Coros Pace 3 Review – Great value for money
The Coros Pace 3 does sport many useful features at an attractive price. I’ve had the opportunity to test the sports watch for weeks and can share my experiences with you here.
Coros Pace 3 in profile
- numerous sports functions
- fast multi-band GPS
- great value for money
- slow USB data transfer
- lots of plastic
Verdict
In my opinion, the Coros Pace 3 is currently the sports watch when it comes to value for money. I was particularly impressed by its long battery life, ease of use and extensive range of functions. The low weight makes the watch largely forgettable in everyday life – also because it keeps a low profile when it comes to smart features.
The simple choice of materials and the slow transfer of MP3 files are minor shortcomings of the watch but do not detract from the great product.
Coros is one of the lesser-known brands, especially on the European market. Wrongly so, as the company offers a range of sports watches that can easily compete with Garmin and Polar.
Coros offers entry-level models in the Pace series, while the current Vertix models cover the other end of the performance spectrum. In the entry-level segment in particular, Coros has launched a new model, the Coros Pace 3, which in many respects is similar to its predecessor, the Pace 2, but still offers a range of new features.
Coros Pace 3 vs. Pace 2 – What’s New?
Coros launched the Pace 2 in August 2020. It’s therefore not surprising that the Pace 3 does offer many new features:
Multiband GPS
Coros was one of the first companies to incorporate multi-band GPS into its watches. Meanwhile, the more robust method of positioning is not only found in the premium models but is also offered by the Pace 3.
PPG Sensor with SpO2 Measurement
A new feature is the enhanced PPG sensor on the back, which has 5 LEDs and four photodiodes. Compared to the Pace 2, the Pace 3 also offers SpO2 (peripheral oxygen saturation) measurement.
HRV Tracking
The measurement of heart rate variability (HRV) can also be attributed to the new PPG sensor. HRV is measured during the night and indicates physical stress deviations from the average values (e.g. due to exercise or illness).
Touchscreen
The 1.2-inch display of the Pace 3 has not increased in size or resolution compared to the Pace 2, but it does respond to tapping and swiping gestures.
Music Storage and Playback
The Pace 3 allows MP3 files to be stored on the watch and played on headphones or loudspeakers via Bluetooth. There is 4 GB of storage space available for this purpose.
Wi-Fi
The new Wi-Fi capabilities of the Pace 3 do not currently benefit the transfer of MP3 files, as they only serve to speed up the installation of firmware updates.
The smaller and more modern technology also improves battery life. More on this later…
Specifications
[ftt_comparison id=’17’]Package Contents
For those who have been following developments or already own a wearable, it’s no surprise that the contents of most product packaging are relatively predictable.
Coros Pace 3 – Package Contents
The Coros Pace 3 is no exception, and so after opening the box you’ll find:
- Coros Pace 3 sports watch
- 2x spare spring bars
- USB charging cable
- Safety/warranty information
Coros Pace 3 – Spare Spring Bars
Coros largely dispenses with plastic, only the protection on the display of the watch is made of plastic.
First Impression
When unpacking the Pace 3, I experienced a deja-vu moment because the Coros Pace 2 and the new Pace 3 are virtually identical.
Coros Pace 3 vs. Coros Pace 2
Admittedly, the strap of the Pace 3 is two millimetres wider, the markings on the bezel are different, and the shape of a button on the right-hand side of the case is slightly different, but all in such small dimensions that you have to look for the differences.
Otherwise, as with the Pace 2, the simple design and the simple, but by no means poor construction of the Pace 3 are striking.
The case continues to be made entirely of fiber-reinforced polymer, and the display is protected by chemically hardened glass.
Coros Pace 3 – PPG Sensors on the back
This has one decisive advantage, and that is the lower weight. At just 30 grams, the Pace 3 is only one gram heavier than the Pace 2 and is still an absolute lightweight.
Coros Pace 3 – Nylon Strap with Velcro Closure
The nylon strap contributes positively to this, but could be 1-2 cm longer to fit comfortably over large hands. It definitely shouldn’t be shorter for me.
