The only new watch that course is launching today course is also launching a very special edition, iliad kipchoge. I hope i pronounced that correctly pace. 2 sports watch and ill have another video on this one which ill have linked down the description below so go ahead and check that video out once youre done over here. So the original made kind of a splash because it was clearly taking aim at higher end premium. Support watches like the garmin fenix line of watches, with premium materials, as well as a premium look, and the vertex 2 continues that trend. But this time in a larger case – and it also comes with a titanium bezel thats supposed to be three times more scratch resistant than the original, but it still comes with a sapphire glass screen with a dlc or diamond light. Coating and ive been testing the vertex 2 out for about the last month or so using it for lots of different activities, including running as well as lots and lots of mountain biking and ive had zero issues in terms of durability. It basically looks perfect after all that abuse and i do have lots of data share from those activities, including gps, altimeter and hardware adaxi and well go over those here in just one bit but lets first talk about the big new features with the vertex 2.. So when it comes to satellites, theres, gps, theres glonass, galileo baidu, as well as qz ss satellite systems – and it basically depends on which region youre at in the world which satellite system is going to get you the best accuracy.
Most watches can use one two and sometimes three satellite systems at one time, but with course they went ahead and said well lets just go ahead and use all the satellite systems so theres a setting with the vertex 2, where you can leverage all those satellite systems At one time, so you basically dont have to choose, you can have it all, but not only that they also have a dual frequency mode, which allows the watch to communicate with satellites on two concurrent frequencies. At the same time, which leads to even higher accuracy and in regards to whether or not leveraging all those satellite systems actually does translate into higher, actually i actually have some pretty fun examples where i took the vertex 2 to the high alpine of crested butte to See what it can do so definitely stick around for that info in just one bit and then another big thing to come with the vertex 2 is going to be maps and not many sport watch companies have onboard mapping at the moment. So this is kind of big, so the vertex 2 will come with landscape maps for around the world and then users will be able to download region specific topo maps for your particular area. Right now you can access the maps via the toolbox, which you can access by long, pressing, the lower right hand, button and up pops the maps. You can browse the map using your finger on the touch screen and then you can zoom in and out of the map using the digital dial.
So this is what a landscape map looks like and you can also switch between landscape topo or a hybrid landscape and topo map and heres. What all those look like and heres some pretty awesome news for you apex pro as well as original vertex owners, youll be getting region specific, topo maps via a firmware update later this year. Unfortunately, you wont be able to get global nor the landscape maps, basically due to some hardware limitations, but still, i think, thats pretty awesome. That course is back porting the topo map functionality to the apex pro and the original vertex. So big kudos on that, oh and really quick, if youre, finding the information in this video useful dont, be shy by hitting that like button down below it, definitely helps this video and the channel a lot quite a bit, and i appreciate it now. This is corsas. First, implementation of maps – and i do have some suggestions that could make it better so hopefully well see some of these changes in the future. The contrast is a bit challenging right now, differentiating between roads and trails and then kind of everything else, its just kind of hard to make out at a quick glance. But the other thing – and i think this is a much bigger caveat – is that you may have noticed that there arent any street names and maybe more importantly, for the outdoor adventure crowd. Theres no trail names, so coors told me that they purposely admitted these street and trail names, an effort to simplify the navigation experience.
But in my mind, navigation is all about detail and id just like to see that sort of information, at least at some sort of zoom level, unless its going to take some massive hit on storage or something like that at the least. I think core should give users the option of displaying that information kind of like already how they have the option to display a landscape, topo or hybrid map style. Another rather large new feature to come with the vertex 2 is music, where youll be able to load. Your own purchase tracks to the watch via your computer. So just like the maps, you can access the music player through the toolbox and heres, where you can also pair your headphones of choice. So i paired the airpods pro as well as the sony wf 1000xm4s to it, with no problems. Didnt experience any dropouts. It was good to go. You can change tracks, repeat shuffle change volume, all that good stuff. Now there currently isnt any spotify pandora title or any other music streaming service integration with the vertex 2, but chorus kind of had to start somewhere. So it is at least nice to see that you can load your own purchase tracks to the vertex 2 and then listen with your headphones of choice and it does use bluetooth 5.0 and the other thing that the vertex 2 has is wi. Fi now theyre. Only currently leveraging wi fi for former updates at this point, but theres, obviously a lot more wi fi can do, and i know they are working out some other features.
