COROS Pace 4 In-Depth Review (2025): AMOLED, Dual-Band GPS, Battery Life & FR165 Comparison

Coros Pace 4 is the latest in a successful series of capable, entry-level running watches and a surprisingly big upgrade over its predecessor, Pace 3. Here’s a detailed review of the flagship Coros Pace 4, warts and all.

One of the best sports watch options for under $250.

Every Coros watch tends to come with the maximum number of features the company can cram in, so the big news today lies elsewhere in the hardware: an upgrade to an AMOLED display from the previous MIP display, significantly more battery life than the Pace 3, and the latest optical HR sensor.

Coros will try to wow you with two clever microphone-based features, but leave you scratching your head, wondering why there is no speaker. Dig deeper, and you’ll find that there are no maps, no contactless payments, and no way to support streaming music services, even though it can pair with Bluetooth headphones.

Odd choices – a microphone but no speakers, Spotify and payments are absent.

Note: I bought this Coros Pace 4 with my own money. I do get a retailer commission if you buy from one of the links. Thank you for supporting the work here.

COROS Pace 4 vs Garmin Forerunner 165: Feature Showdown

The Garmin Forerunner 165 is the Pace 4’s primary competitor at the $249 price point. The choice comes down to hardware (Coros) versus smart features/ecosystem (Garmin).

Feature	COROS Pace 4 ($249) – Coros Win	Garmin FR165 ($249) – Garmin Win
GPS Accuracy	Dual-Frequency (L1+L5) Multi-Band	All-Systems (Single Band)
Max GPS Battery	31 Hours (Dual-Freq)	19 Hours (All-Systems)
Sports Profiles	Triathlon/Multisport Mode, Cycling Power Meter Support	No Triathlon, No Cycling Power Meter Support
Music	Offline MP3 only (No Spotify Streaming)	Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music (Music Version)
Payments (NFC)	No	Garmin Pay

Design & Hardware: Is the COROS Pace 4 AMOLED Display Good?

Yes, the 1.2-inch, 390 x 390 resolution AMOLED display is impressively bright and colourful. At 1,500 nits, the contrast and readability are excellent, even in direct sunlight, providing a significant upgrade over the Pace 3’s MIP display.

The plastic-like look is normal at this price point and is widely liked for sports watches that are typically used only during activities. The aesthetics predate this generation of technology by well over a decade, but it’s an aesthetic with a wide appeal. The digital crown at the 2 o’clock position looks visually awkward, but it’s positioned there to avoid accidental presses and maximise the ease of scrolling through menus and screens. A sensible compromise alongside an unremarkable overall design.

• Display: 1.2-inch, 390 x 390 resolution, Always-On AMOLED Touch Screen. Protected by Mineral Glass.
• Controls: Features a Digital Dial, a Back Button, and the new Action Button. The display is touch-enabled, allowing you to swipe through widgets.
• Build: The bezel and cover material are Fibre-Reinforced Polymer and water-resistant up to 5 ATM.
• Bands: 22mm Quick Release (silicone – 40g,  nylon – 32g).
• Charging: New USB-C adapter
  • New charger is incompatible with the older Pace 3.

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Listen to the discussion

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Coros has committed to AMOLED displays; the one on Pace 4 is not the brightest on the market by a long chalk, but it’s more than bright enough for me at 1,500 nits. The contrast and readability are more than good enough, even in sunlight.

Next, we have the ‘action’ button, better known for its use on the Apple Watch Ultra. It’s great when used as a shortcut during sports, but it has no function outside of sports. Another oddity. When combined with the crown, its design choice eliminates the need for five buttons, but… why not simply have five buttons? What’s wrong with that?

Under the hood is Coros’s fastest processor ever. This puts Garmin to shame, although luckily for Garmin at this price point, you only really notice poor screen performance and lags on maps…and there are no maps at these prices, at least not with Garmin and Coros.

