Verdict
The Coros Pace Pro is a fine AMOLED multisports watch debut from Coros and a great option to grab if you want something that sits in between a beginner and more advanced multisports watch in terms of user friendliness and features, and also doesn’t scrimp on battery life.
Pros
- Great features for the price
- Zippy software
- Good battery life in always-on display mode
Cons
- Training insights still need better integration
- More expensive than the pace 3
- Not the best smartwatch and sports watch mash-up available
-
Free offline maps:Ideal for hikers and marathon runners -
32GB of storage:Store MP3 files for offline music playback -
Up to 20 days battery life:Last for over two weeks on a single charge
Introduction
The Coros Pace Pro is Coros’ first AMOLED multisports watch, joining fellow sports watch makers Garmin, Polar and Suunto in offering a sports watch that feels a bit more smartwatch.
Along with a colour screen the Pace Pro includes free offline maps, dual-frequency GPS to boost outdoor tracking accuracy and promises to offer a boost in performance and battery life over the excellent Coros Pace 3.
The Pace Pro sees a jump in price from the Coros Pace 3, putting it now firmly in mid-range sports watch territory, competing with the likes of the Polar Vantage M3, Garmin Forerunner 265 and smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 10.
On paper, it’s a big upgrade on the Pace 3 and could be a route to a great multisports watch that matches pricier wearables for features and performance.
Design and screen
- AMOLED display
- Choice of silicone or nylon straps
- Waterproof up to 50 metres
While the Pace Pro has Pace in the name, it’s a slightly different proposition to wear compared to the previous Pace watches that Coros has launched. For starters, it’s a fair bit bigger than the Pace 3 with its 46mm case also being a thicker one at 12.25mm. It’s also made from a relatively sleek, polymer case that comes in black, blue (pictured) and grey shades.
You’ve got the option of grabbing it with either a 22mm silicone or nylon strap, with the former adding more weight. I’ve had the silicone strap to wear and while generally comfortable albeit quite snug-fitting, the strap length felt a bit long, which meant the strap tucked out at the end.
Like other Coros watches, there’s a rotating dial button to wake up the display, unlock and lock the screen and get you quickly into the workout tracking screen. There’s a button below the crown that’s grown just like the case has compared to the Pace 3 to make it a better fit and gives you a shortcut to the watch settings menu.
Then we get to the screen, which is a 1.3-inch, 416 x 416 resolution AMOLED touchscreen display that matches the pricier Coros Apex 2 Pro for screen size, but features mineral glass as opposed to sapphire glass to protect against scratches. Like other Coros watches with touchscreen displays, you are able to disable that touchscreen support.
All the hallmarks of a great AMOLED are here. The colours are great, you’ve got a maximum brightness setting of 1,500 nits, which means it’s not one you struggle to see in more challenging lighting conditions and while Coros uses a haptic feedback-style screen, it’s ideal for getting around menus and screens. I did find I needed to turn off the vibrations when wearing it under a long sleeve top as it had a habit of being activated on the move.
Flip the watch around and you’ll spy the optical sensor setup to track heart rate and blood oxygen levels. You’ll also find the proprietary charging port that, despite looking identical to the one used on the other Coros watches, is actually a slightly different size, which means Coros’ typically universal cable won’t actually fit.
Coros has also introduced a new charger, which is a far more portable one than its usual wired option and lets you clip it onto a set of keys, requiring a USB-C charging cable to power it up. Coros doesn’t include that cable in the box however so it’s reliant on you already having one handy.
Software and smartwatch features
- Works with Android and iOS
- 32GB of storage
- Performance boost over Pace 3
With the addition of an AMOLED screen Coros has clearly made some software and performance tweaks to make sure things run smoothly and are a good match for that more power-hungry display.
While getting around the Pace Pro is very similar to other Coros watches, the user interface and icons in particular have grown in size and have a bolder overall look on that AMOLED screen. There’s a very Garmin feel in terms of where things live, but at the same time it’s still very much Coros in presentation. It’s the type of simplicity in approach that I very much appreciate.
As a smartwatch, Coros offers somewhere to view your notifications, control your phone’s camera, set timers and even record timed naps. There’s an always useful Find My Phone mode in place too. Coros includes a built-in music player that ramps storage up from 4GB storage on the Pace 3 to 32GB, giving you significantly more space to play with. Getting audio on is a drag and drop affair via a computer and doesn’t support storing audio from music streaming services like Spotify (something that you can get with Garmin).