Speaking of the strap: the Coros Pace 3 is available with a silicone or nylon strap. If you want to do something good for your skin, I really recommend the textile nylon strap, as it leads to significantly less skin irritation when the watch is worn constantly.
Display
The Pace 3 is still equipped with a 1.2″ transflective MIP display. It has a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels and can only display 64 colors, but it is extremely energy-efficient.
Because the display can do without a backlight in most situations, the watch’s battery can last up to 17 days with the display always on.
The display technology used has its advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- Always-On feature
- Energy-efficient
- High contrast in bright ambient light (e.g., direct sunlight)
Disadvantages
- Lower resolution
- Limited color representation
- Low contrast in low ambient light (e.g., at dusk)
Even though AMOLED displays are now found in many sports watches, including the premium segment, I still find the advantages of MIP displays greater during outdoor sports than those of AMOLED displays, which otherwise demonstrate their advantages more clearly in all other situations.
Features
Let’s take a look at the features of the Pace 3, which I’ll divide into common and sports functions as usual. But let’s start with the basics of the Pace 3.
Coros Pace 3 – Watchface
When you look at the watch, it usually displays the watch face. These days it’s more than a dial and most often display the time and several other metrics.
Coros Pace 3 – Exchange and color design of watchfaces
By the way, Coros has extended the number of different watch faces alot so that there should be something suitable for everyone.
If you can’t do anything with the watch faces offered, you can create your own watch face via the app.
Starting from the watch face, you can switch to the widgets using the digital crown or swipe gestures. They are somewhat reminiscent of the Garmin widgets and display the daily readings in a short and concise form.
If you tap on a widget, the detailed view opens, in which the metrics are displayed in a little more detail. You can’t really get much out of the display, as in most cases it is a classification of the current day’s values compared to the previous days.
Coros Pace 3 – Widget with HRV status
I’ve shown this using the “HRV status” metric.
By swiping right or pressing the button below the digital crown, you can return to the widgets.
Overall, operation via the touchscreen is smooth and precise. However, as the display remains cleaner, I use the crown and the buttons almost exclusively on the Pace 3.
Common Functions
As Coros offers GPS sports watches across its entire product portfolio and not smartwatches, the range of functions in everyday life is rather limited. The focus is on sport.
Coros Pace 3 – Number of steps
The Pace 3 naturally records the steps you take throughout the day. It does this at a decent level, but is not directly comparable with other providers. Each brand uses its own algorithms.
Coros Pace 3 – Steps in the last few days
And to be honest, I don’t have to hit exactly 10,000 steps at the end of the day. If I want to increase my level of activity, I do it over a longer period of time. If the watch delivers values that deviate from reality, I don’t mind as long as it delivers these values consistently.
In addition, the Pace 3 records the calories burned, the number of floors climbed and the heart rate/variability in the background. It also records sleep duration and phases.
It can calculate sleep duration quite accurately, but when it comes to sleep stages, I don’t trust it any more than any other watch. If you need a detailed analysis, that’s what sleep labs are made for…
When the paired smartphone is nearby, the Pace 3 mirrors notifications so you know if it’s worth reaching for your smartphone.
Coros Pace 3 – Display of notifications from the paired smartphone
As with all Coros watches, some metrics can only be analysed on the watch and not in the app. You don’t always need this, but I would like to see the number of floors climbed over time.
Coros Pace 3 – Playback of MP3 files
The musical capabilities of the Pace 3 only impress me on paper. Yes, the watch can store and play up to 4 GB of MP3 files via Bluetooth. But since the transfer speed to the device is extremely slow, it’s no fun.
Finally, compared to the Pace 2, the Pace 3 can shine with a small new function: the weather forecast.
Coros Pace 3 – Weather forecast on the watch
This is based on the current location and shows:
- Temperature (current)
- Temperature (highs and lows)
- Temperature (wind chill)
- Precipitation probability
- Humidity
- UV index
- Wind speed/direction
It also includes forecasts for the next 6 hours and the next 7 days.
Sports Functions
When it comes to sports, the Pace 3 naturally has more to offer. Let me walk you through the range of functions step by step.
Pressing the crown opens the sports menu. Here, you can not only choose the sports you want to record but also find training plans, workouts, fitness tests, and a view of past recordings.