Bulk’s DOPE Pre-Workout Shown

Pace 4 Beyond the Workout: Daily Usage and Smart Features

As a smartwatch, Coros does OK but lacks payment support (workaround), lacks an app store, and only offers decade-old MP3 music support (no Spotify streaming). However, it’s slowly catching up here, already supporting message/call alerts, as well as GoPro/Insta360 controls.

 

Health tracking probably does as much as it needs to, covering sleep, HRV, recovery and a wellness check. Like most wearable companies in this area, the features have been somewhat overextended beyond what the science says, but all the competition does the same.

The big recent news from Coros is that it is adding women’s Health features, starting today with menstrual cycle tracking.

The watch is also decently customisable through various watch faces and a minimal number of widgets. I’m not a fan of the Coros watchface and menu aesthetic, but you may be. Here is an article covering all Pace 4’s faces, or check out the following montage of all of them!

 

Comprehensive Sports Usage and Training Capabilities

It’s got the lot. All the sports. All the degrees of accuracy. All the sensors.

• Sport Profiles: These and more – road running, trail running, indoor running, track running, cycling (road/indoor), pool and open-water swimming, strength training, triathlon/multisport, and various team/paddle sports.
• GPS Modes: Max Accuracy (Dual Frequency, all systems) or High Accuracy (All Systems, single frequency) modes are available, and both offer great accuracy in most situations, with the latter using less battery. An interesting tidbit is that the GPS-only mode has been removed. This is because the chipset manufacturer can only deliver relatively small additional battery savings by offering that mode, so it’s not worth including.
• Connectivity: Most sensor types are supported, but only with Bluetooth accessories, such as heart rate monitors, cycling power meters, and, of course, the COROS running POD 2 (not a power pod like Stryd – also supported).

Whilst lagging behind many of the subtle nuances and sheer depth of features offered by Garmin, beyond the headlines, Coros does more than most other competitors to support the sports needs of just about every athlete.

There are over 40 sports modes, including various types of running (outdoor, indoor, trail, track), cycling (road, mountain, gravel, indoor), climbing, swimming (pool, open water), and multisport activities like Triathlon. Each profile offers a reasonable degree of customisation, allowing up to 8 data fields per page, various layouts, and configurable button and activity alert settings, all managed through the COROS smartphone app.

Coros Training Metrics (EvoLab) covers the most useful measures also offered by Garmin, such as Training Load, Base Fitness, Training Status, Recovery Timer, Running Fitness, and Race Predictor. A few aspects are still being refined, and there have been some hiccups in the past; however, this entire capability will continue to evolve and improve.

One downside, which is becoming less important every year, is that support is limited to Bluetooth sensors, not ANT+. Counterbalanced against that essentially cycling-only need, you can broadcast your heart rate from the watch to gym equipment in the gym.

Unique Training Features: Voice

More Coros innovation – this unfinished feature had to start somewhere. That somewhere is here.

Coros has introduced voice pins and perceived effort notes. Those features could have been named better, but the former lets you save a note mid workout along with a GPS point like ‘Great coffee here‘, whereas the latter adds the option to dictate a note at the end of your workout – this could be great for posterity or for your coach, if you have one. To my knowledge, these voice notes cannot be shared outside the Coros ecosystem (e.g. to your coach).

 

Mapping and Navigation: Limited Coverage

The lack of maps is a key omission. Don’t get lost!

Pace 4 is not an adventure watch. There are no maps, POIs, street names or anything at all like that.

You can follow simple breadcrumb routes after loading up a GPX file. That’s the 10-year-old way of navigating, and it doesn’t work too well. But it’s better than nothing.

Pace 4 Battery Life: Endurance for the Long Haul

Pace 4’s battery life is nearly doubled.

Technology has moved on. While batteries have shown modest improvement over the last decade, the real story is the development of more efficient displays, GPS chips, and optical HRMs. Even AMOLED displays are now performing as well as some MIP displays from five years ago, and we are seeing impressive improvements across all brands. No doubt the tech will improve further, but even if not, the situation today for all the sports watch companies is exceptional.

What is the COROS Pace 4 Battery Life in GPS Mode?