While you’re not getting apps, payments or a more fully-fledged smartwatch in general, features like notification and music support work fine, though it’s a shame Coros hasn’t sought to add controls for music playback on a phone once again.
The Coros companion app is built in a similar vein to the watch software with a dashboard to check in on progress, a tab to check out workout history and dedicated screen to tinker with watch settings. You’ve also got a rich array of third party apps you can share data with including Strava, TrainingPeaks, Komoot, Apple Health and Nike Run Club. I’ve used it synced with Strava and it fires over that data in a speedy fashion once the two apps are linked.
The Pace Pro absolutely doesn’t give you the best smartwatch experience you’ll find on a sports watch, but it works well enough right now with scope for things to get better as Coros typically does a good job of firing out regular updates to improve its watches.
Fitness tracking
- Free offline maps
- Dual-frequency GPS
- ECG sensor included
The Coros Pace Pro actually has more in common with the Coros Apex 2 Pro than the Pace 3 in terms of what you can expect in tracking features and smarts.
Core tracking is reserved for running, cycling, swimming (pool and open water) with activities like skiing, strength training, hiking, triathlons and indoor rowers among the other sports covered. It includes Coros’ dual-frequency GPS to let the watch communicate with the key satellite systems over multiple frequency bands to boost tracking accuracy for activities like runs, rides and hikes.
You’re also getting the best that Coros has to offer in training metrics and analysis including the ability to build interval workouts, follow training plans and make use of its Evolab suite of insights, which provides data built around guiding you with your recovery and training.
From a pure sports tracking point of view, I’ve found the Coros Pace Pro well up to the task. I’ve used it for outdoor and treadmill runs, pool swims, indoor rowing sessions and general fitness workouts. The dual-frequency GPS performed well alongside other dual-frequency watches I tested it against and GPS tracks looked pretty good overall. It performed well for pool swims for metrics like distance and pace, and it was a similar story for indoor rows.
Heart rate tracking wasn’t as spotless for me. In general, day-to-day tracking was fine and for steady paced workouts it largely matched to a heart rate monitor chest strap. During more high intensity tests, I got average heart rate readings that were 20 BPM lower than a heart rate monitor chest strap. Thankfully you can pair external heart rate sensors to it and that’s what I’d always do if relying on heart rate data for workouts on any watch. Coros does also include an ECG sensor here to perform a wellness check and isn’t certified to track serious heart health disorders, but those on the spot readings seemed absolutely fine and in largely in line with readings from other ECG-packing smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 10.
Coros also includes topographical and landscape maps, which you need to download first via the Coros smartphone app and then sync over to the watch. That mapping is supported by navigation features like a useful ‘back to start’ mode and setting checkpoints. You can also upload routes to make use of the turn-by-turn navigation support. Viewing maps works well with a few viewing styles at your disposal. What’s most noticeable when using maps is how quickly it refreshes those maps as you scroll to different sections of it. This is quite a noticeable difference in the map viewing experience compared to rival watches and even Coros’ own.
As a training tool, I think it’s a mixed bag for Coros here. There’s some good support here, like the ease of how you can build interval training workouts and being able to glance at realistic race predictions or your running fitness rating. The sleep tracking, while not the most detailed, did seem at least to be reliable when compared to the sleep tracking on a smart ring and an accompanying Polar watch which I’ve come to know delivers good sleep data.
I think much like Polar and Suunto, Coros could take a leaf out of Garmin’s (and maybe even Apple’s) book in presenting some of those metrics and insights at times where it’s more glanceable and easy to absorb them instead of digging around to find the good stuff. It’s definitely more of a presentation gripe as opposed to the lack of training features and metrics available.
Battery life
- Up to 20 days smartwatch battery life
- Six days battery life with always-on display mode
- Up to 31 hours in best GPS accuracy mode
One of the standout qualities of Coros watches has been battery life, particularly standby battery performance and those times when you’re not tracking workouts. Coros manages to keep things working pretty efficiently on the Pace Pro to make sure you get up towards the promised battery numbers.
Those numbers for daily use range from 20 days to six days, with the latter tied to keeping the screen on at all times. I’d say those daily numbers are accurate based on my testing. Especially when the screen is on 24/7. I found I could get 5-6 days out of the Pace Pro depending on how regularly you’re using tracking features. Disable the always-on screen mode and it can comfortably get through a week. It’s a really good showing.