Coros Pace 3 – Sports menu
By default, Coros offers sports profiles for 23 sports. Since that may not be sufficient for everyone, you can add custom sports profiles. Let me briefly illustrate this using the example of my new sport, “Walking the Dog,” then we can explain the sports profiles in general.
A sports profile is a logical wrapper around a set of settings and includes:
- Profile name
- Icon representation
- Category
- Data pages (number and layout)
- Data fields (number)
- Data fields (assignment of metrics)
- Sport alarm
This repeats for each sports profile.
You can also change some of the details for existing sports profiles. The name and icon, as well as the category, cannot be changed. However, for the predefined sports profiles, you can define more than one data page where up to 8 data fields can be displayed.
For alarms, you can set threshold values or durations. When these values are reached, the watch notifies you with vibration and beeps. The values include:
- Distance
- Pace
- Cadence
- Heart rate
- Power
- Nutrition intake
Standard settings include notifications after every kilometer traveled. Because not all metrics make sense for all sports, they differ from profile to profile.
So much for the theoretical basics – let’s do some sports.
Coros Pace 3 – Selected sports profile just before recording
Before starting, you select the appropriate sports profile via the sports menu. While the Pace 3 searches for GNSS signals and paired sensors, you can quickly modify some settings, including intervals.
Coros Pace 3 – Ad-hoc interval training
When searching for satellite signals (e.g. GPS), the Pace 3 is among the very quick responders. Typically, a stable GNSS signal is available within a few seconds.
Coros Pace 3 – Data page with 6 data fields
During the activity, the watch displays the data pages stored in the profile. They can be switched by swiping or using the digital crown.
Coros Pace 3 – Heart rate with heart rate zones
After the activity, the sports watch displays a variety of metrics collected during the activity. If you don’t find the peace to review the values on the display immediately after the activity, you can also view the recording at a later time.
Coros Pace 3 – Insight into recorded data
After synchronizing, the data appears in the app in the same extent.
Connection with external sensors
If the built-in sensors are not sufficient, the Pace 3 seamlessly connects via Bluetooth with almost any external sensor.
The watch doesn’t really care whether it’s a chest strap heart rate monitor, optical wristband heart rate monitor, Stryd sensors, or similar devices. Owners of numerous accessories will be pleased to know that more than one sensor of a type can be stored in the watch.
By the way, the Pace 3 does not support ANT+ – but that’s not a big deal anymore.
GNSS accuracy
For many products, accuracy in location tracking and heart rate monitoring determines success or failure. Let’s start with location tracking. Some might say GPS accuracy, but this is only partially true.
In addition to GPS, the Pace 3 supports GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and QZSS. However, you can only choose from:
- GPS only
- all satellite systems
- all satellite systems + multiband
For my runs, the Pace 3 always had access to all GNSS and had to forego multiband because its use here in the outskirts of Berlin doesn’t add much value. At the same time, the deciduous forests in the area are sparse and don’t challenge the watch much.
From some distance, the Pace 3 and its competitors seem to perform quite similar. The Garmin Forerunner 245 is perhaps the one that deviates most. Admittedly, it’s the oldest model in the test field.
On closer inspection, the differences to the Forerunner 245 become clear, while the Pace 3 presents a very uniform picture. The straightness of the lines sometimes gives rise to the suspicion that Coros is smoothing out the values a little. Personally, I think it’s fine for watches to do this in order to compensate for inaccuracies when determining location.
In fact, in all areas of the run you can see how cleanly the sections are recorded by the Pace 3.
Another attempt, this time in direct comparison with the Pace 2. From a bird’s eye view, everything still looks quite uniform…
…but the differences become apparent when you take a closer look again. Once more, it’s the Forerunner 245 that takes different paths. But the Pace 2 also has to make do with a much older GPS chip, which is noticeable in the recorded data.
Here again, you can see how solid the route tracking of the Pace 3 is. Even the significantly more expensive Polar Vantage V3 doesn’t perform better. Coros seems to have successfully focused on the antenna design of the Pace 3. The plastic housing undoubtedly contributes positively to this.