The COROS Pace 4 battery life is significantly improved, offering up to 41 hours in High GPS mode or 31 hours in the highly accurate Max GPS Dual Frequency mode. Daily use with Always-On Display provides approximately six days of charge.

I’ll cover some detailed comparisons further below; just enjoy these levels of performance. 30 hours of full GPS recording in an Always-On display (AD) model…Wow.

• Daily Use: 19 days (standard – wrist turn enabled display) / 6 days (AOD).
• High GPS Mode (All Systems): 41 hours (standard) / 30 hours (AOD).
• Max GPS Mode (Dual Frequency): 31 hours (standard) / 24 hours (AOD).

COROS Pace 4 – Key Technical Specifications

The only downer here is the mineral glass lens. This will scratch relatively easily compared to Gorilla or Sapphire glass.

These are the key specs for completeness. As we mentioned elsewhere, it’s affordable, accurate, compact, lightweight, and features a bright screen.

• Price: $249.
• Dimensions: 43.4 x 43.4 x 11.8 mm.
• Weight: 40g (silicone band), 32g (nylon band).
• Display: 1.2 inches, AMOLED, 390 x 390 pixels.
• Glass: Mineral Glass.
• Water Resistance: 5 ATM.
• Memory: 4GB Internal.
• GPS: All-Satellite Dual-Frequency.

Coros Pace 4 – Detailed Accuracy Tests

The results of my accuracy tests so far over indoor and outdoor running and cycling are best summarised as: market-leading GPS/GNSS accuracy and pretty good optical HR accuracy.

Optical HR Accuracy Test Results

These charts for running, cycling, cardio(gym) and yoga show good but slightly mixed results. The worst results are for yoga, where significant wrist movements and restricted blood flow are likely causes of the inaccuracies, mainly showing as under-reporting. Other indoor usage on the treadmill and stationary bike is close to excellent, albeit in an easy test. There is evidence of periodic lags in which the heart rate lags behind the live values. On a more strenuous off-road hill rep session, the Pace 4 was very average. And on a 3-hour outdoor ride, there were repeated periods of under-reading (not dropouts), resulting in a significant 3.5% overall error.

An extensive outdoor Z2/Z3 endurance run was very good but not excellent, due to a few minutes of under-reading. Acceptable levels of error.

 

Coros Pace 4 Dual Frequency GNSS/GPS Accuracy Test Results

Coros Pace 4 is one of the most accurate sports watches for GPS/GNSS…ever. Period. I’ll show two sets of results for now and update with more later.

First to show is my standard running GPS test, which I’ve performed on almost every GPS watch over the last 10 years. Pace 4 isn’t the best. Pace 3 is…just! Here are the full results and methodology.

None of the dual-frequency (L1+L5) sports watches correctly handles multi-path signals. Despite that, the results of modern GNSS chipsets are generally noticeably better than anything that has come before. They come close to perfection. It’s just the multipath (reflected signals) issue they need to resolve.

The second run has test areas that are mostly off-road and include hills and decent tree coverage in places. Pace 4 had the best GPS -on-test against the FR970 and Amazfit Balance 2, however, it did stray slightly from the correct path on one tree-covered section.

 

 

Wider Competitive Landscape and Range Analysis

Go Coros for better hardware, Go Garmin for better features

The main Garmin competitor is the Forerunner 165; both devices are the same size and feature AMOLED displays.

• Pace 4 Advantages: More accurate GNSS/GPS Dual-Band, twice the battery life, support for cycling power meters, multisport, and new microphone features.
• Forerunner 165 Advantages: Superior health/wellness tools (like Body Battery) and superior smartwatch features such as NFC payments and support for streaming services like Spotify. Superior training/planning ecosystem.

If you are looking for an even higher level of features, from the perspective of Coros, the spanner in the works is the usually more expensive Garmin Forerunner 255, which is discounted to $199 in sales and adds higher-end features like triathlon.

