If youre new to my channel welcome, i do hike guides based here in colorado, all across the country and, of course, gear reviews as well, always from the perspective of a hiker. I think its important to call that out with a watch like this, because theres so many different uses for any kind of outdoor, gps tracking watch and what a hiker needs and what i specifically need is going to be different. For you know a runner, a trail runner climber, et cetera coros, did provide this watch to me to as a loner uh. They are not sponsoring this video in any sense, and all thoughts are my own, of course. Also. If you havent seen my video on the coros apex pro check that out as well itll give you some background about corals, because a lot of things im going to talk about in this video are uh specifically for the vertex 2.. Also excuse some of the background noise thats going on today. Im just dealing with a lot of stuff outside so lets jump right into it with the vertex 2 and lets talk about the pros. One of the new features coros introduced in the vertex 2. Here is the multiple gps choices and also the dual frequency gps. So basically the multiple gps choices when youre doing an activity it allows you to set. Do you want to be constantly searching? Do you want to be more conservative on battery a lot of watches? Do this but whats interesting about coreos, and the vertex 2 in particular – is that dual frequency – gps, basically thats just giving you more satellites uh so in theory its going to be giving you more accuracy in your tracking when youre looking back at a an activity.
This is something that the the core oaks, that coros has done with the apex pro and some of their other models as well, but its the ability that, when you start an activity, it locks it. What i really like about this, especially from a hikers perspective, is sometimes your watch is buried in a bunch of different layers, and so you dont have to worry about. You know a glove hitting a side button and stopping the activity. You lose all that tracking. Until you notice that its been paused or unpaused or whatever, in addition, coros has done some nice improvements to their data screens really across the board in the vertex 2 in particular. What i really like is the post activity screens just more visually appealing and definitely an improvement from the past model watches the vertex 2 is really great at almost instantly syncing to your watch. So when youre done with an activity, as long as bluetooth is turned on your phones near its instant, your activity is right to your watch ill touch on this briefly, but the ability to change screens. So if you want to do just different home screen on the watch, different data fields within each widget or activity, thats very easy to do through the app as well and again. Thats all been talked about in the apex pro review as well. But just kind of a reiteration of how easy it is to really customize the the vertex.
Corus, without a doubt, is known for its battery life and great battery life, in particular when youre talking about gps tracking – and that is definitely true on the vertex 2 been wearing the vertex 2. With my phoenix 6 x sapphire, i believe uh and the battery life is definitely better than that uh. By about 10 on average, i would say, and what that kind of breaks down to is maybe another hour or two of gps tracking, at least for the garmin side of things. On average, ive found that with full gps, no battery saver im getting between 35 and 40 hours of tracking before the coros has to be recharged again, which is absolutely fantastic. Theres definitely ways to extend that. If you dont want constant gps searching or just constant pinging, you can definitely get more aggressive battery life. Another feature that was used on the vertex 2, but i really like it especially from a hikers perspective, especially being here in colorado, is high elevation mode, so high elevation mode engages once youre above a certain altitude. I believe its set at 9000 feet on the vertex 2 here from coros and essentially what thats doing is its keeping an eye on your vital if youre over a certain elevation, theres less oxygen in the air and your heart rate is going to spike when youre Working harder, so things like that personally, its never something ive used really actively, but it is a cool feature to have, especially if youre really kind of looking to focus on specifically training at high altitude.
Super small note here, but the backlight is considerably brighter than the garmin that i use it almost is like a flashlight level wont replace a flashlight, but just kind of a cool feature definitely been improved. Uh from the apex ive talked about this in the past, as well, but koros being a company that is younger. Definitely trying to eat market share away from some of its competitors, and i think one of the strengths that it really has is the constant updates to uh the watch so, for example, its going to be updating things within the app things within the watch. One of the things that i tried out, which was new for the vertex 2, is the gopro control feature on your watch. When i first used it, it was pretty buggy and honestly was going to make the cons list in this video. But, literally weeks later, they provided an update and it works perfectly now so thats a minor example of how theyre just constantly improving things when it released maps on the vertex 2. It also put maps on a lot of prior models as well, so thats, something just constantly getting upgrades and new features, even if youre not necessarily buying a new watch which is really cool and speaks a lot about the company. I just touched on them as well, and this is, without a doubt, the biggest feature that was added on the vertex 2 continuing to improve coross mountaineer top of the line outdoor model, and that is maps maps are going to start off as a pro because, obviously Its a huge improvement from not having that them at all from previous watches.
