‘The VERTIX 2 does everything it promises to, and if you’re planning to be out in the wild for 2-6 days without access to a socket, it just will not let you down.’ Get the best price on a Coros Vertix 2 from #walk1000miles gear partner Sportsshoes.com
A GPS smartwatch built to rival the Garmin Fenix Pro and 6X range – but with even longer-lasting battery power – the Coros VERTIX 2 is here to fight for the honour of recording your miles.
Tested by: Nick Hallissey, Deputy Editor, Country Walking
RRP: £599.99
Our rating: ****
US brand Coros launched the original VERTIX in 2019, signalling a bold intention to rival Garmin’s top-end fenix 6 range. Smashproof, submersible, beautifully designed and boasting super-quick GPS location, comprehensive health and fitness monitoring and easy sync to an intuitive app, it promised to do everything the posh Garmins could, for around the same price as the entry-level fenix 6 Pro – but with substantially longer battery life than any of the fenixes. You could (and I did) run the VERTIX with full daily GPS tracking for a week between charges. And if you’re not using GPS, it would run for over a month without juicing.
The trade-off (and Coros were quite upfront about this) was that it was first and foremost dedicated to outdoor activity, with ‘lifestyle’ functions definitely coming in second, whereas those clever fenix 6s will pretty much run your life for you: smoothly answering calls and texts, activating your camera, playing music, and linking to pretty much every app on your phone. The VERTIX would do some of that, but it wasn’t as vital to the package as the outdoor usefulness.
So the battleground for the premium GPS smartwatch looked pretty clear and simple. You knew what the options were, and could make up your mind accordingly, assuming you’d decided you really want a bells-and-whistles GPS smartwatch and not a simpler, cheaper, tracker.
And then, a few months ago, came an email from Coros about a new one.
The new model
I was slightly surprised. With an original that was so thoroughly decent, what had forced the need for a new version just a year and a half later? What was it promising? Was it going to go toe-to-toe with Garmin on those lifestyle functions as well? As it turns out, no. The main developments are…
Improved accuracy: it now finds a larger range of satellite networks including GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and Beidou, and can connect with up to five satellites simultaneously (most GPS watches can only connect to two or three). Coros say this means location shouldn’t be a problem even in deep forests, built-up cities or beside granite cliffs (which can interfere with less strong connections).
Faster processing: its new chipset makes it 20% faster than the original, say Coros.
Even longer battery life: up to 240 hours in Ultra Max mode, making it the longest-lasting GPS watch from one charge in the world.
And offline mapping. Basic topo mapping, accessible free, from the box.
These are all, on paper, good things. I’d only question how much of a day-to-difference they have made.
In the field
The basic review of the VERTIX 2 is very simple: it’s bloody good. It finds my location instantly, tracks my walks accurately, and sends pleasing little chirps and vibes when I hit my choice of milestones (miles, kilometres, landmark distances etc) - which you can set to your preference almost without limit.
The battery life is, quite simply, astounding.
It syncs almost instantly to the Coros app and the tracking data is spot-on. This is a definite improvement, as the original had a very occasional tendency to lose track of where I was, and add in a dead-straight line from loss of signal to reacquisition. This one just doesn’t do that, which is great.
And it counts cumulative accomplishments including steps and miles, meaning it’s perfect for logging your #walk1000miles total.
And while it’s the same price as the Garmin fenix 6 Pro, it has several features which only appear on the pricier, higher-spec fenixes, eg the 6X Pro Solar, which costs a whopping £850. So you’re getting good value for money, especially when it comes to that extraordinary battery life.
I’ve also no doubt about its sturdiness: I’ve been swimming in lakes and rivers with it, worn it in torrential downpours and taken it scrambling without damage or impairment. I’d like to test it in deep cold (Coros say it will survive down to -30°C), but Britain hasn’t provided that particular testing ground yet.
And of course, it will monitor more than just walks: it’s programmed to track runs, swims, cycling, ski-ing, circuit training, gym cardio and whatever else they think we might do.
But I’m not sure how much of a win the new mapping is. It’s absolutely basic, with no placenames. So it’ll show you roads and rivers, but with nothing to identify them by name, none of it is particularly helpful. Coros say this will happen in a future update.
By contrast, the Garmins come with preloaded mapping which does give placenames, and you can import more sophisticated mapping if you want to. (That said, I’m not even sure how many of us are using our watches for map-reading right now; even if you did, it would most likely be for instant location-checking, rather than full navigation.)
Another disadvantage against the Garmins is the lack of a desktop app: with Garmin you can plot routes on a nice, clear desktop interface and transfer them directly to your watch. You can transfer routes to the VERTIX 2 (via komoot, Strava etc) but if you like creating your own, you’ll need to do it on someone else’s app first. (Coros also day that Strava route syncing will be on offer from this week.)
It still isn’t as slick with all those lifestyle features (music, apps etc) as the fenix range. But to be honest, I can totally live with that. I have enough ‘lifestyle’ chasing me around on my phone; not sure I need it on my watch too, especially when the two devices are usually no more than a few inches away from each other. I have a feeling Coros understand that sentiment.
One final odd problem: no basic online user manual is available. Coros say this is deliberate because they believe the videos on their support site support.coros.com and YouTube are more helpful; that’s fair enough but I can’t be alone in wishing there was also a straightforward manual you could actually, you know, read.
The bottom line
The VERTIX 2 does everything it promises to, and if you’re planning to be out in the wild for 2-6 days without access to a socket, it just will not let you down.
It’s easy to use, a pleasure to wear (if huge, but we seem to expect that from our smartwatches now), and it inspires me to get out more with its fitness management algorithms. (That said, I hate the way smartwatches refer to all your activities as ‘training’ – going for a walk is NOT training – but that’s an issue across the whole market.)
In fact it offers so much, so technically, that it might be more than you need. A lot of its functions are clearly designed with climbers, runners, skiers and alpinists in mind. That’s fine, but then it would be nice to look at Coros’ range and find a simpler, cheaper version that just does the basics for walkers – and there you’ll struggle. Whereas Garmin and Fitbit offer products for every level of specialism and interest, Coros very much sing out to the elite athlete; that’s kind of a shame when they are so damn good at making products like this.
The biggest question, though, is how much better it is than the original VERTIX 1 (which you can now pick up for £539 or thereabouts). Yes, the improved GPS networking makes a difference because it has eliminated that occasional tendency to lose my track temporarily. But the speed and processing of the original was pretty much fine in the UK, and the new mapping function isn’t much help.
Perhaps that’s its biggest/only problem. It’s now one of the finest GPS smartwatches you can buy. The funny thing is, it already was.
• Get the best price on a Coros VERTIX 2 from #walk1000miles gear partner Sportsshoes.com
• Find out more at the Coros website