When it comes to tracking, the Pace Pro can hit anywhere from 10-38 hours based on how accurate you want that GPS tracking to be. In that best accuracy mode the battery hits 38 hours (or 21 hours with the always-on display mode). Those numbers are pretty much in keeping with similarly priced multisports watches. For an hour-long outdoor workout in the best GPS mode with the screen set to always-on, the battery drop was 4%.
Even with that AMOLED display, the battery performance here was good. Obviously not as good as non-AMOLED Coros watches, but it’s still very respectable all the same and I never felt shortchanged.
When it comes to charging it, when you hit 0%, it’s going to take a couple of hours to get back up to a full battery. As mentioned, you do have a much smaller charger to use than other Coros watches, which is great from a portability point of view but also means it can be a lot easier to misplace too.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
Buy if you want a solid-performing AMOLED multisports watch:
The Coros Pace Pro offers great features, performance and battery for a very likeable price.
Don’t buy if you want the best smartwatch and sports watch combined:
While the AMOLED display helps to make the Pace Pro’s smartwatch more usable, it doesn’t match what rival watches from Garmin and Apple offer as an overall package.
Final Thoughts
The Coros Pace Pro is a welcome addition to the Coros family and while it’s not as dinky or affordable as the very likeable Coros Pace 3, that extra spend gets you quite a lot. If you’re in the market for an AMOLED sports watch that prioritises fitness tracking above smart features, and offers good battery life too, then this is one of the best you can buy right now. Otherwise, for a solid mix of the two, the Garmin Forerunner 265 and the Apple Watch Series 10 are your best bet.
How we test
We thoroughly test every smartwatch we review. We use industry standard testing to compare features properly and we use the watch as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Worn as our main tracker during the testing period
Heart rate data compared against dedicated heart rate devices
FAQs
The biggest differences between the Coros Pace Pro and the Pace 3 are that the Pace Pro is bigger, has an AMOLED colour screen and offers features like topographical maps, an ECG sensor, more storage and a performance boost.
Yes, the Coros Pace Pro does include an ECG sensor, which is built into the rotating dial button. It can be used to carry out a general wellness check to help assess your recovery needs and fitness levels.
Verdict
The Coros Pace Pro is a fine AMOLED multisports watch debut from Coros and a great option to grab if you want something that sits in between a beginner and more advanced multisports watch in terms of user friendliness and features, and also doesn’t scrimp on battery life.
Pros
- Great features for the price
- Zippy software
- Good battery life in always-on display mode
Cons
- Training insights still need better integration
- More expensive than the pace 3
- Not the best smartwatch and sports watch mash-up available
-
Free offline maps:Ideal for hikers and marathon runners -
32GB of storage:Store MP3 files for offline music playback -
Up to 20 days battery life:Last for over two weeks on a single charge
Introduction
The Coros Pace Pro is Coros’ first AMOLED multisports watch, joining fellow sports watch makers Garmin, Polar and Suunto in offering a sports watch that feels a bit more smartwatch.
Along with a colour screen the Pace Pro includes free offline maps, dual-frequency GPS to boost outdoor tracking accuracy and promises to offer a boost in performance and battery life over the excellent Coros Pace 3.
The Pace Pro sees a jump in price from the Coros Pace 3, putting it now firmly in mid-range sports watch territory, competing with the likes of the Polar Vantage M3, Garmin Forerunner 265 and smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 10.
On paper, it’s a big upgrade on the Pace 3 and could be a route to a great multisports watch that matches pricier wearables for features and performance.
Design and screen
- AMOLED display
- Choice of silicone or nylon straps
- Waterproof up to 50 metres
While the Pace Pro has Pace in the name, it’s a slightly different proposition to wear compared to the previous Pace watches that Coros has launched. For starters, it’s a fair bit bigger than the Pace 3 with its 46mm case also being a thicker one at 12.25mm. It’s also made from a relatively sleek, polymer case that comes in black, blue (pictured) and grey shades.
You’ve got the option of grabbing it with either a 22mm silicone or nylon strap, with the former adding more weight. I’ve had the silicone strap to wear and while generally comfortable albeit quite snug-fitting, the strap length felt a bit long, which meant the strap tucked out at the end.
Like other Coros watches, there’s a rotating dial button to wake up the display, unlock and lock the screen and get you quickly into the workout tracking screen. There’s a button below the crown that’s grown just like the case has compared to the Pace 3 to make it a better fit and gives you a shortcut to the watch settings menu.
