Coros is not a fitness watch marque that too many here will have come across before. But it recently launched into the Irish and UK market with a couple of interesting wearables focused squarely on those who take sports and fitness seriously.
ts flagship device is the Vertix, a very tough, very long-battery-life watch.
Both in its styling and its sensors, it’s clear that the Vertix’s main competitor is Garmin’s Fenix range (for reviews of which, see Independent.ie, especially the Fenix 6 Pro).
But unlike Garmin’s Fenix, Coros focuses purely on the athletic features. So there’s no smart payment facility, no apps and – crucially – no music controls.
Its main market is serious runners, endurance and adventure athletes and ambitious hikers, particularly alpine and high-altitude ones.
At the risk of coming across as a pretender, I am none of these things and did not put it through any such extreme environments or activities.
So while I can talk about how it has performed over two months’ wear, the limits to its athletic testing have been running, biking, walking, sleeping and a solitary swimming dip.
But that’s not to say that it hasn’t been pushed in other ways: I’ve wrung every last minute of battery life out of this on a few occasions to test one of its main boasts – power reserve. And on that score, I’ll say this for the Vertix; it is the longest-life advanced fitness wearable I’ve ever used.
It beats the next-best option, Garmin’s Fenix series, by at least a couple of days. I got a staggering 25 days out of it between charges more than once, and that was while wearing it night and day.
In standby mode, it goes to an unheard-of 45 days; in full GPS tracking mode, it’s a whopping 60 hours (or an even more impressive 150 hours if you switch to its less intensive GPS tracking mode).
While that’s a great feather for Coros to have in its cap, it’s obviously only one of a half a dozen metrics that someone in the market for such a device would consider. But I’ll get to those.
Let me first put in a word about the Vertix’s build quality. It’s about as tough as you’ll get from any wearable, using a titanium alloy and a coated, tough-as-nails sapphire display that lets you really knock it around without any real fear of damage.
Once again, I wasn’t abseiling or rock climbing, so it wasn’t constantly scraped off limestone or granite ridges; but if this sounds like your weekend routine, this watch is as close as the fitness wearable market comes to a heavy-duty damage-proof device.
For all that robustness, it’s not especially heavy, at 76g including the silicone band. That’s lighter than the Fenix 6 Pro, to which I’ll be comparing it a bit throughout this review.
It’s no larger than its main competition, either, at 47mm in diameter and about 13mm thick.
And it was pretty comfortable to wear, thanks partially to its nicely-finished, flexible silicone rubber strap; I wore it at night without any problem whatsoever.
As you might expect from a high-end fitness smartwatch, this has both GPS and Glonass for accuracy.
As you would also expect, it has a heart rate sensor and blood oxygen saturation sensor (yes, the same type that Apple based its entire upgrade cycle marketing on for last year’s Watch 6).
But for me, the Vertix’s biggest attraction – other than its almost neverending battery life – is its relative ease of use.
Instead of four or five buttons that occasionally confuse even seasoned, brand-loyal users, it has just two buttons and a clickable crown.
Two of the buttons are single-purpose tools – illumination (screen light) and a back button. The crown functions both by cycling through menu items (as you twist it) and as a selection button (by pressing it).
It’s hard to understate what an advantage this is for relatively new users. But I found this much, much easier to get to grips with than almost any other sports or fitness smartwatch I’ve ever tested. Even without looking up a how-to booklet or guide, you can get the hang of it pretty quickly.
This alone was a big factor in making me reluctant to take it off and switch back to a rival device. I dearly wish that other marques would look at what Coros has done and take a leaf out of their book.
I mentioned that I took a swim while wearing the Vertix. As with my lack of adventure hiking or ironman running, I’d be doing it a disservice if I simply said that it was fine for a Dollymount dip. In fact, this has a claimed waterproof depth of 150m. Indeed, Coros says that it’s the most waterproof GPS sports smartwatch you can get.
For hikers and mountaineers, it also has an altimeter and a compass, while joggers and runners will be heartened to know that it works fine with the likes of Strava.
Other small benefits include interchangeability with commonly available straps for rival smartwatches, especially Garmin’s Fenix series. While the Vertix isn’t exactly the type of smartwatch that lends itself to fashion bands, it’s still very handy knowing that you can buy a replacement strap on Amazon for a reasonably budget-level price.
As you might expect, a lot of the metrics are collated and analysed via Coros’s smartphone app, which is fairly easy to use.
Like Garmin’s high-end fitness smartwatches, this one has a short, awkward, charging cable. The advantage to this form factor is that it charges the battery a little quicker – from zero to full in about 45 minutes.
There’s only really one things I missed badly in using the Vertix – music.
It’s not just that the Vertix doesn’t have Garmin’s killer (and fairly unique) feature of being able to download Spotify tracks. It doesn’t let you control music at all. This means two things. First, you have to bring your phone with you, even on short runs, if you want to listen to music, podcasts or audio books.
Second, even when you do, you can’t pause or forward a track from your watch, or adjust the volume. You have to keep taking your phone out of your pocket (where you’ll probably then linger to see if you have any other alerts or messages).
For many, this won’t be a dealbreaker. But for the general fitness enthusiast who values their tunes, it’s a feature I’d hope that Coros would reconsider in the future.
Overall, though, this is an absolutely stellar sports and fitness wearable. Aside from the music element, it’s thoroughly recommended.
Reviewed: Coros Vertix smartwatch
Price: €599
Pros: best battery life of any fitness smartwatch
Cons: no music playback, no apps
