates in the vast library of training. You can scan the QR code in the app to load it into your watch. You can add it to your library, and it will sync with your watch in the app. The dashboard and detailed breakdowns provide a plethora of analytics to digest for training. Charts and graphs are everywhere and graphically represent trends to keep you motivated and your journey progressing. Personal records are easily displayed so you can see where you stand at any time to push yourself to beat it. Screen & Battery Life The Apex 2 Pro has impressive battery life, boasting up to 24 days with regular use. That said, you can expect extended usage on this 47mm watch so don't forget where you put your cord! You don't have to look for a charger often, and when you do, it takes less than 2 hours for the watch to go from zero to full charge, returning over 2.5 weeks - that's EFFICIENCY! In my usage I chose to go full use of all tracking and sensors for the most data capturing possible to see if battery life would be good. I must say 10 days in, I'm at 52% which is impressive based on my testing. Every other smartwatch I own needs to be charged by midday 3, tops! I love the battery life and freedom provided while capturing data and Coros chose a large screen that sips power as a result. There is no OLED or bright screen you are used to on smartwatches. Remember, this is a fitness device you can use as a watch, not a smartwatch. It is terrible in bright light, and it is completely necessary to consider the black or white background in different lighting conditions. The backlight reminds me of an old Timex light before Indiglo came out. The backlight is too bright when it's dark, and it is too dark when it's bright and is not adjustable. You are stuck with the preset on and off. Touch controls are not intuitive and actually almost pointless with the need to still press the crown to select. You can move around in menus, but that is all. This is just another friendly reminder that this is not a smartwatch. It is a fitness device. Tracking GPS is amazing on this especially when activating dual frequency GPS around tall buildings and urban areas. Running and hiking have excellent tracking data available from altitude and distance, to stride length and average pace. Coros is offering anything you need from the other big players in the running watch game, but for a better price and added value. I have reservations about the accuracy of the sleep tracking, but overall, it seems to do a good job when compared to other smartwatches with sleep tracking I own. The start time is often off up to 40 minutes using a more widely used device I've trusted over the past few years. Heart rate and other sensors seem fairly accurate within 1-3 bpm of better FDA-approved gear. The interface is very simple and intuitive, with charts and graphs you are used to seeing. In my testing, sleep stats had inconsistencies in my tests, starting sleep and entering cycles. In the first 3 nights of testing, the results were interesting, to say the least, but further use proved it is better. The first day it was within 20 minutes of my previous tracker, the second day was off by 45 minutes when I actually went to sleep, and the third day it didn't even record my sleep. This alone disqualifies it as a sleep tracker and needs to be better tweaked. The sleep algorithm seems off when starting sleep. Target for Perfection Proprietary Connector. Not ever a fan of these because chargers are exclusive to the maker. You lose it, no charging for you! Offline PDF manual needed. Everything is currently online using a website. Touch Interface. The touch interface isn't intuitively. Specifically, when navigating things and you want to tap to select, you need to press the crown? Screen Nits and Control. Needs to be improved for night operation and have brighter day operation. Sleep Tracking. Tracking needs tuning as the algorithms seem off at times. Wrist positions seemed to trick it. Since it happened once, I will keep an eye on it. Music. Just use your phone instead of trying to get MP3s and gestures to work. It's really something more of a gimmick than the feature. App playlist/music from apps. No one is going to look for MP3s or rip old CDs. Where can you download new music MP3s legally without buying individual songs @ .99/ea? Screen Controls. We need control over brightness min and higher max values. It's too dark for outside depending on face, and too bright for night. It's all about the angle of view with this currently. This is the biggest handicap of this excellent watch, and possibly a deal breaker for many. Improve ASAP! Samsung Health Integration. Samsung and Coros need to figure this out I am sure, that's all. A workaround for integrating Samsung Health is use a 3rd party app supported by both Samsung Health and Coros. Integrate skin temp sensor - not a necessity but just missing if it wants to compete with other fitness watches coming out now. NFC Payment - add NFC to make this a daily driver. Some use their watches as payment so I will not take this unless I am strictly working out, limiting data capture to planned activity. In summary, if you prioritize battery life, the Coros Apex 2 Pro could be an excellent choice for your outdoor adventures. Coming from the market leader in running watches to Coros was an easy switch and I prefer route functionality and planning in Coros to the other offerings out there. The build is right, comfortable fit, and lightweight build, making this my go-to watch for training now. I hope to see improvements in screen controls and brightness to make this the perfect sub $500 fitness watch hands down.

