Coros Vertix 2 review – I came, I saw, I won?

Tags: Review | Coros | Smart

20.1.2022 | 12 MIN

When I first received the first generation of the Vertix, I told myself that the next generation could be the best sports smartwatch on the market. Now, after wearing the Coros Vertix 2 for some time, there is one question to be answered... Was I right?

There is perhaps no technology-oriented athlete who has not excitedly admired the Coros brand lately. This brand showed up on the market as unexpectedly as your mother-in-law to your house. With the difference that Coros is a pleasant surprice. Don't worry, I'm joking, I like my mother-in-law. :)

I was wowed by the first generation and I couldn't wait for the second one. I liked the most:

• two months battery life
• heart rate variability measuring through ECG
• topographic map and music player
• ability measure with up to five navigation systems at once

On the contrary, I was dissapointed by:

• heart rate measurement accuracy (I will discuss it more below)
• the map is without labels and is not detailed enough
• the music player does not support Spotify and other streaming services

But we will get to all that gradually.

Vertix 2 is not to be under the sleeve of a dress shirt

At first glance, it's almost too easy to confuse the Vertix 2 with the rival Garmin Fenix 6. Nevertheless, you feel an outdoor spark from every crease of the watch. Every crease is saying "I am not an urban smartwatch and I don't belong under the sleeve of a shirt. I am supposed to be covered in sweat, mud, run ultramarathons, climb mountains..."

Screws? The Coros guarantee of honesty

When talking about the last generation, I was joking about finding 18 screws there. The same number could be found in the second one. But it's screwed on properly, don't worry. The watch promises a water-resistance of 100 M. Which is a decrease compared to the previous generation, because it stated water-resistance of 150 meters... Of real depth. Unfortunately, he second generation does not mention real depth anywhere.

The overall workmanship has a very high quality, and I can't even find any shortcomings there. And I do be a pedant when it comes to that. The operating temperature is -30 to 50°C, which is a really decent range.

I got the titanium version in my possesion with the bright orange silicone strap. The bezel and the case back is made of titanium, while the case is plasic. Even with the use of "high-tech" materials like titanium and plastic, the watch weights 89 grams.

However, I don't mind the almost 100 g weight as I am used to a similary heavy watch. Sure, for sports it is the best to have the lightest watch possible, but again, those few extra grams are not that big of a deal. I have certainly never experienced my left hand hurtig morethan my right hand.

Vertix 2 fits any wrist like a glove

Pretty above the average is also diameter of the watch, which is 50.3 milimeters. However, I tried it on two extremes – on my colegue with a 16 centimeter wrist, and on another one with a 1 centimeter wrist. It suited both of them beautifully, although the one with the larger wrist pressed the crown as he moved his hand. Nothing that couldn't be solved by turning the watch and the display on the other side.

Personally, I was a little bothered as the watch tended to slide to one side of my wrist.

And speaking of the crown, the crown is the means to control the watch. There are then two buttons above and below it. The upper one activated the backlight and the lower one is the back button. The buttons are nicely integrated into the case, and they don't wobble at all. The crown wiggles a little, but but that's probably because it's rotatable.

What I think is amazing is the strap. But probably in a different way you'd expect it to be... It has a Quick-Fit attachment system, and a width of 26 millimeters. Do you know what that means? That this model can also fit straps by Enduro, Fenix 6X, and Tactix. Of course, I immediately put on a nylon strap from my Tactix watch. :) It is as if Coros expected many users of these models would switch to them.

The list menu is a big step forward

Many users might be pleased with the upgraded display size that went from 1.2 inches to 1.4 inches. The Vertix 2 can then fit more information. And it's not just because of the size. Another thing that helps with that is the list menu. Therefore, the individual widgets do not switch from one to the other, but they appear nicely below each other, and you can always see three lines on the display.

The resolution has also been increased to 280x280 pixels. The number of colors stays on 64. But what more do you need? The human eye recognizes only three colors – red, blue, and green. The rest of the "colors" are just combinations of them. But enough with biology... There are simply 64 of them as there were on the good old Nokia, as my colleague Matěj wrote in his article.

ECG? What, ECG?!

The sensor equipment includes an accelerometer, barometer, gyroscope, compass, heart rate sensor, thermometer, pulse oximeter and... please... ECG! Wow, sports tester that can record your heart rate, arrhythmia, and more. But it doesn't really work that way.