No matter where you look at the corners and ends of the runs, the Coros Pace 3 delivers a great performance. Yes, it will certainly look different when running in the city centre, between narrow streets and tall buildings. But with a healthy mix of open spaces, terraced houses with a limited number of storeys and sections in the woods, the Pace 3 has nothing to hide.
Heart rate accuracy
To get an impression of the accuracy of the PPG sensor, the Pace 3 accompanied me during jogging, hiking, and on the ergometer. Let’s start with a steady 5 km run.
Like me, most products need some time to find their rhythm at the start of a run. This is not always characterised by precision in the first few metres, and the Polar H10 chest strap is not ideal either. However, this equalises out with all models after a short time.
Otherwise, all sensors cope well with the steady trend and seem to deliver identical values in terms of measurement accuracy. The deviations from the Polar H10 are very small. As a reminder: the more blue areas you see in the charts, the further apart the two devices are.
On the next attempt, the Coros Pace 2 stands out unpleasantly. This is actually something I haven’t experienced with it in recent years. Compared to the Polar H10 chest strap and the Polar Ignite 3, the gaps are smaller. However, there are still a few small outliers compared to the chest strap.
The deviations between the Pace 3 and the previous model are more erratic. Although they are only short periods, they come with large fluctuations.
The Pace 3 stumbling occasionally is evident in the first three intervals. However, it is in good company because the significantly more expensive Polar Vantage V3 shows the same issues in the following four intervals.
When only comparing the Pace 3 and the chest strap heart rate monitor as a reference, the outliers become a little clearer against an otherwise decent trend.
Subsequently, the blue area in the difference chart also increases.
The proximity to the chest strap heart rate monitor is also reflected in relatively high r² values. Only the Coros Heart Rate Monitor surpasses the Pace 3 with an r² value of 0.986, better than the Pace 3’s 0.953.
I could provide numerous such evaluations here; the picture is always the same: the Pace 3 demonstrates decent performance, even if the measurements here and there aren’t “spot-on”. Compared to the Pace 2, it seems to deliver more solid values.
Software
The Coros app is free for iOS and Android alike. While there may be more visually appealing apps, it stands out positively in terms of clarity and structuring.
Here and there the translations into German seem a little awkward, but nothing that you can’t accept with a smile. Especially for most readers here, who would probably choose the English language settings.
Battery Life
Coros claims a battery life of up to 17 days in smartwatch mode. This could be accurate considering the daily loss of about 6 percent.
Of course, I don’t wear a watch on my wrist for that long without exercising with it, so the battery runs out faster. The battery drains quickly when using all GNSS during sports, with GPS using both the L1 and L5 frequency bands, and additional music playback via Bluetooth.
Overall, the battery life seems very appealing to me. During the review, I had another, albeit older sports watch on my other wrist. This one demanded power much more frequently.
Coros Pace 3 - Verdict
- numerous sports functions
- fast multi-band GPS
- great value for money
- slow USB data transfer
- lots of plastic
With small but significant improvements, Coros has succeeded in giving the Pace 2 a worthy successor. Admittedly, the appearance is in need of improvement and does not reflect the inner values of the Pace 3.
At the same time, there is hardly a sports watch on the market that offers so many useful sports metrics and customisation options, coupled with a high level of connectivity.
The accuracy of the GNSS tracking is high, often even higher than that of significantly more expensive products. The Pace 3 also shows few anomalies in heart rate measurement and is pleasingly close to the chest strap heart rate monitor.
For me, the Pace 3 is definitely worth a recommendation, especially as the price of 249 euros is a challenge. The comparable Polar Pacer Pro and the Garmin Forerunner 255 are priced at €329 and €349 respectively (RRP). However, retail prices are already significantly lower, putting the Pace 3 under considerable pressure.
With Coros constantly updating older models with new features, the Pace 3 could be the more attractive choice. Polar and Garmin tend to remain more consistent with their mid-range products in terms of features.
Disclosure: The Coros Pace 3 was provided to me for testing by Coros - free of charge and upon my request. There were no conditions attached to the reporting. The review therefore, reflects my entirely unbiased opinion and experience with the product.
