Coros Apex 2 smartwatch review

Coros’ Apex 2 is the brand’s GPS multisport smartwatch, with a respectable 17-day battery life, wrist-based heart-rate monitoring and a pulse oximeter. 

The brand says the smartwatch is designed with extreme conditions and rugged terrain in mind. Its key improvements over the original Apex are a more durable exterior, a redesigned GPS antenna and enhanced navigation, in addition to the aforementioned heart-rate monitoring and long battery life. 

Priced at £349 / $349 / €399 / AU$699, the smartwatch sits below its more expensive sibling, the Apex Pro 2, and the brand’s flagship Vertix 2 adventure smartwatch. 

In testing, I’ve found the Apex 2 to be very solid and it offers good competition in a crowded market, but some flaws prevent it from being one of the best cycling watches.

Coros Apex 2 specifications and details

The Apex 2 was originally launched in November 2022 and sports a 1.2in display with a 240x240 resolution. The dimensions of the watch are 43x42.8x12.8mm.  

The smartwatch sports a sapphire glass screen, protected by a ‘Grade 5 titanium alloy bezel’. Coros claims the sapphire glass stays virtually scratch-free, thanks to a new PVD (Physical Vapor Disposition) coating. 

The Apex 2 is claimed to work in temperatures from -30ºC to 50ºC and has a 5 ATM water-resistance rating. This means the watch can withstand pressure up to a depth of 50m.

You can expect 17 days of battery life, or 45 hours when using standard GPS mode (an improvement of 20 hours over the original Apex's 42mm). Coros claims the smartwatch will charge fully in less than two hours – I found this claim to be accurate, with the smartwatch charging fully from flat in 1hr 33mins. 

The smartwatch uses what Coros calls a ‘Touch Screen Always-On Memory LCD’, a somewhat paradoxical description because the watch is controlled mainly via buttons. 

There are three buttons to the right side of the display. The top button is used to turn on the backlight on the homescreen, while single-clicking the bottom is used to return to a previous menu. If you hold down the bottom button, that will take you to a wheel of options to access the settings, navigation and health features. 

The touch element is limited to scrolling up or down through screens, although you can select fields once you’re off the home screen. 

What Coros calls a ‘large digital dial’ sits in between two buttons. Coros has designed it to be big so you can control the watch with cycling gloves on, and you can twist it to scroll up or down screens. 

Pressing the button once takes you to a comprehensive list of sports you can record (including Bike, Indoor Bike and Triathlon for cycling). The menu also acts as a second option to access the settings. 

The Apex 2 features 8GB of storage, which Coros says is to support firmware updates, map files, fitness data and music support for future streaming devices. Stepping up to the Coros Apex 2 Pro (£449 / $449 / €499 / AU$769) dramatically increases the storage to 32GB. 

The Apex 2 can also connect to wireless headphones to play MP3 music and audiobook files. When the smartwatch launched, Coros said it wasn’t compatible with any music-streaming services. The brand says this is still the case and is continuing to work on securing a partnership. 

As you’d expect for a smartwatch costing £349 / $349 / €399 / AU$699, it can be paired with your phone via WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 so you can receive notifications on your wrist. 

The Apex 2 is available in black, coral or grey, the latter of which I’ve been testing. My watch came with a grey nylon band (there are eight colours to choose from, as well as a ‘Long’ option for bigger wrists). You can also opt for a silicone band. 

Coros claims the Apex 2 weighs 42g with the included nylon band – I weighed it at 44g. 

As well as the smartwatch body and strap, you get a charging cable, instructions, warranty info and setup guide in the box. 

Compared to the competition, the Apex 2 is well-priced and considering the vast array of features it has, it certainly undercuts Garmin’s Fenix 7 and Epix ranges, as well as the Polar Vantage 3, which all sport similar features. 

The Coros app 

The Apex 2 pairs with Coros’ own app, where you can see your daily step count, calories burnt and active minutes. Sleep and heart-rate data are also displayed. 

When you sync an activity, the app will give you a ‘Training Status’ – ‘Decreasing’, ‘Performance’, ‘Resuming’, ‘Maintaining’, ‘Optimized’ or ‘Excessive’ – as well as an indication of how many hours it will take for you to recover fully from your activity. 

This is essentially a light version of Garmin’s Body Battery feature – which combines your activities, heart rate, stress and sleep, among other factors, to give you a score out of 100 that informs you how much energy you have, and its recovery time predictor. 

It’s a system that genuinely works wonders and I’ve come to rely on it heavily over the years I’ve owned my Garmin Fenix 6. I’ve even found this feature can determine when you have a cold coming, because your starting percentage for the day slowly decreases. 

You can also see your past activities on the Coros app, as well as plan or import a .GPX route to follow on the device. 

Coros Apex 2 smartwatch performance

I tested the Apex 2 over a year for both hiking and cycling – the latter including road, gravel and mountain bike rides. 

