With a bright 1,500-nit display, impressive battery life and twice the computing power compared to the iconic Coros PACE 3, the new AMOLED Coros PACE Pro represents a notable hardware bump by the company.
COROS again focuses runners’ minds with its latest PACE Pro – a lightweight performance watch. The new GPS sports watch adds a 1,500-nit AMOLED screen for the first time – for those who don’t know all the techy words, it just means that this is a pretty awesome and colourful screen – as found on recently updated Apple Watches. Previously, such screens ate battery juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Coros and the world have moved on, and now Pace Pro delivers an impressive 38-hour battery life when recording a GPS workout. That’s best-in-class battery performance for a screen that is as bright as anyone ever needs.
Coros Pace Pro Review
Serious runners will be impressed by the 37g weight. And yes, that DOES include the weight of the strap – the lightweight nylon one, but that costs extra.
The PACE Pro claims excellent accuracy in cities or remote areas thanks to the improved satellite chipset with all-systems (constellations) and dual-frequency mode.
Coros Pace Pro Review Summary - impressive battery life, vibrant screen, user-friendly controls, but...
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Coros Pace Pro - Pros and cons
The Coros Pace 2 and Pace 3 disrupted the running watch market with a fantastic mix of affordability and features, winning the hearts of runners who wanted solid performance at a competitive price. The Pace Pro tried to continue this with notable hardware upgrades, making it a good fit for those already invested in the Coros ecosystem. Still, the question of value and affordability becomes harder to justify at its new price point, as it edges closer to Garmin’s far more established offerings like the discounted Forerunner 265 and the heavily discounted Epix Gen 2.
Coros has priced the Pace Pro based on improvements like a faster processor and a sharper AMOLED screen, but these enhancements don’t truly bridge the gap with its competitors. While Coros has undeniably retained the same high level of features, Garmin has had years to refine its tools, offering a richer experience at every turn. For example, Coros TOPO maps are visually appealing but lack functionality such as rerouting or creating routes on the fly, which Garmin Epix gen 2 ($419 on sale) provides. Even Forerunner 265 ($349 on sale) has maps via dwMAPS. Adding routes to a Coros watch can also be frustrating due to unreliable Wi-Fi connections and the absence of seamless syncing features like those in the Garmin ecosystem.
The bright AMOLED display on the Pace Pro impresses at first glance but falls short on long-term durability. Unlike Garmin, which offers scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass and Sapphire options, the Pace Pro’s screen is far more prone to damage, leaving it vulnerable during rigorous outdoor use. Garmin further distances itself with a robust app ecosystem, allowing users to customize and extend functionality in ways Coros will not match for several years.
Data accuracy is another sticking point. Coros offers physiology metrics that sound promising on paper, but more knowledgeable reviewers have flagged up limitations in the algorithms and in the underlying data quality, particularly with optical heart rate monitoring. By comparison, Garmin acquired Firstbeat Physiology in (2020), a company built on years of research, ensuring higher reliability and trust in its metrics.
Don’t get me wrong. Coros Pace watches are solid sports watches. For $100/£100 less, I’d happily recommend Pace Pro to you. My concern is that Pace Pro is priced too highly for its true feature set. Coros ticks most feature boxes but fails to follow that simple tick with a rich set of feature options.
Existing watch Faces do NOT do justice to the awesome AMOLED display
Coros Pace Pro vs Coros Pace 3 Comparison
The headline difference is that Pro is bigger and brighter with offline maps. However, almost every key hardware performance characteristic is improved to varying degrees.
I’ve now put in over 30 hours of detailed accuracy testing with the Coros Pace Pro for this review, and here are the results. I’ll show representative charts for brevity.
Coros Pace Pro Detailed Heart Rate Accuracy test Results
This selection of heart rate charts across various run and ride types mostly shows pretty dire accuracy, with especially dire accuracy riding on the road. To be fair, there are some exceptions, generally at low heart rate levels, and surprisingly, Coros Pace Pro does well in one of my hour-long strength sessions. Tip: use a quality heart rate monitor by Garmin or Polar. Heart rate is a fundamental piece of data for all Coros’ physiology algorithms – they are wrong with the default Coros optical HR data.
steady ride
Easy run trail+grass
Easy indoor bike warmup
Group ride+mixed hills
Run, 3×4 minutes
Strength mixed, low HR
Road bike Hills mixed
Easy trail run
Under over threshold Bike 2
Bike Sprints
Group ride+hills
Tempo Bike
Steady RUN
Coros Pace Pro Detailed Elevation Accuracy test Results
Coros Pace Pro sometimes had the same elevation accuracy as the other devices I tested but sometimes significantly underrecorded what the other devices showed, albeit with the same trend. Pace Pro was calibrated correctly for the first ride, and all workouts had the same start point, but Pace Pro clearly didn’t remember the correct value. If you want accurate elevation, manually calibrate it at the start of each workout, assuming you know the correct elevation and remember to do it.
