COROS Apex 2 Pro Review (Don't Buy, Until You Watch This)
– I’ve been wearing the Apex 2 Pro for the past couple of weeks now and today I’m going to share my thoughts. We’ll cover the hardware and the overall design, the software, and the app user experience as well as the price and is it actually worth your money. Now when it comes to the design and durability, like the COROS watches just like Garmin’s are very durable, very strong. So I really appreciate that. It does have the little digital crown similar to the Apple Watch does, but for some reason it scrolls a lot slower. So you’ve
really got to like dial the dial to get across the menus and change things. I kind of wish it scrolled a little bit faster. The screen is very strong. I didn’t have any issues banging it up against things. It is a bit indented so it’s going to be more protected when you hit it up against things, like the outside will hit things before the screen does. I really appreciate that they give you this velcro strap that is good at absorbing water as well as drying relatively fast. I think it’s important for any kind of watch
that you have a strap that will dry quickly ’cause you don’t want it to leave any kind of moisture on your wrist. These velcro, easy to put
Ultra, they’re all kind of in the same category of how big they are on your wrist, what they look like. I would say this is probably the easiest one to put on hands down just ’cause of the velcro strap. I think out of all the watches I’ve tested, the app displays your route, your data kind of in the most beautiful, aesthetic way. I don’t know what it is, but just having that large visual map and then the data at the bottom, it just looks very clean and sexy and I really appreciate it, COROS, good job.
In terms of like brightness, it’s bright enough-ish to see outside. There is a backlight, but it can be kind of tough to see outside sometimes. Like you’re trying to do a social media photo where you’re taking a photo of your watch and how much you ran, like, it’s not going to look as cool. So that’s another thing to keep in mind. I would love to see a brighter screen, but then again COROS has hands down the best battery life out of any fitness tracking device, so that’s something to keep in mind, and that just comes
down to not having a crazy technology in their screen. Third party integration. So when it comes to Strava, I love that once you import the data into COROS Cloud, it’ll directly send to Strava so you don’t have to worry about any kind of issues there. It seems to always work. And they provide a ton of data on the watch, so if you want to get all that fancy advanced analytics, you’ll be able to see that inside your app. And from a fitness tracking perspective, they provide pretty much all the data that you really need to
get going. Apple Health integration, they don’t actually write as much data as Garmin does or even Apple Watch, but they do write most of your data to Apple Health and I think that’s really important just to have the basics written to Apple Health, right? I want to be able to read that information to other apps and just have a central hub where I can import all the data from my workouts. Next, fitness tracking. So when it comes to tracking your runs, like COROS is built for runners, I think that’s their primary focus, but they do
support all other kinds of workouts so that I really like. You can have swimming, hiking, biking, whatever it is, and they do have a heart rate monitor and a GPS, just like every other fitness tracking watch out there, and it’s very good. Like, I measured it up against the Apple Watch, the Garmin, and it seemed to be probably one of the best overall when it comes to outdoor GPS tracking, even in these crazy environments like New York City. In terms of distance and pacing, it’s good enough. I wouldn’t take all it’s numbers like as exactly
as it is, but it’s there to kind of give you a vague idea, a close enough idea of how well you’re doing, especially when you’re doing training that’s based on pace and time. I’ve found that the track mode was actually really good. It seemed to be a little bit better than Garmin. It was like it really locked into the track. So I really appreciate that, and I love having buttons to start stop. It makes it super seamless. There’s only like two or three buttons, so it’s not as many buttons as Garmin which just makes it
learning the user experience how to start using the watch a bit easier if you haven’t used the type of device. Just like Garmin, they provide race predictions, so you can kind of see your 5k, your half marathon, and take all this information to the grain of salt. I’ve worn the Garmin of the COROS like back-to-back together and they’ll give me slightly different numbers. So just use it as a thing to be like, oh it’s kind of cool, it’s kind of interesting, but it’s not going to be a 100% accurate. When it comes to running new
routes. like for fitness tracking, I really love that you can actually draw in the COROS app, like, hey I want to run this route, and you can draw the route you want to go and it’ll create a map for you and then it’ll give you navigation on the COROS watch, as long as your phone and watch are near each other. So I love that whole like draw to navigate if you’re exploring a new city, if you want to explore a new area in your own city, it’s a great way to just like be like, okay,
I want to go this way, and have the watch navigate you so you don’t have to pull out your phone and always be looking at like, where am I going? So I think out of any smart fitness tracking device, they probably do it the best out of anyone else. So everyone else copy COROS. Let the competition begin. The heart rate, just like any kind of watch, it can be iffy depending on your skin color, skin type tattoos, anything else on your wrist, how tight you wear the watch, how big your wrist is. So those are
all things to keep in mind. It does connect to Bluetooth heart rate monitors, so if I want to do heart rate based training, I highly recommend doing that. Just buy like the Polar H10, that’s the most accurate heart rate strap that I use on my chest. Now health and wellness features, COROS doesn’t provide as many of these like kind of recovery and special advanced data points as Garmin does, and I think that’s okay. These are not necessary features. I don’t think that they’re extremely valuable. I think too many people are getting obsessed with like these
recovery metrics. Like the first thing to go off is how you feel and a lot of people are not really diving into that, but this data can be helpful to better understand how you feel. But they do provide like VO2 max and a couple of these other fitness variables, which I think can be important to kind of get a vague idea of where you might be at. But I think the best way is going to a lab and get this data measured. So COROS does have a sleep tracking, which is nice. Once again like if
you are going to be fine with wearing a watch on your wrist, then you can get that data. But I found it all to kind of be a little bit all over the place. So just taking all the grain of salt, it is there. If you want to do sleep tracking, go check out my Aura and WHOOP Strap reviews. It is another device you need to wear, but honestly do you really need to track your sleep? Probably not. Get an idea of what helps your sleep and what doesn’t, and then just stop wearing that device.