I’ve worn it almost constantly day and night (except for charging) on my right wrist, alongside my aforementioned Garmin Fenix 6 on my left wrist as a means of comparison. 

Although the watch is designed for all manner of activities, which include running, climbing, swimming and rowing, this review is written in the context of cycling. 

The Apex 2 feels light on the wrist and is comfortable to wear, thanks to its svelte profile. It even fits comfortably under all but one of my preferred winter cycling gloves, which isn’t something I can say about my Fenix 6. 

While the nylon band showed some dirt after nine months, it has proven very comfortable to wear and durable during that time. 

The three-button interface is easy to use, although it took me a while to get used to the large dial, often mistaking the two upper and lower dials for scrolling upwards and downwards. 

Although the buttons are relatively small for pressing when wearing winter gloves, I appreciated the larger dial button – this came in useful when I forgot to resume a ride after a coffee stop while riding in a group. Rather than remove my glove and roll up the sleeve of my winter cycling jacket, I could give the dial a firm push with my left hand to resume the activity. 

The backlight works well and, at night, the backlight immediately and helpfully turns on when I flick my wrist to look at the watch. 

The charging cable the Apex 2 came with was a low point with a loose fit. I had to be careful not to touch the watch or cable when charging because it was very easy for the cable to become detached. 

Coros said it was aware of an issue with the charge cable sent with its media samples and sent me its also-compatible Keychain Watch Charger. While the fit was more snug, it was still easy for the cable to detach from the charge mechanism. 

Coros has since released an updated design, saying it shouldn’t be an issue for someone buying a watch today. 

Battery life 

Although I wasn’t able to test the claimed 17-day battery life (or 45 hours when in Standard GPS mode), the Apex 2 lasted (on a broad average) for a minimum of 14 days between charges, true to Coros’ word. 

Battery depletion would typically be around 5 per cent a day when not recording any activities.  

In November, I rode the Moonrakers and Sunseekers overnight audax. This was a 325km ride and the elapsed recording time was 17hrs 40mins – the battery depleted by 55 per cent. 

In short, the battery life is commendable.

GPS and recording accuracy 

Throughout testing, the smartwatch has taken a while to pick up a satellite signal, regardless of the locations I’ve started from (both rural and urban). 

Running late for a group ride, I’ve had to start riding and then the watch picks up the signal a couple of minutes later. This is quite annoying because I could be missing 1km from my ride data. 

The device has performed very well on the road, but for the first six months of testing I had issues with GPS drift off-road. Retrospectively analysing the rides on Strava revealed points of drift and in several cases this added as much as 5km to the total ride distance. 

For its part, Coros said the GPS accuracy for road and off-road activities should be identical. 

Since then, though, Coros has updated its firmware and I haven’t found much fault with the device’s off-road accuracy. 

Although the Apex 2 errs on the side of overreading distances, the notable drift I had seen is now fixed. 

Mapping and navigation  

The navigation is an area the Apex 2 loses marks on. 

To use maps, you’ll need to head to the Map Manager in the Coros app and download the area(s) you want to ride in. The app tells you how much of the watch’s available storage that will take. 

You can then either create a route on the Coros app (a feature it launched as of April 2023) or import routes into a collection on the app, such as from Strava. You can store a maximum of 10 routes at a time on the device. 

I found creating a route on the Coros app quite frustrating. It’s a simple ‘click for waypoints’ affair, but if the route the app suggests between taking the two points isn’t to your tastes, you’ll need to zoom in and add additional points to force it along your preferred route. 

This can be quite time-consuming when you’re planning a ride of 50 miles or more. 

Coros says it sources data for base layer maps from Mapbox, which many competitors use – it features on the Beeline Velo 2, for example. 

In one scenario where I tried to recreate a route in advance for a club ride, the route planning wouldn’t let me cross an A-road that was in the prescribed route, even when zooming in to shorten the distance between waypoints. 

The quality of the navigation when riding also leaves room for improvement. 

Depending on how you customise the watch screens, you can either view a map and keep an eye out for where you need to turn, or if you’re on any of the other data screens, an arrow will be displayed on the watch face with the direction you should be riding in. 

On the latter, I often found the direction the arrow was pointing in to be completely inaccurate, for example on a road that takes a sharp bend to the right, the arrow was pointing to the left. This is despite the compass being calibrated correctly. 

I found following routes much easier when solely viewing the mapping screen, but when you’re riding with others in a group and having to be mindful of cars or other road users, having to look at a small watch screen isn’t particularly safe or ideal. 

As a result, if mapping and navigation are at the top of your wish list, I wouldn’t recommend the Apex 2. 

Coros Apex 2 smartwatch bottom line

The Apex 2 has proven a useful and generally reliable companion over the last year. Its strengths are its excellent battery life, and robust and comfortable build quality. 

The watch isn’t up to standard yet with its mapping and navigation, though, but judging by the speed with which Coros has updated other flawed features, I’m hopeful the user experience will continue to improve. 

This renders the Coros Apex 2 a qualified purchase.