2 Surrey hills Ride
Windsor Hill Ride
Richmond Hills reps Run
Surrey Hills Ride
Richmond Park Hill Ride
Berkshire and Surrey Flats+bumps
Wimbledon hill Run
Coros Pace Pro Detailed GPS GNSS Accuracy test Results
Pace Pro scored well in my standard 10-mile GPS test run compared to almost every GPS watch ever made in the last decade (detailed analysis here). It scored very well by historical standards but is not quite as accurate as Garmin and Suunto’s best of the current tier of watches. It’s not quite as accurate as its predecessor either, Pace 3, which had one of the best-ever levels of GPS accuracy for running.
I’ve heard comments that Coros has intentionally turned down GPS accuracy on this live software because of a known bug. Let’s hope they can fix it. It’s a shame that they released the watch with a known bug. Coros is perhaps the quickest company at iterating software changes; if a fix is possible, expect this soon; if it’s hardware-related and impossible…gulp! I can’t repeat 30 hours of testing, which is why companies need to get basic accuracy correct at launch – or delay the launch.
Ride – Good GPS results
Run – Under Trees – Good GPS Results
Wimbledon common Woods Run 1a
Easy Rrun – Avenue of trees and open riverside- Good GPS Results
Hampton Court Palace Home Park Tree Avenue run 1b
Hampton Court Palace Home Park Tree Avenue run 1a
Hampton Court Palace Home Park Tree Avenue run 1
Tricky GPS run – Tree cover + open parkland – perfectly acceptable GPS Results under trees, maybe not the best on test
Richmond Hill Run 1a
Richmond Hill Run 1b
Richmond Hill Run 1c
Richmond Hill Run 1d
Richmond Hill Run 1e
Richmond Hill Run 1
Ride – Surrey Hills – Generally great except for these few wobbly bits
Surrey Hills 1a
Surrey Hills 1b
Surrey Hills 1c
Surrey Hills 1
These results will all look good on your Strava workout overview. They translate well for overall workout distances; even live bike speed is good.
However, accurate distance, instant running pace in built-up areas, and difficult mountainous trail conditions will throw up glitches. Consider an excellent footpod like Stryd.
Other Coros Pace Pro Review thoughts from across the web
Rob, the Quantified Scientist, notes that heart rate tracking was mediocre and sleep stage tracking was bad, but GPS was really good. Whereas dcrainmaker found “GPS & heart rate is probably the best we’ve seen on a COROS watch,” the exception being “one of the worst optical HR performances I’ve seen this year in outdoor cycling.”
With a few reservations, Pace Pro is a decent upgrade for a Pace 2/3 owner but over-priced for a challenger brand looking to attract new customers away from the established brands.
The move to update Pace 3 with an AMOLED screen was inevitable, but I expected first to see AMOLED with the Apex model; then again, the Pace Pro looks like the Apex ;-). I’m pleasantly surprised that the company has moved so quickly, and I was expecting this watch from them in 2025. So, Kudos to their development and production teams.
At 400€, this superficially appears priced sensibly against the superior Garmin Forerunner 265 at its retail price of 500€. Still, you have to wonder if someone can afford 400€, why not go for the 100€ bump and benefit from Garmin’s superior ecosystem and on-watch features? If you check out the prices today, you will find that Garmin has already discounted the FR265 to the same price as the Pace Pro globally. You will also find the vastly superior Garmin Epix Gen 2 available for a bit extra at 485€ – it is a bit heavier though.
Even the cheaper Forerunner 165 Music has an AMOLED screen at 330€, and you also get support for music streaming (including Spotify) and tap-and-go NFC payments. No map? No worries, you can easily add maps to Garmin with the dwMAP app.
