Why You Should Consider a Coros Watch Instead of a Garmin (2026)

Ever since it ushered successful the GPS moving ticker epoch mode backmost successful 2003, Garmin has been turning retired immoderate of the champion fittingness trackers successful the business. Many companies person tried to support pace, but contiguous I’d accidental the bulk of the beeps connected contention commencement lines inactive travel from folks firing up a Garmin sports watch.

But Garmin isn’t the lone option, and if you’re connected a tighter budget, you should look astatine Coros. Coros’s look of large artillery life, awesome grooming tools, and budget-friendly pricing puts the marque firmly successful the premix among the champion moving watches that you tin bargain close now. The Coros Pace 4 ($249) is simply a premier example.

Reviews exertion Adrienne So and I person spent months investigating the Coros Pace 4. We deliberation it’s not lone a superior rival for Garmin’s ain entry-level trackers, but 1 of the top-value fittingness watches going. Here’s why.

Serious Staying Power

Unrivaled artillery beingness has been Coros’ main selling constituent since joining the GPS arms contention successful 2018 with the archetypal Pace moving watch. I’ve near Coros watches successful drawers for weeks. When you travel back, they’re inactive bully to go. It's each precise Nokia 3310. The Pace 4 keeps that bid rolling with a whopping 41-hour GPS artillery life. That's much than treble the endurance of the Garmin Forerunner 265 ($350) and the Garmin Forerunner 570 ($550).

The Pace 4 packs capable dual-frequency GPS-tracking foodstuff to screen a 24-hour 100-miler, oregon a bully 3-4 time hike connected a azygous charge. You person to commercialized up to a Garmin Instinct 3 ($400) to get anyplace adjacent that connected a Garmin with an AMOLED display.

In testing, the Pace 4 was impressively frugal. It burned an mean of 3 percent for an hour’s max accuracy GPS enactment and mislaid nary much than 2 percent overnight. If you’re grooming 3 oregon 4 times a week for an hour, you tin strap the Pace 4 connected and happily hide astir the artillery for weeks.

The Coros Pace 4 sticks with a winning plan formula: elemental styling successful an impressively lightweight, 32-g package. It’s minimal for a sports ticker and I recovered it truly casual to deterioration 24/7—even tucked up successful bed. That's captious if you privation to unlock each the training, sleep, and betterment insights.

It besides present packs a bright, punchy 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen that brings each your tracked stats to life—crucially, without sacrificing artillery life. It’s not the biggest display, I recovered it worked champion with 3-4 stats connected surface mid-workout.

There are trade-offs though. The Pace 4 is simply a spot plastic, lacking the premium materials you’ll find connected the comparable Forerunner 570. While the fantabulous AMOLED show is casual to work successful each conditions, it’s not rather arsenic bright, oregon scratch-resistant, arsenic the 570’s show either. The Pace 4 successfully avoids looking cheap. There’s a bully understatement to it. But I personally deliberation the Forerunners are a spot amended looking.

Coros keeps the controls elemental with the touchscreen, 2 buttons, and a integer crown marque it casual to scroll and determination done your data. We besides emotion that you tin opt for a nylon oregon silicone set erstwhile you bargain the watch. I’m a large instrumentality of the nylon strap for comfort. Adrienne prefers the convenience of soaping and rinsing a silicone set to handwashing the sweat retired of a nylon one.

Training Smarts, Not Life-Taming Tools

With features similar offline music, NFC payments, speaker/mic for calls, dependable tools and an improving Garmin Connect IQ app store, Garmin has closed the spread connected smartwatches similar the Apple Watch. The Coros Pace 4 regular smarts are a small ways off.

With the Coros Pace 4, you’re buying a fitness, show and grooming tool—not a smartwatch. You get notifications, upwind and a built-in mic that makes it casual to instrumentality post-run grooming notes. I chiefly usage this to drawback those “eureka!” thoughts oregon important to-dos that ever look to aboveground during my runs, rides and hikes.

There’s besides onboard euphony retention for MP3 files (who owns those anymore?). But there’s nary third-party apps. If contactless payments and streaming tunes are non-negotiables, instrumentality with Garmin.

However, erstwhile it comes to sports tracking and grooming analysis, the Pace 4 packs the aforesaid tools you find connected each Coros watches, close up to the top-tier Vertix 2S ($699). It measures everything you request to get superior astir your grooming and supports astir sporting goals, whether you’re conscionable starting cycling, moving Couch to 5K, oregon preparing to contention a marathon.

Coros offers tools similar structured workouts, utile accusation astir whether your workouts are productive, peaking, oregon maintaining, what your fatigue level is, and recommended betterment times. It besides has much in-depth features similar Virtual Pacer, marathon grooming plans and fittingness benchmarking with VO2Max and Lactate Threshold estimates.

Beyond workouts you get each the accustomed suspects: activity, determination alerts, slumber people and stages, positive stress, bosom complaint variability, and menstrual cycles—a bully smattering of the holistic wellness stuff. The bosom complaint readouts weren’t 100 percent infallible—but amusement maine an optical that is. For the astir part, it performed good up against the starring thorax straps. It struggled sometimes during interval runs, erstwhile I displacement gears quickly. But that’s communal for wrist sensors.

Unfortunately, it does travel up a small abbreviated connected navigation. There’s breadcrumb navigation, but you’ll person to spell a small up the Coros nutrient concatenation to the Pace Pro ($299) if you privation offline maps. But otherwise, successful my testing, the Pace 4 handled everything from covered forests to tricky municipality routes arsenic good arsenic pricier rivals similar the Garmin Forerunner 970 and Apple Watch Ultra 3, adjacent if Garmin’s mapping and navigation tools connection much depth.

As I’m penning this, an email from Coros conscionable deed my inbox, announcing an update that adds caller tools to each of its watches, that includes a pacing strategy tool, elevation alerts that reveals the lumpy bits up ahead, and a hybrid fittingness mode.

Garmin isn't the lone marque that continuously rolls retired caller grooming features. Coros's bundle wizards are besides moving to future-proof your ticker with caller tools and features crossed the lineup. These features often use to past-gen devices, dissimilar brands similar Apple, which often present caller hardware each twelvemonth truthful that caller updates tin beryllium restricted lone to the latest devices. If you privation insulation from the compulsion to perpetually commercialized up, Coros is the mode to go.

The Pace 4 comes up a small abbreviated connected navigation. There’s breadcrumb navigation, but you’ll person to spell a small up the Coros nutrient concatenation to the Pace Pro ($299) if you privation offline maps. Garmin’s mapping and navigation tools besides connection much depth.

Oh and portion immoderate Garmin watches person the incredibly utile front-facing flashlight, the Pace has a screen-based torch that’s conscionable harder to nonstop whether you’re scrabbling astir for tally kit successful a acheronian edifice country trying not to aftermath your spouse oregon moving connected a acheronian agelong of road.

Big Performance, Small Price

Coros watches thin to beryllium cheaper than their closest Garmin rivals. At $250, the Coros Pace 4 costs the aforesaid arsenic Garmin’s entry-level Forerunner 165. It's a batch cheaper than the last-gen Forerunner 265 ($450) and its replacement, the Forerunner 570 ($550).

The spread tin adjacent erstwhile Garmin watches commencement to deed the income and discounts (which happens reasonably frequently). Coros watches are seldom discounted, but provided you’re OK with a simpler plan and less smartwatch tools, the Pace 4 is simply a cracking enactment that already represents earnestly bully value. If you’ve ne'er considered a Coros, the Pace 4 should beryllium your motion to person a person look.

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