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The Coros Pace 4 Pro is one of the best running watches we’ve tested, and certainly our favourite Coros watch to date. It marries the brand’s usual reliable tracking, long battery life and simple user interface with the most impressive design we’ve yet seen on a Coros watch.
It’s slim, light, and attractive and has a huge, bright AMOLED display. This design upgrade is the main reason to consider the Pace 4 Pro over the standard Coros Pace 4, which remains a viable option at a lower price. The Coros Pace 4 Pro is good value itself though, given its design and features, and offers a more affordable alternative to the Garmin Forerunner 970.
Design & Key Stats
- Price: £389/$449
- Size: 47.6 x 47.6 x 11.8mm
- Weight: 43g with nylon band
- Display: 1.47in AMOLED
- Case material: Plastic with titanium bezel
- Screen material: Sapphire crystal
- Water resistance: 5 ATM
- Battery life (watch): 21 days (7 days always-on)
- Battery life (dual-band GPS): 30 hours always-on
- Storage: 32GB
Coros Pace 4 Pro review
Here’s our full multi-tester review of the Coros Pace 4 Pro based on over a month of testing from three runners.
What’s New?
Compared to both the original Coros Pace Pro and the Coros Pace 4, the key upgrades you get with the Coros Pace 4 Pro all relate to its improved design. It has the largest and brightest display on a Coros watch yet, going up to 3,500 nits, a titanium bezel and a sapphire crystal screen.
It also offers longer battery life than the Pace 4 and Pace Pro, lasting seven days on a charge with the screen always on and up to 21 days in raise-to-wake mode. It sticks to the same software as Coros’ other watches, and has the action button on the left side that’s become a staple of the brand’s design.
Check out more of the best Coros running watches
The Run Test: Likes
Coros threw a lot at the design of the Pace 4 Pro and it has paid off handsomely. The AMOLED display on the Pace 4 Pro is huge and delightful, and despite having such a big screen the watch remains very light and thin. It’s comfortable to wear 24/7 and while not quite as small as the Pace 4, the Pace 4 Pro is still a great option for those with slender wrists.
The accuracy of the Pace 4 Pro has been great throughout our testing too. The GPS tracks have been bang in line with top rivals, even on tricky race course like the twisting Shoreditch Half Marathon in London, and the distance and pace stats have been consistent and spot on in our runs.
While the optical heart rate sensor does throw up the occasional error, spiking at the start of runs or lagging behind a chest strap in intervals, the Coros Pace 4 Pro has been mostly accurate in this area and as good as most running watches.
We also found the user interface on the Pace 4 Pro to be simple and snappy, there’s no lag anywhere throughout the system and it’s an easy UI to get to grips with.
Battery life is another strong point on the watch, which is listed as lasting up to 21 days in raise to wake mode (seven days always-on) and offers 30 hours of multi-band GPS tracking. Nick found it lasted him just over seven days on a charge when always-on even when running every day, which is outstanding for such a thin watch with a big, bright AMOLED display.
The maps are easy to use on the watch as well – you can create routes quickly in the partner app and sync them to the Pace 4 Pro for turn-by-turn guidance with alerts when you come to big climbs and descents. The maps are clear and you can follow routes easily on the large display, and they load quickly when panning and zooming. They’re non-routable maps so you can’t create routes on the watch, unlike with Garmin watches.
Finally Nick has taken a shine to the voice notes features on the Pace 4 Pro, which has a mic and speaker. You can quickly give voice notes after a workout that are then transcribed in the Coros app. It’s an easy way to keep a training diary (and make notes on products we’re testing for reviews).
The Run Test: Dislikes
The Coros Pace 4 Pro doesn’t bring a lot of smart features to the table. You can’t use the watch for NFC payments and there isn’t an app store to call on, though you can add more watch faces from the Coros app. While you can drag and drop MP3 files for music playback on the watch, you can’t link it to streaming services.
You are also limited in how much you can customise the watch faces you put on the Pace 4 Pro, many of which can’t show the weather, for example. Watches from Garmin, Suunto and Polar all allow for a lot more customisation on the face, and let you show stats like weekly running mileage too.
Nick has a slightly niche dislike which is that the Pace 4 Pro doesn’t have rolling pace available as a stat for running workouts. He uses this on other watches alongside lap pace to stay on target when doing long reps during workouts. Coros’ current pace is fairly slow to respond to changes in pace too, though we always recommend using lap pace instead anyway as current pace on all watches is a bit up and down.
Finally, there’s no built-in flashlight on the Pace 4 Pro. We didn’t exactly expect it to have a torch, but we do love that feature on the Garmins and other watches that do offer it. There is just a torch mode that uses the screen on the Coros.
Coros Pace 4 Pro vs Coros Pace 4
The Coros Pace 4 actually has all the same software features as the Pace 4 Pro, so the pricier watch is only really worth the upgrade for the improved design and longer battery life.
We do think the Pace 4 Pro is a much nicer watch to wear all the time, and the screen is a big upgrade on the Pace 4. You also get a couple of days of battery life out of the Pace 4 Pro with heavy use, and longer GPS battery life for single activities.
If you’re going to wear your sports watch all the time the Coros Pace 4 Pro is worth the upgrade in our opinion, but if you’re on a tight budget, only wear your watch for workouts or just like to have the smallest watch possible on your wrist, the Pace 4 is a very strong alternative for £229/$249 – a hefty £160/$200 saving.
Verdict And Alternatives
The Coros Pace 4 Pro is an outstanding sports watch that we loved testing and some of us will continue to use it as our main running watch going forward. The excellent design, accurate tracking and simple, snappy user interface make it one of the best running watches for runners of any level, and it’s good value for the features and materials you get.
Our overall best running watch is the Garmin Forerunner 970, which has some big extra features compared with the Pace 4 Pro, including a built-in flashlight, extra training analysis, proper smart features and better maps and navigation tools. The Forerunner 970 is a lot more expensive though, and the Pace 4 Pro has longer battery life and a thinner, lighter design.
We certainly rate the Pace 4 Pro as a better buy than the map-less Forerunner 570, and it’s also cheaper than that watch and the older Forerunner 965, so it does make for a compelling alternative to the Forerunner line-up.
The Pace 4 might be a better option for value as outlined above, while those seeking a true smartwatch will be better off looking at the Apple Watch Ultra 4, which is a also a great running watch in our experience.