Turning further afield if you prefer to avoid Garmin
Suunto Race S (349€) and Race are superbly crafted alternatives to Garmin and Coros. Suunto Race S is cheaper and better than the Pace Pro, IMHO. Suunto has a burgeoning 3rd party app store that Coros lack and a great smartphone app that it shares with the beautiful and excellent Hammerhead Karoo 3 – a vastly superior bike computer to the buggy Coros DURA.
Apple Watch SE (249€) is a superior 24×7 smartwatch to Coros for those with an iPhone, but it lacks the sports and physiology apps of Coros and simply can’t compete with the awesome Coros battery life. Athlytic or Workoutdoors are great one-stop Apple apps for more committed runners. Pace Pro is a better runners watch.
The older Coros Pace 3 came in at a respectable 249€. That price is still a tad high for a challenger brand and inconsistently priced against other Coros watches. Coros hasn’t improved the case materials with this upgrade. The Pro’s 400€ price tag implies, once again, that a company thinks a product is better than it is. This might prove a costly mistake for Coros, but only time will tell; prices can be lowered quickly enough through sales, but Coros rarely discounts heavily.
I can’t see myself using a Coros as my daily driver as I could in different respects for the Apple Watch 10 (not SE), Forerunner 265 or Suunto Race S. However, many people love Coros, which can be an excellent choice for some. If you’re happy in the ecosystem, this watch is worth considering when upgrading.
Seems to be similarry specced at first glance as Suunto’s Race S, which is priced lower at €349.
My vertex 1 is still doing well, but feel it’s nearing its end of life soon. Overall I am happy with the Coros ECO system, after moving away from Garmin several years ago. So this is likely a potential upgrade candidate for me as I prefer a smaller model over the Vertix and don’t fancy changing ECO systems again.
This will appeal to existing Coros supporters but unlikely to pull lots of people away from Garmin.
In the UK you can buy the FR265 for £390 or the Epix 2 for £325.
The you can save even more money and get the Epix 2 for £325
you can simply use the Dynamic Watch (dwMAP) ciq tool to bypass Garmin’s artificial restriction => https://dynamic.watch/
Same price as the new polar vantage m3, more expensive than suunto race s. As a previous coros apex user who had his watch die right after 2 years warranty period was up (couldn’t charge, otherwise still worked until battery ran out) and finding out there is no service centre to actually get it fixed, I’m keen on the specs but not the brand itself.
that is one good thing about Garmin, they often can offer something extra after the two year period.
Apple?…forget it.
I’ve not heard the resolutions of any similar stories to yours with Coros, so can’t really comment.
Why 399€ instead of 299€ ! 🙂
agreed, i think the pricing makes it a more complex sell to newcomers to the Coros ecosystem. If you are already a Coros owner…fill your boots, this will be a great upgrade.
Is it confirmed that it will in fact be thicker? That’s such a dealbreaker. The pace was about having the most lightweight running watch on your arm, not about being a Fenix wannabe.
Yes, it is a bit thicker.
Whilst I had reservations about some aspects of the older Pace 3 experience, one of those reservations was NOT the thickness nor the weight. Pace 3 is/was a great almost-no-frill running watch for proper runners.
yes the polar/coros pace/pacer branding is confusing.
i think timing is a coincidence
mass market watches will all go the way of AMOLED – like it or not. (actually Coros is probably the last to do this)
Vertix is different and in respects like Fenix where a notable part of the customer base really want/need the extended life from a MIP screen. Thus AMOLED is perfect for apex and pace but not Vertix. this watch effectiely is an Apex AMOLED and it’s possible Coros won’t make another Apex…we’ll see. (actually they’ll probably make a variant of Pace Pro in better materials that’s exactly the same and call it Apex)
agreed
It sort of vaguely stacks up against garmin (Coros vs Garmin pricing) but coros just have tickbox features. For each feature, Garmin has a rich boxful of sub-features. Whether or not anyone needs them is a different matter entirely!
naturally I’m very silly buying the 965 🙂 (rather than 265)
Something that is not often talked about (I guess) is reliability.
I’ve heard and experienced both of the – originally – Finnish brands crashing. Just before the end of a long ultra race it is not fun at all. At the start of a half marathon it’s not funny either….
I’ve you search on that; also Garmins crash. And can lead to complete loss of the workout
My search on Coros seemed very positive. That combined with a very good battery; makes it worth their pricing choice (for me)
I don’t think it will come with sapphire glass, what do you think?
no there is not sapphire glass
Is the HRM monitor the same as the current one?