Within the maps you can just use a map on its own. You do have the ability to load courses as well, but, as we get into the con side of things, ill talk more about why that area definitely needs improvement for coreos, specifically on the vertex 2, but still having maps at all is a huge huge upgrade. You can use the touch screen. The maps have different layers to them, so you can do topographical maps. You can do just a street view. You can do hybrid, certainly not the quality that youre used to from some of the other competitors on the market, but again having them is a humongous improvement, and this is a feature that was added to past models and watches as well. The other thing that is new with maps is the build the ability to add route uh. So this is a really cool and really easy way to kind of keep yourself tracked when youre doing an activity you do have to download a gpx, or, i believe, theres other file types that you can use to do that, and that has to be done to Your phone and then through the app so its a little bit cumbersome, but once you figure out how to do it, super super easy to do and very easy to select your route once you are starting an activity. Final new feature on the coros vertex 2 that i want to talk about is 3d mapping.
So this is a brand new feature even after the watch was released. Going back to my point of constant updates and once youve completed an activity, whether you have a route or not it doesnt matter, you can go into the app and check out the 3d map. Just by clicking the button super cool feature, i think, if i would have a critique on this, it would be great to have this option before you do an activity detail is okay, but still a really cool feature as well. Now that weve, wrapped up the pros of the vertex 2 from corals lets talk about the cons and the first one im going to talk about is the going right back to maps and although they did add maps, i found that theres a couple things that really Need to be looked at so number one when youre in a widget activities lets just call it activity, so hiking trail running whatever. When you start your activity, theres certain data screens that you have the ability to change out and customize to your liking, the one and its a massive one to be missing is the map field. Unless you have a route loaded, that will not happen, which is really a huge miss for me and its one of the biggest cons of this watch, and i think its such a little improvement for to do, but not having that map is really kind of a Bummer, because, especially at the price point and for coros to be this, you know the vertex 2 to be coross like out top of the line mountaineering watch.
You would expect it to have the maps within the widgets its just absolutely a critical miss to not have that you can back out of the activity and open maps and kind of find a way to look at a map while youre in the activity, but its Just its not super user friendly, it definitely needs to be improved, and, frankly, i expect it to be on the next round of vertex and apex watch continuing to talk about maps here, uh the loading and the detail of the maps really not great um, its. Obviously, a huge improvement to have them at all, but again like to me. They should have just waited and made sure the maps were loading correctly, loading fastly higher detail. You know youre not using this in a hiking situation or in a mountaineering situation in a neighborhood where streets are important, youre going to be concerned about specific terrain features, so the names of lakes, the names of mountains and thats. Just not the level of detail on the watch at the moment. One of the new features on the vertex 2 is the ability to have music on the watch, which is obviously a pro, but in my mind, its taking technology back like 10, 15 20 years, where almost like an ipod level of technology where you have to load A song onto the device, and then you can use it through your bluetooth headphones. The problem is that there are no music providers, so a spotify pandora, apple, music, whatever that are compatible with uh coros and that really kind of limits.
What you want to do with music like sure, if you want to take the time to load a bunch of songs onto your watch its nice? But for me, if youre going to tell me that the the watch has music, it needs to have the same level as your phone would, so that you can kind of get rid of that device and weight and whatever to be honest with you thats pretty much. It for my list of cons now, if you are the kind of person who can live with not having maps on the vertex 2, specifically as a regular feature versus loading a route every time you go out to do something. This is a fantastic watch. It just really is the battery life. The features within it are right on par with everybody else. I think the gps, multiple gpss, is more of a gimmick than anything with coros. You never know how things are going to improve over time because theyre, a smaller company, because theyre fighting for market share, theyre, really agile in making improvements and trying to make sure that theyre putting out the best product possible. Obviously, for me, the the lack of maps in here uh and kind of the detail of maps is a pretty big downfall, especially in the hiking world, and so i can say you know with confidence that i expect coros to continue to improve uh things in the Future and the vertex 2 is a fantastic watch at his price point.
It is a bit cheaper than some of the competitors uh significantly cheaper, depending on which model you know which watches youre looking at. I will not be using the vertex 2 as my daily driver. If you will but its pretty close – and i think in the future – maybe the next, even one to three years, depending on how quickly theyre putting out other models theres. Definitely a scenario where the vertex 3 4 or some other model from coros is something that im wearing every day and uh. You know ditching the the watch that im currently using if you own the vertex 2. Let me know what your thoughts on the watch are. If you have another koros product leave that in the comments below tell me, if i should check that out as well theres a feature that i missed either pro or con, leave those in the comments below as well. Its really helpful for the youtube algorithm. If you give this video a thumbs up, if you found it at all helpful or entertaining, i would really appreciate that, as always uh, if youre looking for height guides gear reviews, hiking tips go ahead and hit the subscribe button, not to miss any new content.wVRI2Jf_jxg