Electrocardiogram measurements are there, but are only used to accurately measure heart rate variability. This value can detect your body's tension. It is probably my most favorite metric that I measure every day. And in Coros I find it even more smart due to the use of an electrocardiogram.

The HRV index is measured on a numeric scale from 0 to 100. Unfortunately, it is not possible to set the watch to display variability in milliseconds (which I would prefer).

81-100: Relaxed and ready
51-80: Some physical/mental stress
21-50: Moderate physical/mental stress
1-20: High physical/mental stress

Unfortunately, the ECG measurement is not certified and only the numerical evaluation of "our well-being" is based on it. So we can't really know if it's working, since there is no more exact numerical or graphic information – for example, a sine wave, or variability in millisecond .

The heart rate sensor disappointed rather than pleased

I was also a little sad about the heart rate sensor that I liked in the Coros Vertix so much.

During the day, itoften showed delusions in the style of 207 beats per minute. I'm not saying I don't want a heart rate range like that... But let's be realistic.

Deviations also occurred during sports activities, when I compared the data with the chest strap while running. Anyway, a person who buys Vertix 2 probably already has a chest strap. The optics simply isn't perfect. Although there is also a small problem. The Vertix 2 can only be paired with a Bluetooth chest strap, not with a ANT+ chest strap.

The first sports tester to combine up to five navigation systems

The combination of two navigation systems is quite standard in the technological world. But how about five? That's exactly what the Coros Vertix 2 can do. It can receive GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, Galileo, and BeiDou signal at the same time. And Coros directly marks this setting as recommended. Although the default setting is GPS only. So if you recommend it, why not set it as the default?

However, when I ran using the GPS only, the reactions to the pace changes were terrible.  Especially in wooded areas. But after turning on all the five satellites, oh, that was another story.

Battery life strong like a bull is a weak phrase

The real fun is just beginning with the battery. Everything written above may e completely useless. How long does Vertix 2 last? I would describe it like this... For Garmin Enduro I wrote that it is "a watch with a battery life strong like a bull". For Vertix 2, animal encyclopedias won't be enough.

In standard mode it lasts 2 months. Which can be quite useful at today's electricity price.

And what about when the GPS is on?

GPS/QZSS: 140 hours
GPS/QZSS + music: 35 hours
GPS/QZSS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou: 90 hours
GPS/QZSS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou + music: 30 hours
GPS/QZSS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou (dual frequency): 50 hours
UltraMax (GPS/PDR): 240 hours

Garmin Enduro can (with enough light) receive GPS signal every second for 80 hours. And it is just the GPS. The Vertix 2 can receive signal from five satellites for 90 hours. Garmin, get lost! The Vertix 2 currently doesn't have a rival in the world of smartwatches when it comes to the battery life.

It's been 2 months since started using Vertix 2. The battery life is great and I'm not quite sure where my charging cable is... (Suttiruk K. on the official Coros website)

Vertix 2 is also suitable for one-finger control

Even the youngest member of your family would be able to control the watch. You go through the widgets by rotating the crown. By pressing the crown you get to the sports activities selection. The upper button activates the backlight. The lower one takes you one step back and when you hold it for a while you get to another menu, where you can find, for example, a map, save position, alarm clock, stopwatch and other features.

One of the biggest advantages is definitely that this is perhaps the only control on the market that can really be solved with one finger. All you need is a thumb.

The overall environment is very very smooth. A better processor and menu in the form of a list helped.

Magic Touch – when touch screen makes sense

You say that touch screen and sports tester do not belong together? Well, you haven't heard of Magic Touch yet. It is a touch screen that appears only if you need it. The watch cannot be controlled by touch, but the moment you open more detailed information about the heartbeat, barometer or map or navigation, you suddenly can control the watch by touch. That means touch only applies where it really makes sense. Otherwise it would interfere unnecessarily.

Vertix 2 is no lifestyle tinsel

The Vertix 2 offers a true foundation in the form of recording steps, calories burned, and heart rate.

During the day, it records the minutes spent in an activity, and the ascents climbed based on the barometer changes.

At night, of course, you can count on sleep monitoring, which unfortunately does not include a REM phase. So you get data on deep and light sleep, the range of your heart rate, and its average.

The selection of sports activities is really very wide, but I would say that the primary focus is on running, hiking, cycling, or swimming. This device makes the most sense for runners, because there is a bunch of metrics that are of interest to runners.