HRM adds ECG.
So it is different to pace 3
Seems to be similarry specced at first glance as Suunto’s Race S, which is priced lower at €349.
My vertex 1 is still doing well, but feel it’s nearing its end of life soon. Overall I am happy with the Coros ECO system, after moving away from Garmin several years ago. So this is likely a potential upgrade candidate for me as I prefer a smaller model over the Vertix and don’t fancy changing ECO systems again.
Race is a beautiful watch, one of the very best.
Suunto has its own 3rd party app store, like Garmin.
changing ecosystems is a PITA for sure
This will appeal to existing Coros supporters but unlikely to pull lots of people away from Garmin.
In the UK you can buy the FR265 for £390 or the Epix 2 for £325.
yep.
FR265 has no offline maps. It’s an important feature for me and many others.
The you can save even more money and get the Epix 2 for £325
you can simply use the Dynamic Watch (dwMAP) ciq tool to bypass Garmin’s artificial restriction => https://dynamic.watch/
Same price as the new polar vantage m3, more expensive than suunto race s. As a previous coros apex user who had his watch die right after 2 years warranty period was up (couldn’t charge, otherwise still worked until battery ran out) and finding out there is no service centre to actually get it fixed, I’m keen on the specs but not the brand itself.
that is one good thing about Garmin, they often can offer something extra after the two year period.
Apple?…forget it.
I’ve not heard the resolutions of any similar stories to yours with Coros, so can’t really comment.
Why 399€ instead of 349€? Suunto Race S is a sharp knife and I think that those 50€ difference will make it a killer vs Pace Pro 3
Why 399€ instead of 299€ ! 🙂
agreed, i think the pricing makes it a more complex sell to newcomers to the Coros ecosystem. If you are already a Coros owner…fill your boots, this will be a great upgrade.
Is it confirmed that it will in fact be thicker? That’s such a dealbreaker. The pace was about having the most lightweight running watch on your arm, not about being a Fenix wannabe.
important edit: less than 1mm thicker
Yes, it is a bit thicker.
Whilst I had reservations about some aspects of the older Pace 3 experience, one of those reservations was NOT the thickness nor the weight. Pace 3 is/was a great almost-no-frill running watch for proper runners.
What about the quality? Is it made out of plastic too?
yes, unchanged case and lens quality
Everyone’s still wondering what the Vantage V3 and especially the brand new M3 mean for the Pacer (Pro) line while Coros goes:
Pacer Pro? How about a Pace Pro instead!
Dunno if that’s just a coincidence or clever timing by Coros.
Also pretty clever to offer their best selling watch with AMOLED right away not running a test with the Vertix first.
yes the polar/coros pace/pacer branding is confusing.
i think timing is a coincidence
mass market watches will all go the way of AMOLED – like it or not. (actually Coros is probably the last to do this)
Vertix is different and in respects like Fenix where a notable part of the customer base really want/need the extended life from a MIP screen. Thus AMOLED is perfect for apex and pace but not Vertix. this watch effectiely is an Apex AMOLED and it’s possible Coros won’t make another Apex…we’ll see. (actually they’ll probably make a variant of Pace Pro in better materials that’s exactly the same and call it Apex)
Hi,
is the Coros Pace Pro able to Store R-R Data for example to store hrv data during a run?
Thx
Silly price. But then again I also think it’s silly the pay £400 for a 265 when the 255 can be found for half that with a superior MIP screen 🙂
agreed
It sort of vaguely stacks up against garmin (Coros vs Garmin pricing) but coros just have tickbox features. For each feature, Garmin has a rich boxful of sub-features. Whether or not anyone needs them is a different matter entirely!
naturally I’m very silly buying the 965 🙂 (rather than 265)
Something that is not often talked about (I guess) is reliability.
I’ve heard and experienced both of the – originally – Finnish brands crashing. Just before the end of a long ultra race it is not fun at all. At the start of a half marathon it’s not funny either….
I’ve you search on that; also Garmins crash. And can lead to complete loss of the workout
My search on Coros seemed very positive. That combined with a very good battery; makes it worth their pricing choice (for me)
Yes reliability is perhaps as important as usability.
Garmin has perhaps got better at not losing rides and that certainly was an historic issue.
Other than odd comments I’ve not heard about systemic problems with the modern finnish brands, nor with Coros for that matter.
Without super longerm usage, I’m unsure how I can incorporate reliability into reviews.