We’re smart watch junkies and have collected a few of them over the last few years, when I saw Coros had a new “rugged” Apex 2 Pro out and I had to give it a try. Unboxing, first impression and Setup: The watch comes in a nicely logoed cubicle “watch” styled box and inside was the watch, charging cable, nylon strap “already attached” user guide and that’s pretty much it. The watch itself is around the same size as the Galaxy Watch6 Classic, it weighs a good bit less but is also a good bit thicker too. The watch has Titanium “black with this one” bezel and back with a plastic “glass filled” body. The buttons and crown are metal and the whole watch has a pretty substantial build feel to it. The nylon band that comes with it is our favorite band type and we’ve found to be the most comfortable of them all, “for us”. We have 3 other smart / sport watches we are comparing it to, the Galaxy Watch6 Classic, Galaxy Watch6 44mm, and a Garmin Venue 3. The Garmin wins the weight prize coming in at 37.5g, with the GW6 44 next at 44.6g then comes tithe Apex 2 Pro at 52.6 and the GW6 Classic at a whopping 84.5g. The weight difference isn’t as noticeable as it is with the GW6C but the thickness of the watch is as easily snags on clothing when trying to get into a pocket. I like the Sapphire crystal as that super hard compared to the glass options on the others “besides the GW6C”, but the PVD coating on the black titanium bezel is not very tough and it was easily damaged by just barely scuffing it against a tile surface so it’s going to show wear really fast. Setting up was easy enough as you just download the Coros app and follow the instruction to add the watch and setup your Coros account “if you don’t have one already”, and let the watch do its updates “ours had one and it took awhile to finish it”, after that you are up and running and ready to start recording stats. The charging cable is more like how Garmin does it and has a “snap” in 3 pin proprietary connector “don’t lose your cable” and the watch charges up in just under an hour if fully depleted. The phone app has plenty of options on how you want the watch to look, from watch faces to how everything behaves and frequency of data collected, there’s really a lot of stuff to tweak if you want the best performance. You can also adjust all the setting through the watch but it’s so much easier to do it on the app, “you can also do most from your computer using the Coros Windows app and connecting it to the PC with the charging cable”. Using: The Apex 2 can definitely record a ton of data, if you want and you can really fine tune it down into very fine points. I’m using this during my 3x weekly 1-2mile hikes, weight training and indoor exercise equipment. So far, all the data has been within just a few single digit percentage points except for my hike where I know the distance is exactly 1.24miles in one spot, the Apex keeps showing 1.17miles, the other watches I have all show 1.2 to 1.25 miles, with the Garmin maybe being the most accurate. Heart rate and O2 levels are with one point of each other and that could just be from refresh rate or having the watches on different wrists when testing “yes I wore 4 of them for some tests”. The screen itself is our biggest issue, it’s nowhere near as clear and vibrant as any of the other watches but we do understand that they use this type of screen to reduce power and give a lot better battery life “which it definitely does” and I see this as more of a data collection device that can run days with using the screen to view anything as secondary. I do have it set up to show notifications for emails, txts and calls, but you cannot make or receive calls on it at all “which I rarely do on the others anyway” mostly to tell the time and check weather and other stats. Now out in bright sunlight the screen is a different story, it’s more like liquid paper type screens and looks better the brighter the outside lighting is where the others do wash out more and are not as easy to see even at full brightness. At night using the backlight is “ok” it’s just enough to read the screen and see what you need “I don’t like looking through messages on it”. It's really nice that you can download offline maps and the watch can be a fully functioning GPS unit and outdoors the maps look pretty good “not as good as on a phone but very usable”, accuracy is good especially if you turn up the accuracy but that does impact battery life but still it’s a lot better than any of the others if you use all their functions too. I also like how you can adjust what you see on screen for each activity and you can really tweak the layout of each and every one, plus you can create your own activity if there isn’t already a premade one there. We’re a little confused as how the ECG works as even after running the health check and going through everything to see the ECG being taken, we cannot figure out where to view that item. The software on the watch “and app” are a little clunky if you compare them to the others but that’s an easy fix with updates and hopefully Coros will polish up the interface a bit. I’ve also been trying sleep tracking, and there’s a difference between all three brands that’s for sure, and really none of the numbers “or sleep type, deep, rem, etc.”, match up very well between them. So for that I’d stick to one and just do your averages over time as trying to mix it up between them for sleep tracking would “at least for us” give some wild out of sync numbers. Conclusion: The new Coros Apex 2 Pro is sort of a tossup for us, if you want a super rugged smart watch that can handle a lot of rugged outdoor activities, has phenomenal battery life and can record very detailed information about your workout then this may be the watch you are looking for. If you are wanting more of a smart watch that you will be reading the screen a lot, want to receive calls on and do more App based things then you may want to check with the other brands. This is really an excellent data collection device and has plenty of battery life where you can easily go camping for a few days and not have to worry about charging it. The battery life is nowhere near as good on any of the other watches we have “not even close comparing the Samsungs”. So, if you are really into outdoor activities, and want a rugged smart watch we think this new watch from Corso will be right up your alley.