Coros Vertix 2 Review

The COROS Vertix 2 is more than a fitness watch, its a watch for adventures. Beyond its fitness tracking abilities, it includes maps and bluetooth connectivity while maintaining up to 60 days of battery life before a charge.

I like to keep track of my rides, from heart rate to GPS and time tracking of each ride. A watch has proven to be the best and most convenient way to do that compared to a bike computer that would need additional components to track heart rate. Additionally, a watch can go from bike to bike the easiest and even on hikes or other workouts.

COROS fits in with the competition of Garmin, Polar, Suunto and Apple as a GPS capable fitness watch. Their watches begin at $199 and range up to $699 for the Vertix 2, their most powerful and feature packed watch in their lineup.

Let’s get into the design and many features of the COROS Vertix 2.

The Corovs Vertix 2 has a 51mm body with a 1.4” Sapphire glass lcd display with a titanium bezel. It uses a 26mm band, that has nylon or silicone options. Overall weight with band is 89 grams. There are three buttons on the side, a backlight button, digital dial and a back button, and the LCD display has touch functions. Additionally, the Vertix 2 is 10 ATM water-resistant and has a working temp range from -22°F – 122°F.

For GPS function it has All-Satellite Dual-Frequency GNSS support. Bluetooth connectivity to connect additional sensors and devices, and wifi sync. There is 32gb of internal memory storage for music and maps. The Vertix 2 has Optical HRM, Optical Pulse Oximeter, Barometric Altimeter, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, 3D Compass, Thermometer, and an Electrocardiogram sensor.

The Vertix 2 boasts an impressive maximum battery life of up to 60 days of regular use. 140 hours of Full GPS, 90 hours with All Systems On and 50 hours under Dual Frequency setting. Even more impressive is the 2 hour total charge time.

As an adventure watch, the COROS Vertix 2 is most capable as a GPS fitness watch. It supports All-Satellite Dual-Frequency GNSS, that is GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and Beidou. This provides accurate and fast location tracking. For general tracking, you can set checkpoints, back-to-start and use deviation alert if currently using a pre-chosen route. From the app, you can create a route, sync it to your watch and load it based off of your activity and have a steady route to follow. Alternatively for general scrolling of a map, you can pause your current activity enter the topo maps and scroll around the area. The All-Satellite support is great for traveling and remote areas to accurately see where you are at.

As a Fitness Watch, the Vertix 2 has a seemingly endless list of possible activities. From running and cycling to general cardio and surfing. Choose your activity and the Vertix will lock into your GPS location and prompt you to begin tracking. Activities will sync up on the COROS App and training hub as well as 3rd party apps like Strava.

What else can it do? The Bluetooth function of the Vertix 2 allows it to pair with other devices. From the COROS Pod 2 and Hear Rate Monitor to connecting to an Insta360 and wireless headphones. With the 32gb of internal storage, loading up the Vertix 2 with your favorite playlist or podcasts and pairing your headphones allows for really leaving your phone at home while you go out for an activity.

Upon receiving the COROS Vertix 2, my initial thoughts were hopeful. The Vertix 2 ships in a rugged tactical travel case, like a small Pelican case. Inside was the Vertix 2, band, usb cable, and instructions. If not for anything, this is the best presentation of a watch I’ve ever encountered and sets a high bar for how you would hope this watch to work.

Plugging it in for a full charge and download the COROS app to begin setup for use was quick and easy. The COROS app is really quite fantastic and easy to use. The app features a customizable snapshot page of weekly progress, a log of your activities, a map page to create routes, and a user profile page. The app is integral for syncing data from the watch and is where you can connect to different 3rd party apps like Strava.

Familiarizing yourself with the COROS App is quite a quick process much the same as the watch itself. There are three main pages that layout the different features of the watch. From scrolling the dial to see your daily data, pressing the dial to see the list of activities (which you can organize via the app for faster lookup), and holding the back button to access the “Toolbox”. The toolbox page displays the non activity features of the watch, which includes: music, camera control, find my phone, compass, topo maps, and various heart rate features.