So i think theres a lot of possibilities there. So i just say: stay tuned. Youll also be able to measure your heart rate variability with a tool that you can access from the toolbox where you place your fingers on the top and bottom of the bezel, making sure not to touch anything else. It takes about a minute to get your hrv index, and you can also view this information in the chorus app. Another change with the vertex 2 is that its actually much larger than the original, where this sports a 50.3 millimeter case and its 15.7 millimeters thick and it tips the scales at 91 grams. So this thing isnt light or spelt by any means, but that larger case does allow for the vertex 2 to have a much bigger battery, and this thing does get some pretty great battery life. The original vertex already had some pretty good battery life with up to 60 hours of gps recording time and then up to 45 days is just kind of like a standard watch and the vertex 2 for the standard gps recording it upset quite a bit to 135 Hours and then up to 60 days as just kind of a standard watch and then, if you use the standard gps setting while listening to music that takes that down to about 35 hours. So it definitely does drop that down quite a bit. But that can be said for pretty much any watch with gps and music playback at the same time and then in regards to how the battery life will fare using the all satellite system, setting that drops down to 90 hours, which is still pretty awesome.
And then, if you use the all satellites plus the dual frequency mode, that brings it down to 50 hours, and i found all these figures would be pretty spot on and for a more real life example of battery life. I had a full charge in this about two weeks ago and ive used it for about 16 to 17 hours of outdoor activities using the full blown accuracy settings thats. The all satellite systems, plus the dual frequency and ive, also used it for about seven hours of indoor activities, and i still have over 40 percent of the battery left, so its very respectable, of course, with that larger case, you will also get a larger display with The vertex 2 – and it has a 1.4 inch screen with a 280 by 280 pixel display, which is kind of gigantic for watch so theres no shortage of screen real estate here, its a 64 color transflective lcd display, meaning that in the sun, this thing really comes To life and its extremely easy to see outdoors and then indoors, you can enable a backline and then, with that large display, you can have up to eight data fields at one time on a data page, and it does also make it easier to view the new Maps – and this is a great segue into talking about the fact that this actually is a touchscreen, but the touchscreen functionality is used sparingly, which im actually a big fan of.
So you can use the touchscreen on certain widgets, where you can scroll through historical data. Like your heart rate over time, and then you can also scroll through different data pages within an activity, but dont worry. You can turn this feature off or on as you wish. You can also use it with the music player, but, most importantly, you can use it to browse the map which i found to work very well and it makes using the map on a watch pretty enjoyable. The vertex 2 also has their digital dial, which some people love me im more of a fan of just standard buttons which may be boring, but standard buttons do just work. However, i do have to say that the digital dial is pretty sweet to use with their map interface, where you can zoom in and out of maps with quite a bit of ease along with the touch screen. It makes the map experience pretty good. The other thing i have to give course props for is that they improve the usability of the digital dial by first of all, they made it a little bit more flush with the case, so it doesnt stick out as much as the original vertex, but they also Made the throw less to perform an action so another way to put it is that it takes less rotation to go from one screen to another. I found that with the original vertex, as well as the aprex pro it just took a lot of rotation to go from one page to another or one interface element to another and thats definitely improved with the vertex 2, where its just a little bit less.
