My name is Pascal Erb. A little over a year ago I started racing intensively. It came about out of boredom, Corona, self-employment, no work, everything is closed and somehow I needed a new goal in my life.
Why I run?
When I tackle something in my life, I have to track it. I need numbers, data, facts. So the race is only an option for me if I also have a sports watch with me that records everything.
The Coros Vertix has been my daily companion for the last 4 months. First off, the best feature of the watch; I just had to charge it every 30 days! WTF!
The almost perfect sports watch!
As you can see in the video, the watch comes in really cool packaging. I’m more of a fan of less plastic – but I was able to use the case directly for my audio equipment at work. But upcycling and sustainability is not the issue here.
The setup is totally easy and the watch is ready for use after 10 minutes.
Let’s go! First run and collect data. The watch provides the usual information: heart rate, heart rate range, pace, fastest km, cadence, step length, calories burned and recovery time after exercise.
Run in the Coros app
As I said, I was able to complete a few runs with it before I had to charge the watch. I had to charge my last Garmin sports watch (Fenix 3) about every fourth day. The Coros Vertix lasted me an average of 28 days!
Coros gives a battery life of 60 hours with GPS (45 days in normal use without GPS; 150 hours with GPS in UltraMax mode).
Incredible battery life on the Coros Vertix
I don’t have much to complain about other than the brightness of the display. Without pressing the light button, you can see almost nothing. It does have an always-on screen but it’s just too dark for me. You can change this in the settings, but this affects the great battery life.
Tracking
I measured a few runs in parallel with the Garmin Fenix 3 and the Garmin ANT+ heart rate strap and I have to say that both watches had roughly the same numbers, so you can rely on the Coros Vertix data. What’s also great is that the heart rate belt from Garmin can also be connected to the Coros Vertix.
The Coros tracks everything you need and what I really appreciate is the automatic synchronization with Strava.
Coros and Strava work perfectly together
If we’re talking about synchronizing, the watch synchronizes with the app without any problems. I’ve never had any connection problems and I have to say I’ve almost forgotten about the app because it syncs everything perfectly in the background.
Die App
I’m a minimalist and love it when an app has a simple structure. But the Coros app is too minimalistic, even for me. I missed the awards and weekly challenges from the Garmin app, they motivate and spur me on every day. Coros does advertise that less is more, but I would prefer if they put a little more time and money into developing the app. I would very much welcome a challenge function in the app. But as I said, the data goes automatically to Strava and I now open this app more than Instagram & Co and there are enough challenges there.
Coros – my conclusion
Conclusion
The Coris Vertix can do everything it needs to and remains my daily companion.
The battery life is unbeatable and can last for three weeks of vacation without having to take another charging cable with you. It’s reassuring that I can still run a half marathon with 12% battery remaining without having to worry that the run won’t be tracked because the battery dies after 19 km.
The design and wearing comfort are right, the tracking functions provide all the data I need and the watch could do a lot more, such as an assistant for altitude acclimatization.
It’s nice to see Garmin getting some competition. After the long testing phase, I bought the watch and Coros now has a new fan!
The Coros Vertix is available in stores from CHF 739 and in Germany from € 504.