COROS - APEX 4

Go Apex. Better battery life, stronger cpu, more fluid maps/ui, better app. Buy 970 only if he prioritizes bright amoled screen. Everything else is on Coros advantage.

Interesting choice with the Apex 4, I think the Nomad is a better and cheaper watch 🙂 although I'm a sucker for a ruggedized plastic watch.

I went with the apex.. price and battery!

I got my Garmin 245 since 2019. In Jan 2026, I switched to Coros Apex 4 but after a month, I switched back to Garmin Fenix E. Besides the extremely dim display in Coros Apex 4, another reason I switched back is that the data from Garmin knows you more. The data from Coros is just data, not enough information can be provided. It just helps record data without enough analysis. Also the data presentation in both Coros watch and App is too simple. The presentation from Garmin is more sophisticated. The graphs in Garmin App helps you understand your running performance more. Also, many things from Coros are not completed in details such as the font, font size, icons, layout, … etc. These makes Coros not premium enough.

970 beats apex literally the only thing the apex has on it is price and battery.

Flashlight is awesome tho and Garmin gives 20 percent off . Both great watches tho i just hate how thick they made the apex 4

Just got the coros apex 4 thing is super cool, plan to use it for mostly running but building towards more mountaineering and navigation

The Vertix 2S is kind of old (maybe 2 years?), the most recently released Coros watch is the Apex 4 and should meet your needs. I don't know if you can use navigation for a 200, which can take some people 4+ days, but also *everyone* who does a 200 stops at points to rest and you can charge your watch then. Also, by the time you're ready for a 200, there might be better watches. And a new watch will cost less than the entry fee for a 200. I have a Pace 3 and the battery isn't what it used to be and won't last 24 hours tracking even without using the navigation features. I did a 24 hour race and at one point I just kept it in my pocket connected to the charger for a lap (~40 mins) and that was enough to keep it going for the rest of the race. I used an arm band HRM so I wasn't worried about losing heart rate data.

Agreed, I really like my Apex 4 coming from an Enduro 3. I’m guessing OP wants the AMOLED based on the two watches he is on the fence about. But, I do prefer the MIP displays. I’m guessing you do as well.

u/Holiday_Date705 and anyone else interested: Currently laid up with a bum knee and having an ear surgery soon — so too much time on my hands LOL. I would say newly released Garmin watches are buggy. Sometimes closer to alpha firmware release than a beta. But after a year, their watches tend to stabilize. COROS tends to be a little more stable overall, but then their firmware has less customization. Therefore, less on board computational processes. On a Garmin, you can set-up & use the watch without the smartphone app and onboard the watch can determine VO2max, sleep scoring, HRV, training load, estimate race times, etc. All the other brands (COROS included) require the use of their smartphone app for initial setup and periodical the app for many of the other features. My point being is not a pro-Garmin stance, but rather that Garmin has a lot going on (within the watch) which means every update, bug fix, etc can break something else (sometimes seemingly unrelated). Which is why I went with COROS. The COROS watches deliver what I want (mostly) without the noisy marketing features. In turn, this yields more stability, but also less feature rich. Suunto’s UI has improved a great deal within the last few product releases (Vertical 2, Race 2 & Run) but their UI functionality can be odd. Not necessarily hard to use or unintuitive, just odd. Right now the Suunto maps were adjusted to possibly download faster resulting in reducing trail and road detail unless you are zoomed in very close. Which for trail running / hiking I find defeats the purpose of having a wrist map. As when I want a quick reference with some context beyond what can be seen. After COROS updated their maps, I see more TOPO and POI detail with faster panning/zooming than what was experienced on my last Garmin (Enduro 3). So, if you go down the rabbit hole on these devices the only perfect watch is the one you just bought. Once the honeymoon is over… marketing of another watch will try to hook you. LOL. COROS may not be the most developed product but I find it consistent and their team appears to genuinely listen to their customers (wants/demands). Additionally, they are not selling a hardware revision each year of a particular product line (series). For example, the recently released Apex 4 & Pace 4 may not see a new hardware revision until fall 2028 (based on previous release history). Additionally, COROS has consistently try to provide as many features as functionally possible (as the hardware will support) to their older products.

Coros is the new Garmin IMO. Well made and robust watches, feature-rich, tailored for sports tracking first, super long battery life and more importantly: affordable. Coros' new Apex 4 is just as good as Garmin's top of the line Forerunner for almost half the price.

I tried to move from a Withings Scanwatch to COROS Apex 4. The most important feature for me was tell the time and the second most important feature was notify me if I receive a phone call or message (then I would take out my phone). The notifications were terrible. A phone call or message notification would be a single “blip”, like some is gently tapping you on the wrist. Once. And once only. If you are still in an office, that may be fine, but if you are walking, running, using a tool at work, you will not feel the little elf that has just tapped you lightly on the wrist. I stopped using the watch after one day.