Coros Apex 2 Pro review - phenomenal battery life and finally a wrist-based HRM that works

An all-adventure Indiana Jones of a GPS watch with exceptional battery life and a host of features you may or may not find a use for in your daily regime

 Coros Apex 2 Pro smartwatch on a male cyclist's wrist
(Image credit: Future)
Cycling Weekly Verdict

If battery life is at the top of your priority list, you'll be hard pushed to beat the Coros Apex 2 Pro. It works beautifully with Coros's companion app and is packed with multi-sport features. For this tester, however, it proved slightly more – in terms of both functionality and bulk – than he needed.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Incredibly long battery life

  • +

    Great ease of use and display customisation

  • +

    Accurate wrist-based heart rate monitoring

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Slightly on the bulky side

  • -

    No ANT+

  • -

    No music streaming

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

I’d grown very attached to my old Garmin Forerunner 220. It had given me years of reliable service – amazingly the watch itself outlasted its original rubber strap – but finally the battery was on the way out, no longer holding more than about an hour’s charge. When I asked my running mates what would be the best replacement, Coros seemed to come out on top – and so I decided to test the Apex 2 Pro and see compared it compared to the best smartwatches for cycling.

My no-frills Forerunner 220 had only cost about £150 ($182) on offer, whereas the RRP of the Apex 2 Pro is $499 / £499 – that’s a massive price difference and I was intrigued to find out whether it would be justified in terms of function. Or indeed whether I could live up to it.

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