Now smart watch features. So there are some interesting smart watch features that COROS provides that no other watch does except for maybe Apple Watch, but it’s the remote camera feature. So I can control a camera remotely on the COROS watch like a GoPro or anything like that, and I think that’s really cool. If you do run a lot with a device and you want to be able to start, stop your recording from like a distance, that can be actually valuable. Very niche audience though, let’s be honest. Calls, messages, notifications. If your phone’s nearby, you can
get notifications, you can’t reply. So it was just there. I don’t know, I think we have too many notifications in this world. You probably don’t need this on, but it’s there for emergencies, maybe? Payments, there are no payment support on COROS. I would love to see that. You know, just like a basic payment system so I can run without my phone, be able to pay for things when I’m out and about. Then music control. You can’t control music on the COROS from your phone. Once again, just similar to Garmin, it’s just not the most ideal
experience. I think it’s much easier to just to pull your phone out of your pocket and change the music, pick the playlist, but it’s there if you like really, really want to use it. I think when there’s too much friction to a specific experience, you’re more likely not to use that, but it’s there. When it comes to offline music, let’s say if you’re running without your phone, it’s unusable. I’m sorry, but like downloading MP3s, like what is an MP3? I don’t even remember anymore. What am I going to use, Limewire? I should just be able
to download from Spotify or some kind of music provider, YouTube, whatever it is. Like having to go in and actually put the files on the watch is very highly unlikely going to happen, but it’s there if you want to use it. Battery life and charging. COROS hands down has the best battery life out of any fitness tracker. Like I can go weeks without charging this device. So if you’re someone who just doesn’t want to deal with charging it, great, this is probably the best device out there for that. In terms of charging experience, it’s very
similar to Garmin. You’ve got to plug it at the bottom. It’s like not ideal. I’d love to see Qi charging and if you’re traveling, like if your friends don’t have the charger, it can get a little complicated, but it works. If I don’t have charge it often, then that’s good. I can go on a trip and travel for weeks, and not have to worry about the battery. Now when it comes to price, it is $450. I think they decreased the price actually, it used to be like 500. So it’s kind of nice that they’re actually
making their products cheaper. I really appreciate that. It is definitely one of their top tier watches. They do have a Pace , which is 200 bucks, and that’s probably like a much cheaper watch that I highly recommend if you’re trying to save money just get the data that you need. The links are all below for these. Or even just use your phone, like you don’t really need a watch. A watch just makes it easier to start and stop your workouts. If you’re really serious, you’re consistently training for something and you feel limited by your phone,
that’s when you upgrade to a watch. Okay, final thoughts. Who should buy this? I think if you’re someone who’s training for a specific event and you will consistently be training for future events after that, then this is a great watch. But if you want to save money, get the $200 Pace 2 Pro. If you’re not sure if you’re going to wear the watch after you’re done training for that event, then it might not be worth buying a brand new, high tier, expensive watch, unless you just have money and want to make it rain. ‘Cause I
know most people will buy the watch, they’ll use it to train for an event, and then they’ll stop wearing it. So that’s just something to keep in mind. If you do plan to buy one of these, use the links down below. It really helps support the channel. It’s at no cost to you. And since you enjoyed this video, go watch my video where I compare the top four running watches, it’ll be linked right here. Also, make sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram @ShervinShares. I appreciate you and love you. Thanks, bye.
