You can’t turn your head in the outdoor space without someone talking about COROS. Sure, it might be influencers on Instagram, I mean pro athletes, but the company is clearly on a roll.

On the heel of an announcement of a new partnership with the American Alpine Club, California-based newcomer to the outdoor premium watch space, COROS, is announcing today a brand new product to their GPS Multisport watch lineup. Building off of their breakout product, the APEX, the new APEX Pro is a step up, taking its place in the lineup between APEX and the recently launched VERTIX. Clocking at $499 the watch has a ton of interesting new features and I can’t wait take it for a spin.

The biggest thing to write about: Apex Pro has a touch screen. That’s been one of the big features missing from the Coros watches and more on that later, but VERTIX is getting touch screen support via software update.
The design somewhat takes inspiration from both their APEX and the VERTIX. Only judging from photos, but the bezel looks cleaner than the VERTIX. The body has now three buttons like the VERTIX and a couple labels printed on the bezel. Don’t love that. I love the clean look of the Apex, but I’m judging so far just on the pictures COROS sent me. We shall see how the watch looks in real life.
The watch promises an extended battery life which again ranks between APEX’s good battery life and VERTIX’s ridiculously amazing one. The new APEX pro also sees the blood oxygen monitoring, aimed for mountaineers and first introduced with the VERTIX.
APEX Pro is heavier than the APEX 59g for APEX Pro, 50.8g for APEX 42mm and 55.3g for APEX 46mm, but not as heavy as VERTIX (76g), which must be all due to the battery in the device.

So, while I’m waiting for my testing unit to ship, I am pondering the following: Leaving their intro model aside, COROS now has the APEX at $300 and $350 depending on the size, The new APEX Pro at $500 and the VERTIX rounding out the high end at $600 and $700 depending on the finish. Is there enough differentiation to justify that many models at these price points? Time will tell. When the APEX launched it clearly was a head turner, and while the VERTIX is a head turner when it comes to features, the price clearly moves it beyond what many people are willing to pay for a GPS watch. Perhaps APEX Pro is trying to respond to that challenge. Bringing added features, better battery and touch screen below the $500 price point to get APEX users to upgrade to the next level.

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The COROS APEX Pro, comes in a silver/green and black, costs $499 and will be shipping starting September 26th.

VERTIX Firmware Update

I’ve previously talked about the insanely awesome feature of over-the-air software updates via the iOS app. No need to plug the device into your Mac to get the latest software installed. This alone is almost worth the price of admission. But now COROS is enabling the screen of the VERTIX watch to become a touch screen via a software update? This is crazy talk and I can’t wait to try it out.

So many watches to try out. I only have two wrists, but I am committed to trying them all.

Explore more about the new COROS APEX Pro on coros.com or find it on Amazon.

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Pics courtesy of COROS.