COROS - APEX 2 Pro GPS Outdoor Watch - Gray

THE BREAKDOWN: If you are into watches and you’re an outdoors person this watch is almost everything you could want and then some. This watch came packaged in a small cube and had a charger cable, product manual and the watchband was already attached. Mine actually 80% battery life already when I first turned it on. Setting up the watch was pretty easy. You just download the Coros app and follow the instructions and add the watch to your Coros account or create one if you do not already have one. After that you just wait a few minutes for the watch to update itself to the latest version of the software. Also, the phone application had plenty of faces to choose from and the data and how you wanted it to look and collect. You will just have to go through them all and experiment for yourself. The watch itself is very rugged. It has a sapphire touch screen that is 1.3 “with a grade 5 titanium alloy bezel and it even has a glove-compatible lard digital dial. This watch is very temperature resistant and water resistant. It can operate in temperatures from -20C to 50C and water resistant to 5 ATM. I do really enjoy the dial and find it easy to use to navigate through the menus. The battery life is really amazing with 66 hours of full GPS or 24 days of daily use. I only own one other watch that has better battery life than the COROS APEX PRO 2 and that is the Garmin Enduro 2. The GPS is amazing on the watch and doesn’t take long to lock on either. It has the GNSS chipset and receives signals from all five major satellite systems and has dual frequency support. Some of the safety features of the watch are storm alerts, altitude mode, nutrition alert, sun movements and night mode. The optical sensors seems to do a good job tracking heart rate. It also monitors sleep quality, deep, light and REM. It gives heart rate variability. You can also check your blood oxygen levels. Music storage is still limited to Mp3 which is very surprising with today’s plethora of streaming music. The map navigation is still limited to GPX route and does not give turn-by-turn. There is no ANT+ and Bluetooth is the only way you can connect external sensors. I did several short and long runs using this watch and it performed amazingly. The tracking via GPS and heart rate were right on target with my other watches that I used simultaneously. PRO’s: - Excellent battery life - Sleek design - Accurate GPS and heart rate monitor - Easy to use Coros app CON’s: - No ANT+ - Scroll wheel requires lock - No streaming music - No turn by turn navigation SUMMARY: Overall, this product worked as intended, and I would recommend this to a friend if they are in the market for an outdoor watch.

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

The Coros Apex 2 Pro is a great outdoor/sports watch but it does have a few quirks. The Apex 2 Pro has a plethora of choices when it comes to exercises and the choices you have for third party software. If you are a serious athlete or outdoors person that can benefit from dual satellite chip technology this watch could be great for you. The biggest thing that bothers me is the screen. Coming from another big-name smartwatch with an AMOLED screen the screen on the Coros along with the lack of brightness leaves a lot to be desired. However, one thing I do like which correlates with the dimmer screen is the long battery life. If I am out camping for a few days I would much rather have this watch because the battery last a long time and the satellite dual chips are great for the outdoors. It is kind of a catch-22 situation I just wish Coros would let us decide how bright we want the screen. The Apex 2 Pro has a lot of settings as well so it can take a while to learn the interface. Once you do though its great in that aspect and I love all of the different choices for everything on this watch. I am actually still mastering the interface and phone app. Another thing I really like is the build of this watch and the appearance. It is also very comfortable and while I did not think I would like the band I really love it. Still can not believe how comfortable it is. Another thing I feel like could be improved is the navigation interface of the watch and the app software but mostly the watch. I feel like the bottom button should always be the back button to exit out of thing but with some things I have to push the main button and the top one only does screen brightening momentarily. I have also not seen any adjustments for how long the screen stays brighter. I really do see where this watch fits in for me because it is different than my other watch. I just wish there were more watch faces and the ability to adjust the brightness mainly. They could do some polishing on it and give us a little more flexibility with the screen and I think people would be happier with it.