Oh and one last thing before we get into the sports and fitness performance, is that its water resistant down to 10 atm and it uses a 26 millimeter, quick, fit style band, which is pretty darn comfortable, of course, is pretty well known for good bands, and this One doesnt disappoint either: okay, so now lets get into the sports and fitness performance of vertex, 2 and well, first start with gps and in regards to using all those satellite systems. Well, i think it pays off so lets. First start with some examples with running and if youve been following along on strava lately, youve probably seen some workouts, where it looks like im running around like im drunk but ive. Just been really trying to put this watch through some really hard gps tests, so on this run here the total distance lined up pretty nicely its very much in line with a bunch of other devices, so were good to go there, but now lets take a real Close look at the gps track just to see how accurate it really is. So everything looks pretty dandy from a high level. It nailed it where it was right on the sidewalk, as i started my run, and it was pretty good on this street right here. Corners also looked pretty decent on this right hand corner it was very precise, but it just barely cut in on this corner right here. But now lets go on to the section where i was going through the park so on this sidewalk through the little ponds here.
It was very good and then over here it was pretty good through this figure eight, but i actually went like this through this section, but none of the devices actually got this exactly right, so i guess no worries there and then over here, where i went around This building was actually more accurate than the others, because i did make this a tight turn. Oh and before we move on to cycling, i also wanted to mention the vertex. 2 will also be able to collect running power directly from the wrist without a foot pod and the trends in running power lined up nicely to both a stride. Foot pod, as well as a garmin hrm pro chest, heart rate, monitor with running power im, basically looking for the trends to line up rather than the actual number itself, and it does in fact do a good job there. So for road biking – good stuff here, where the total distance lined up on this ride and the elevation was also in the same ballpark for the gps tracks at these higher speeds. Well, its basically perfect on the straight line sections. It was solid with no drifts at all and then on this corner right here. The vertex 2 was actually a bit more accurate than the other devices where it didnt overshoot the corner by the little amount that the others did and then for the rest of ride. It was good to go, including coming out of a tunnel right here and then on.
These high speed turns it was spot on, but that was road biking in some wide open terrain where theres no obstructions – and it really should do a good job there. But now lets check out some mountain biking where theres going to be a lot more variables. Like some varying terrain. Switchbacks lots of tree cover rock faces just a whole bunch of stuff that can throw gps off and on this right here everything looked good. The total distances lined up nicely and the total elevation gain also was pretty close to the other test devices, as well as the correct elevation figure from strava, which is based off of their base maps. So if we take a look at the elevation profiles, everything was good to go there as well as it was very close to the max altitude of right around 11 000 feet and the minimum was also in the same ballpark as well. So taking a look at the actual gps tracks on the climb, it did great on the more open section of road as i started, it nailed it and then, as i started, to get up a bit where the canyon narrowed – and there was a lot more tree Cover you can see that it was quite accurate in fact right here you can see that the device in green wandered off a bit off the road, and this climb goes through a pretty narrow canyon, which can pose a challenge for gps.
I could keep going and going all the way up the climb, but theres really nothing weird to see here. It did great so now lets fast forward to the descent where things can get a bit more interesting because of the higher speeds, and this descent was through some really thick tree cover so coming out of the trees at the start of the downhill. It was just slightly off on the trail, but not too big a deal and as we descend, you could see that the track from the vertex 2 was smoother and thats actually more accurate, because this was a very fast downhill and i wasnt making this quicker turns Through this section, and as you can see, this is some extremely thick tree cover, as we can barely even see the trail in most of these screenshots. So on these high speed terms, for the most part, it did good, it did cut this corner and this corner just slightly, but really not that big a deal and then. Finally, as i was descending on this dirt road, which was right next to the canyon wall, it nailed it so now onto hardwood accuracy, so for watches of this size and weight, even when theyre tightened down properly, they do have a tendency of bouncing around on the Wrist which can lead to some interactive results so on this run here we could see that vertex 2 was close, but there were a handful of spots where i wandered a bit, so it started out okay, a little bit behind the chest and arm heart rate monitors, But a lot of watches can do that at the beginning of the workout.