Range Analysis: COROS Pace 4 vs. COROS Pace Pro & Pace 3

The older Coros Pace 3 hits the sweet spot with pricing

• Pace 4 ($249) vs. Pace Pro (New Price: $299): The Pace Pro is larger (46mm) and features full offline maps, as well as an ECG sensor. Pace 4 is lighter and smaller, features the new microphone/voice capabilities, and offers slightly improved battery life in specific modes.
• Pace 4 vs. Pace 3 (New Price $199): The Pace 4 updates the display to AMOLED (Pace 3 uses Memory LCD/MIP) and significantly increases battery life in Max GPS mode (31 hours vs. 15 hours). The Pace 4 also features a third Action Button and a microphone.

Coros prices its watches slightly above whatthey are worth. They are still good, but a similarly priced Garmin alternative is usually better. However, once Coros prices properly, as with the $199 Pace 3, then it becomes a go-to recommendation.

 

Coros Pace 4 vs Pace 3 vs Pace Pro Battery Life: Detailed Comparisons

Pace Pro and Pace 4 use the new-generation hardware, which is why their battery life is so much better.

Model	Daily Use (AOD Off)	Max GPS Mode (Dual Freq)	High GPS Mode (All Systems)
Pace 4	19 Days	31 Hours	41 Hours
Pace Pro	20 Days	31 Hours	38 Hours
Pace 3	15 Days	15 Hours	25 Hours

FAQ

Q: Is the Coros Pace 4 the best budget running watch under $250 for 2025-2026?

A: It’s one of the best. Also consider the Forerunner 165 and the Forerunner 255 on sale.

Q: What is the best alternative to the Garmin Forerunner 165?

A: The Pace 3 (three) is by far the best alternative when cost is accounted for.

Q: What are the best entry-level GPS running watches for each brand?

A: Coros Pace 3, Polar Pacer, Amazfit Active 2 (a generally cheaper brand), Suunto Run, Apple Watch SE (3rd Gen)

Q: Does the COROS Pace 4 have Maps?

A: No, the COROS Pace 4 does not feature full onboard maps, POIs, or street names. It only supports basic breadcrumb navigation by loading a GPX file, a key omission and point of difference compared to the higher-end Pace Pro.

Marketing and Strategic Considerations

• Target Buyer: Coros is ideal for any level of athlete seeking a lightweight, simple, dedicated running watch.
• Value Proposition: COROS is competitively priced at $249–$299, offering a decent set of features for the money. COROS sets itself apart with a fair approach to firmware updates, which are typically rolled out to all watches.

 

Buy Coros Pace 4: Pricing and Availability

Pace 4 is on sale now globally.

• USA: $249. (Pace 3 was $229).
• Europe: 269€. (Pace 4 was 249€)
• UK: £229
• RoW: Varies

Take Out: COROS Pace 4 Review

Get the Pace 4, and you will join a growing army of like-minded runners who love what this challenger brand offers as an alternative to Garmin’s Forerunner 165.

Beware the details.

The Coros ecosystem is simply not as mature as Garmin’s. Garmin’s features are deeper, richer, and broader in scope – does everyone need that? Probably not if you want a sports watch solely to record your activities. As a smart ecosystem, Coros has a way to go to catch up with Garmin.

Spotify, Payments, and the all-important third-party app store are all absent, and will remain so for years.

What no maps?

For $50 more, Pace Pro offers maps. Whilst few of us regularly use maps, I’d like to bet that most of us will want to use them a couple of times a year. Coros Pace Pro is the watch for those occasions. Even better, Garmin watches with onboard maps generally start at $500, which is too high a price point for casual map usage.

Your call must weigh the benefits (AMOLED display, battery life, speed, voice features) against the drawbacks (mixed HR accuracy, no maps, no streaming music integration, no 3rd-party apps).

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Source and Resources

• Coros Pace 4 – Product Page
• Coros Pace 4 – Product Manual
• Alternative YouTube opinion: Fit Gear Hunter or DCRainmaker
• Buy Coros NOMAD – UK / EUR / USA
• Coros on Reddit (heavily moderated by the brand)

Last Updated on 23 February 2026 by the5krunner