Then we get to the screen, which is a 1.3-inch, 416 x 416 resolution AMOLED touchscreen display that matches the pricier Coros Apex 2 Pro for screen size, but features mineral glass as opposed to sapphire glass to protect against scratches. Like other Coros watches with touchscreen displays, you are able to disable that touchscreen support.
All the hallmarks of a great AMOLED are here. The colours are great, you’ve got a maximum brightness setting of 1,500 nits, which means it’s not one you struggle to see in more challenging lighting conditions and while Coros uses a haptic feedback-style screen, it’s ideal for getting around menus and screens. I did find I needed to turn off the vibrations when wearing it under a long sleeve top as it had a habit of being activated on the move.
Flip the watch around and you’ll spy the optical sensor setup to track heart rate and blood oxygen levels. You’ll also find the proprietary charging port that, despite looking identical to the one used on the other Coros watches, is actually a slightly different size, which means Coros’ typically universal cable won’t actually fit.
Coros has also introduced a new charger, which is a far more portable one than its usual wired option and lets you clip it onto a set of keys, requiring a USB-C charging cable to power it up. Coros doesn’t include that cable in the box however so it’s reliant on you already having one handy.
Software and smartwatch features
- Works with Android and iOS
- 32GB of storage
- Performance boost over Pace 3
With the addition of an AMOLED screen Coros has clearly made some software and performance tweaks to make sure things run smoothly and are a good match for that more power-hungry display.
While getting around the Pace Pro is very similar to other Coros watches, the user interface and icons in particular have grown in size and have a bolder overall look on that AMOLED screen. There’s a very Garmin feel in terms of where things live, but at the same time it’s still very much Coros in presentation. It’s the type of simplicity in approach that I very much appreciate.
As a smartwatch, Coros offers somewhere to view your notifications, control your phone’s camera, set timers and even record timed naps. There’s an always useful Find My Phone mode in place too. Coros includes a built-in music player that ramps storage up from 4GB storage on the Pace 3 to 32GB, giving you significantly more space to play with. Getting audio on is a drag and drop affair via a computer and doesn’t support storing audio from music streaming services like Spotify (something that you can get with Garmin).
While you’re not getting apps, payments or a more fully-fledged smartwatch in general, features like notification and music support work fine, though it’s a shame Coros hasn’t sought to add controls for music playback on a phone once again.
The Coros companion app is built in a similar vein to the watch software with a dashboard to check in on progress, a tab to check out workout history and dedicated screen to tinker with watch settings. You’ve also got a rich array of third party apps you can share data with including Strava, TrainingPeaks, Komoot, Apple Health and Nike Run Club. I’ve used it synced with Strava and it fires over that data in a speedy fashion once the two apps are linked.
The Pace Pro absolutely doesn’t give you the best smartwatch experience you’ll find on a sports watch, but it works well enough right now with scope for things to get better as Coros typically does a good job of firing out regular updates to improve its watches.
Fitness tracking
- Free offline maps
- Dual-frequency GPS
- ECG sensor included
The Coros Pace Pro actually has more in common with the Coros Apex 2 Pro than the Pace 3 in terms of what you can expect in tracking features and smarts.
Core tracking is reserved for running, cycling, swimming (pool and open water) with activities like skiing, strength training, hiking, triathlons and indoor rowers among the other sports covered. It includes Coros’ dual-frequency GPS to let the watch communicate with the key satellite systems over multiple frequency bands to boost tracking accuracy for activities like runs, rides and hikes.
You’re also getting the best that Coros has to offer in training metrics and analysis including the ability to build interval workouts, follow training plans and make use of its Evolab suite of insights, which provides data built around guiding you with your recovery and training.
From a pure sports tracking point of view, I’ve found the Coros Pace Pro well up to the task. I’ve used it for outdoor and treadmill runs, pool swims, indoor rowing sessions and general fitness workouts. The dual-frequency GPS performed well alongside other dual-frequency watches I tested it against and GPS tracks looked pretty good overall. It performed well for pool swims for metrics like distance and pace, and it was a similar story for indoor rows.