Then it was in line for a while with just a couple wobbles here and there. It did have a little bit of a challenge right here, picking up the ryzen heart rate, but then it was pretty decent for the rest of the run, except for a few minor drops here and there. And although it was pretty good for running, i experienced a few more issues with road biking. So for the first third of the ride. It was fairly close other than a couple, spikes the beginning and then a couple fluctuations here and there. But then it had a harder time on the tail end of the workout for some reason or another. It still had an average heart rate that was close to the chest and our heart rate monitors, but there were still kind of those wilder fluctuations at the end. Road biking and mountain biking specifically have a tendency of making watches bounce around the wrist from the vibrations, the road and bumps in the trail and the larger size and the way the vertex 2 didnt necessarily do any favors for it and heres a clear example of What can happen so this is that mountain bike ride that we saw earlier where it was basically a long hard climb to the top and then a nice rowdy descent to the bottom. So the first third of the ride – it was actually really not that bad in general, at least for mountain biking.
But as i got to the top of the climb, which was super chunky and then i started to descend. The heart rate just got thrown off due to all the bouncing around the wrist, even with the watch time down properly and then for indoor cycling. It was nearly spot on for the entire ride, but there are a few little wobbles here and there and a couple drops here but other than that, its a very usable heart rate data, oh, and by the way, i also use the paste 2 ek edition on This ride and you can see that one in blue overall pretty good, except for that one little spike here and a little blip here and then for weight training, which is one of the most challenging activities for a wrist based heart rate sensor. To get right. This is kind of par for the course for most watches. So you see that start out high at the beginning, and then it actually did fall along for a little bit, but it wasnt able to track the rapid rise in heart rate on these intervals. Right here and then missed the boat on this interval right here, but whats interesting is that it actually did a pretty good job with the high intensity intervals at the end. So for hardwood accuracy of running it actually did okay, but for hard accuracy for cycling. It definitely had some challenges, but its just kind of the nature, with these larger and heavier watches, yes, its larger, which means you get a bigger battery as well as a bigger display, but theres going to be some compromises in some other areas.
So you cant necessarily have your cake and eat it too, and one more thing with the vertex 2 you should definitely know about is going to be external sensors, so the vertex 2, it can pair to a whole bunch of different sensors, but only bluetooth sensors. There is not going to be any and plus support and from what they tell me, thats not going to be coming in the future, so thats a little bit unfortunate. The vertex 2 also comes with their new evo, lava sport science platform, which they just introduced. A few months ago, where it gives training and recovery feedback based on your past training history. Most of this is tailored just for runners at the moment where it can provide your running performance index, a race predictor for common race distances, your fatigue, level, training load over time, as well as a recovery advisor, and i really like what course is doing with evo Lab, but i would like to see them expand the availability of some of the data points like training, load and recovery time to other types of athletes than just runners, which would just expand the audience for the vertex 2, as well as their other watches. Really and then one more new feature to come with the vertex 2 is insta360 camera control, where you can use the vertex 2 as a remote control for your camera. So, of course, its definitely been busy with the vertex 2 and they packed on a lot of new features, including the maps, the music and leveraging all the satellite systems, and for my testing that definitely works and im also very stoked on the battery life.
Even using the highest accuracy, all satellite systems and dual frequency mode, but if you dont need that level of accuracy, you can always dial that back to get even more battery life and with the maps and music. I do think that theres some room for improvement, but i at least do appreciate the fact that they included that with the vertex 2, but based on corsas history of adding features to older devices. I can only imagine that the vertex 2 still has even more potential, and that brings up price. So the vertex 2 starts at 6.99, which isnt out of line for a premium sports watch with maps and music, but it isnt necessarily the same types of maps and music that youd get with something like a garmin fenix. But again, chorus is kind of known for adding features to older devices, so it could be well worth that 700 price tag down the road anyhow. Those are all my thoughts on the course vertex 2. But definitely let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below and also make sure to check out. My video on the special edition elliot khachogi, pace 2 gps sport watch where ill have linked down there as well, and if you liked the video make sure to hit that like button, also subscribe to for plenty more sports tech videos that are coming soon.7-xsD4T4cUQ