As a watch user, the Apple Watch has been the most consistent of watches to use over the last few years. It isn’t the pinnacle fitness watch, but what it is lacking in fitness features is made up for in smartphone features.

The Vertix 2 is very much so a fitness watch. With limited smartphone features, it will display notifications, however, there is no way to answer calls or respond to a text or email from the watch. It excels at its purpose though to monitor and track physical data and offer accurate GPS location, which is something that a Smartwatch typically doesn’t do as proficiently.

Coming from an Apple Watch the Vertix 2 is rather large, the 51mm body and 26mm strap makes a statement on your wrist. Fortunately, the Sapphire glass and titanium bezel are highly durable and have yet to show any signs of wear even after a few hard hits while mountain biking. The silicon band of the Vertix 2 is easy to use and snugs up very well. On hot days or during activities it picks up the heat and sweat and I’ve felt the need to remove the watch for a bit to air out my wrist.

Personally, I don’t have any known allergies to silicone like some do, but I have noticed some irritation from the strap after long activities that took a few hours for the skin to settle. Other then the strap I found the Vertix 2 Optical sensor essentially unusable on my left arm that has tattoos where the watch would sit. This isn’t unique to COROS as many Optical Sensors struggle with working on tattoos, but it is something to note for potential buyers.

As a fitness watch the sensors and general health data collected from the Vertix 2 has been fairly accurate. Consistently keeping track of Heart Rate through strenuous activites and recapping your daily training load.

The GPS functionality paired with the large screen has been another great feature of the Vertix 2. From preloaded routes, or creating and syncing a custom route from the app. The accurate turn by turn monitoring of your activity is great for riding without a computer or feeling the need to have your phone up and out during a ride. The large display makes it even nicer when you are in an area with little to no cell service. By pulling up the Map from the Toolbox, you have a large display to see color maps, and scroll around your area with ease. Most of my local mountain bike trails happen to be in zero cell signal areas and the GPS maps have made it nice when exploring fire roads to prevent from getting lost.

It’s easy to forget what a long battery life is in today’s world of tech. My iPhone, laptop, you name it, they all typically last a full day of use and that’s being generous. We’re so used to daily charging, the COROS Vertix 2 with a 60 day window before a full charge with general use is almost unheard of for any advanced watch with as many features as it has. Now with the different satellite modes or long daily activities, you will see a decrease in the amount of time you can go before a charge, but after many of our week long riding trips and 6+ hours of activity tracking, I still haven’t charged more then once every other week and every one of those times it has been with over 30% of battery left.

Overall, the Vertix 2 has been a great tool for daily riding and general fitness training, which has worked great for taking advantage of the beautiful summer we’ve had. For daily functions, it has left me wanting more connectivity to my phone. With my Apple Watch, I can leave my phone at home or in a bag all day long and rarely find the need to look at it. The lack of being able to respond to anything from the Vertix 2 pigeonholes itself into being a very specific type of tool. 

Generally he size of the Vertix 2 has been the other uphill battle to get used to. The large display and battery size has their benefits, but for my specific uses it makes it hard to justify the perks with how cumbersome it feels on the wrist. 

COROS did a great job at giving the Vertix 2 to connect to bluetooth devices and the 32gb of internal storage is really a neat feature that I think is a bit dated. In the era of spotify and music streaming, I can’t remember the last time I had hard music files saved on my computer to transfer to a device and the lack of connectivity to apps like spotify on the watch to stream or being able to answer calls from the watch make the headphones a useful tool to only a handful of people.

With preference leaning slightly towards a more daily use watch the COROS Vertix 2 proved to be an absolute treat in regards to more comprehensive data and mapping functionality. The extended battery life and training tools really stepped up the abilities of what a watch can offer as a training and adventure device. Regardless of whether or not you’re into data collection to optimize your training or looking for a GPS device for going to the woods where cell signal proves to be unreliable the COROS Vertix 2 is a fantastic tool to navigate your activities with ease. For $699, the extended features of the Vertix 2 may be overshadowed by the more affordable options in the COROS lineup.

Price: $699Size: 51mm w/ 26mm bandBand Material: Nylon and SiliconeWeight: 89gWebsite: coros.com