Heart rate tracking wasn’t as spotless for me. In general, day-to-day tracking was fine and for steady paced workouts it largely matched to a heart rate monitor chest strap. During more high intensity tests, I got average heart rate readings that were 20 BPM lower than a heart rate monitor chest strap. Thankfully you can pair external heart rate sensors to it and that’s what I’d always do if relying on heart rate data for workouts on any watch. Coros does also include an ECG sensor here to perform a wellness check and isn’t certified to track serious heart health disorders, but those on the spot readings seemed absolutely fine and in largely in line with readings from other ECG-packing smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 10.
Coros also includes topographical and landscape maps, which you need to download first via the Coros smartphone app and then sync over to the watch. That mapping is supported by navigation features like a useful ‘back to start’ mode and setting checkpoints. You can also upload routes to make use of the turn-by-turn navigation support. Viewing maps works well with a few viewing styles at your disposal. What’s most noticeable when using maps is how quickly it refreshes those maps as you scroll to different sections of it. This is quite a noticeable difference in the map viewing experience compared to rival watches and even Coros’ own.
As a training tool, I think it’s a mixed bag for Coros here. There’s some good support here, like the ease of how you can build interval training workouts and being able to glance at realistic race predictions or your running fitness rating. The sleep tracking, while not the most detailed, did seem at least to be reliable when compared to the sleep tracking on a smart ring and an accompanying Polar watch which I’ve come to know delivers good sleep data.
I think much like Polar and Suunto, Coros could take a leaf out of Garmin’s (and maybe even Apple’s) book in presenting some of those metrics and insights at times where it’s more glanceable and easy to absorb them instead of digging around to find the good stuff. It’s definitely more of a presentation gripe as opposed to the lack of training features and metrics available.
Battery life
- Up to 20 days smartwatch battery life
- Six days battery life with always-on display mode
- Up to 31 hours in best GPS accuracy mode
One of the standout qualities of Coros watches has been battery life, particularly standby battery performance and those times when you’re not tracking workouts. Coros manages to keep things working pretty efficiently on the Pace Pro to make sure you get up towards the promised battery numbers.
Those numbers for daily use range from 20 days to six days, with the latter tied to keeping the screen on at all times. I’d say those daily numbers are accurate based on my testing. Especially when the screen is on 24/7. I found I could get 5-6 days out of the Pace Pro depending on how regularly you’re using tracking features. Disable the always-on screen mode and it can comfortably get through a week. It’s a really good showing.
When it comes to tracking, the Pace Pro can hit anywhere from 10-38 hours based on how accurate you want that GPS tracking to be. In that best accuracy mode the battery hits 38 hours (or 21 hours with the always-on display mode). Those numbers are pretty much in keeping with similarly priced multisports watches. For an hour-long outdoor workout in the best GPS mode with the screen set to always-on, the battery drop was 4%.
Even with that AMOLED display, the battery performance here was good. Obviously not as good as non-AMOLED Coros watches, but it’s still very respectable all the same and I never felt shortchanged.
When it comes to charging it, when you hit 0%, it’s going to take a couple of hours to get back up to a full battery. As mentioned, you do have a much smaller charger to use than other Coros watches, which is great from a portability point of view but also means it can be a lot easier to misplace too.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
Buy if you want a solid-performing AMOLED multisports watch:
The Coros Pace Pro offers great features, performance and battery for a very likeable price.
Don’t buy if you want the best smartwatch and sports watch combined:
While the AMOLED display helps to make the Pace Pro’s smartwatch more usable, it doesn’t match what rival watches from Garmin and Apple offer as an overall package.
Final Thoughts
The Coros Pace Pro is a welcome addition to the Coros family and while it’s not as dinky or affordable as the very likeable Coros Pace 3, that extra spend gets you quite a lot. If you’re in the market for an AMOLED sports watch that prioritises fitness tracking above smart features, and offers good battery life too, then this is one of the best you can buy right now. Otherwise, for a solid mix of the two, the Garmin Forerunner 265 and the Apple Watch Series 10 are your best bet.
How we test
We thoroughly test every smartwatch we review. We use industry standard testing to compare features properly and we use the watch as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Worn as our main tracker during the testing period
Heart rate data compared against dedicated heart rate devices
FAQs
The biggest differences between the Coros Pace Pro and the Pace 3 are that the Pace Pro is bigger, has an AMOLED colour screen and offers features like topographical maps, an ECG sensor, more storage and a performance boost.
Yes, the Coros Pace Pro does include an ECG sensor, which is built into the rotating dial button. It can be used to carry out a general wellness check to help assess your recovery needs and fitness levels.
