You’re probably here either because you want to purchase your first ever GPS watch or you want you’re looking to replace or upgrade the watch you’ve been using. And the question you’ve come here with is likely going to be: is this watch any good? We all lead busy lives so I’ll give the answer right away. Yes, this is a good watch. Stick with me here and I’ll explain what’s good, what’s not so good and my main impressions of it following testing.
The Design
The Apex 2 Pro weighs a lightweight 66g and is 14mm thick. It’s waterproof to 15 metres. It doesn’t feel as chunky or heavy as other similar leading watches like the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar or the Suunto Vertical. Perhaps what’s most notable about its design is the stretchy watch strap. This allows you to get a precise, comfortable fit and, from my experience, it dries quickly. I’m a little concerned about how this will age over time, especially given the propensity of synthetic fabrics to get a bit smelly, but it is at least replaceable. And if the stretchy strap isn’t your thing, you can also buy a conventional replacement from Coros.
The screen is made from a super tough sapphire glass. I’ve been pretty confident that this is going to be hard to scratch. The bezel is a grade 5 Titanium Alloy. The screen is pretty clear at night and day time, with a dedicated backlight button.
That backlight button forms one of three on the watch. The main one is a scroll wheel which doubles up as the main start/stop button. This is smooth to use and seems to have just the right sensitivity. The third button, the bottom one, brings up your main menu.
All in all, I found this system very easy to use and I think the user interface is pretty clean and intuitive.
Who’s Going to Benefit From It?
With activity recording and tracking for a whole host of different activities, including running, cycling, swimming, windsurfing, triathlon, climbing and plenty more, the Coros Apex 2 Pro casts the net wide, so essentially everyone who likes getting activity in some way is going to find this watch useful. From our experience with it, we’d say the audience it really suits to a tee are runners, hikers and cyclists who want something to be able to track their fitness and training and to navigate with as well. It’ll provide them with pretty much all of the features people expect from a high spec GPS watch these days, including heart rate monitoring, in-depth fitness and sleep tracking (including blood oxygen level checks) and in-built training plans.
“The most striking thing about the Coros Apex 2 Pro is its battery life.”
Forgetting all that, if you’re a hiker who doesn’t care about performance and data tracking, it might be a worthwhile investment for its navigational functions alone.
Battery Life
I’d say the most striking thing about the Coros Apex 2 Pro is its battery life. Coros say that you can get as much as 30 days of regular use from this per battery charge. That’s not with full GPS functions on the go, however. Still, with GPS enabled, you’ll still get an impressive 75 hours of use. I initially turned this watch on when I first got it then went away for a fortnight, leaving the watch in a draw. When I came back, I was amazed to find it still with plenty of juice. Since then, I’ve been using it for various trail runs and hikes and have found each trip only reduces the battery by single digits.
