COROS PACE 4 Pro reviews: a dazzling screen and marathon battery, but thin smart features

COROS’s PACE 4 Pro, a running and multisport watch that went on sale Sept. 22, is drawing strong reviews from running and fitness reviewers, who say it brings flagship hardware to the brand’s value-focused Pace line at US$449. Serious Pick has not tested the watch; this roundup summarizes what published reviewers found. In Canada, the COROS Canada online store lists it at $649 in black and white versions, though every version showed as sold out when Serious Pick checked Tuesday evening. Quebec City retailer Lessard Bicycles lists it at $649.99 and showed it as available.

The headline upgrade is the display: a 1.47-inch, 466-by-466 AMOLED touchscreen rated up to 3,500 nits, under sapphire glass with a titanium bezel. According to Alastair Dixon of Alastair Running, the 47.6-millimetre case is 11.8 millimetres thick and weighs 43 grams with the nylon strap or 51 grams with silicone. The watch has 32 GB of storage for maps and music, a microphone and speaker, and dual-frequency GPS. COROS rates it for up to 60 hours of GPS tracking in its all-systems mode, 40 hours in dual-frequency mode and 21 days of daily use.

Tom’s Guide’s Nick Harris-Fry called it his favourite COROS watch yet. After 11 days of daily runs, plus bike rides and strength workouts, he found its GPS tracks in line with Garmin’s Forerunner 970 and Fenix 9 Pro, and its heart-rate readings close to a chest strap apart from occasional short spikes and more errors during strength sessions. Battery life stood out: his watch lasted more than seven days on its first charge with the screen always on and the most power-hungry GPS mode in use, compared with four to five days for the Forerunner 970 under the same use.

At iRunFar, Craig Randall called the PACE 4 Pro “arguably, the brand’s most well-rounded device yet” and said its battery, features and materials make it a strong option for trail and ultrarunners, not just road runners. Over about 120 miles of testing in Colorado, he found the maps fast to download, taking about 30 seconds for the entire state, and almost lag-free on the watch. He was less impressed by the optical heart-rate sensor, which he rated “good but not great,” recalling easy runs on which it insisted his heart rate was 165 beats per minute. He also noted that a full charge takes about an hour and a half.

ACTIVE.com editor-in-chief Stephen Gendreau found the wrist heart-rate readings tracked closely with a chest strap, including during intervals, and liked the speaker and microphone for spoken answers mid-run. His one real complaint was the push-button quick-release strap, which he said did not hold as securely as a standard pin-and-loop design and took fiddling to seat. Dixon, whose review was posted Tuesday, said the watch has become his primary running watch and called it “the best watch COROS has made.” He cautioned that its ECG sensor powers an HRV wellness check rather than a medical-grade heart screening, and that after a few weeks of use, long-term durability is still an open question.

The trade-offs are mostly on the smart side. Tom’s Guide noted there are no NFC payments and no app store, and that music storage is limited to MP3 files. Dixon said you can control music playing on your phone, Spotify included, but cannot stream or download Spotify directly to the watch. The maps can follow a route created in advance but cannot build a new one on the watch, unlike Garmin’s routable maps. Tom’s Guide also pointed out that there is no readiness score, though the watch does track overnight heart-rate variability. Harris-Fry suggested that buyers who want richer smart features look at a Garmin or a full smartwatch.

On value, reviewers measured the PACE 4 Pro against Garmin’s Forerunner 570 (US$549) and Forerunner 970 (US$749.99). Dixon said that next to the 970, buyers give up tap-to-pay, on-watch routing, a readiness score and an LED flashlight, and gain a bigger, brighter screen, a thinner case and much longer battery life. Dixon said the standard PACE 4, at US$249, remains the better pure value, and Tom’s Guide called it a great cheaper alternative with the same software features. At least two of the reviewers, at Tom’s Guide and iRunFar, began testing on pre-release units before launch.

Sources: Tom’s Guide review; iRunFar review; ACTIVE.com review; Alastair Running review (Oct. 6, 2026); COROS Canada store listing; Lessard Bicycles listing.