Vertixu 2 possesses these sport activities:

Run, Indoor Run, Trail Run, Track Run, Hike, Mountain Climb, Bike, Indoor Bike, Pool Swim, Open Water, Triathlon, Gym Cardio, GPS Cardio, Ski, Snowboard, Cross-country Ski, Ski Touring, Multisport, Strength, Training, Speedsurfing, Windsurfing, Whitewater, Flatwater, Rowing, Indoor Rower.

What I find great is the training plan and the ability to create specific training sessions. A training plan can be created for 4 weeks in advance and specific workouts can be created for running, cycling, strengthening and swimming.

EvoLab – porn for exact runners

I have highly praised the EvoLab matric since the last generation. I appretiate it doesn't only give you verbal summary of how you are doing, but you get more exact output – numeric values.

I don't want to write all this down again so I will steal the description of the metric from my older review on Coros Vertix.

• Marathon Level – Numerical expression of your ability to run  marathon distance on flat surface. This value takes into account the VO2 Max, the lactate threshold, and your running efficiency. The higher the score, the faster you are able to finish maraton at the moment.
• Training Load – Numerical expression of the of the impact of training on your body based on the intensity and length of exercise.
• VO₂ Max – The maximum amount of oxygen that an athlete can use in a sports activity.
• Running performance – Expression of how good your run has been based on your fitness on a scale of 80 to 120.
• Lactate threshold – The heart rate or pace at which lactate begins to accumulate in your body and you start to feel fatigue more quickly.
• Resting heart rate
• Base Fitness – Numerical expression of the body's ability to train longer and more often at a higher intensity
• Load Impact – The higher the number, the greater the impact on your body and fatigue-related training limitations.
• Fatique – The difference between Base Fitness and Load Impact. The higher the number, the greater the overtraining (values ​​above 60 already indicate overtraining).
• Race Predictor – Prediction of results for 5 km, 10 km, half marathon, and marathon based on your condition.
• Regeneration time – The percetange expression of your regeneration since your trainning.

A separate tab is reserved in the mobile application directly for EvoLab, which comes to me as the pinnacle of convenience (in good way). And speaking of the app, lets talk about it a little.

When you open the app, you first get to the home screen, which displays basic information about calories burned, actively burned calories, steps, sleep, heart rate, and its variability.

In the second tab there are all trainings displayed, and we can open them in more detail with graphs.

The third tab is reserved for EvoLab, and in the last tab we can "customize" the watch. Meaning setting data fields in sports activities,  for updates, change the look of the display, set up notifications, and more. Plus you can set what widgets you want to have in the watch and in what order, which was not possible in previous generations.

Speaking of "more exact" metrics, some runners may also be tempted to measure the watts that these watches have. So you don't have to orientate only by the heartbeat, but your performance expressed in units.

The second generation already has topographic maps in its base

You can upload topographic maps of the world to your watch. The watch has a pre-installed maps of Europe, but you can download more or less any part of the world on the Coros website.

To put it bluntly, the maps are definitely not as detailed as Garmin's. It's a very basic map and Garmin won in a landslide with this one. However, it is nice to have a Coros with navigation and maps. By the way, Vertix and Apex PRO received maps in an update.

The first Coros with a music player

You can upload MP3 songs to Vertix 2. It is a bit of an archaic solution because you have to connect the watch with a cable to your computer and drag and drop songs. In the age of streaming services, it can bother someone. I don't use MP3s at all, for example.

A classics are then notifications, which, again, break awkwardly, but at least support Czech diacritics. :)

Vertix 2 in conclusion

I came, I saw, but unfortunatelly I did not win. I was so excited about the Vertix 2, and I thought It would be the sports tester on the market. But it ended with the thought. Topographic maps are definitely a plus, but since they are not as detailed, I do not see such advantage over curve navigation.

Unfortunately, the music player does not support streaming services, but I understand that, because Coros is not yet such a promising brand for Spotify.

The heart rate sensor disappointed me deeply. It's a huge shift for the worse compared to the previous generation.

However, for long distance runners (ultramarathoners), and other athletes who need GPS reception for a long time, this model makes absolute sense. You turn on the reception from five satellites and you're taken care of for 90 hours. Perfect.

As an alternative, the Garmin Enduro definitely comes to mind, whose main attribute is also long battery life. Sadly, it does not have maps and a music player yet. If you want these features, be sure to reach for the  Garmin Fenix 6X. If you want these features, go with the Garmin Fenix 6X. From te lines of pure sports testers there is the Polar Vantage V2, which has watt measurements, but unfortunally almost no smart features.