Coros Apex 2 Pro £499 | 66g

David Bradford tests a feature-heavy GPS watch with an exceedingly long battery life

- David Bradford

I’d grown very attached to my old Garmin Forerunner 220. It had given me years of reliable service but finally the battery was on the way out so I decided to test the Apex 2 Pro and see how it compared. Given that my no-frills Garmin had only cost about £150 on offer, whereas the Apex 2 Pro retails at £499, I was intrigued to find out whether it would be justified in terms of function. Or indeed whether I could live up to it.

Battery life

The most striking benefit of the Apex 2 Pro is its incredible battery life. After its first charge, I was amazed when my first run used only 1% of charge. Later I discovered that even longer sessions and rides still only used 2-3%, despite using auto-pause and Bluetooth. Coros claims 30 days of regular use per battery charge, equating to 75 hours of GPS-enabled activity – that’s 30 hours more than is claimed when accessing all the satellite systems. I’m only just charging for the second time after two months of use, which is by far the best battery life I’ve ever known from any GPS device. In fact, it seems almost miraculous.

Optical heart rate