The 6 best running watches with accurate GPS, heart rate monitoring, and workout tracking

Best multisport running watch

Coros

The Coros Apex is an impressive jack-of-all-trades watch that should appeal to a variety of athletes while offering a refreshing touch of style. This is a watch you won’t want to take off.

Pros: Incredible battery life, a wide array of training modes, one of the best designed watches we tested with an excellent smartphone app

Cons: Dim screen, digital dial got caught on coat sleeves causing accidental mode changes

If you’re looking for a GPS watch that does it all, the Coros Apex fits the bill. Initially designed with three main focuses – running, biking, and swimming – that aimed it squarely at triathletes, Coros has since added a variety of new modes to the Apex since launch that makes it suited for a wider range of sports. 

In particular, the watch is a great tool for winter sports, offering alpine skiing, cross country skiing, snowboarding, and ski touring modes that track a wealth of data for those who like to stay active during the colder months. In total, the Apex offers nearly two dozen training modes including gym cardio, mountain climbing, hiking, and customizable strength and training modes that let you build your own workouts. 

Where the Apex really shines though is for ultrarunning thanks, in part, to the watch’s excellent battery life and its dedicated trail run mode. I also found it to be one of the best-designed GPS watches I’ve tried and it’s surprisingly stylish, too.

The Apex comes in two options: a 46mm version and a 42mm version. The 46mm is $50 more than the smaller watch, but the added price is worth it since it gives you better battery life, a larger 1.2-inch color LCD screen, and comes with a snazzy titanium alloy bezel versus the stainless-steel bezel native to the 42mm watch. Overall, I liked the classic round design of the watch and the sapphire glass surface, which prevented scratching. 

The watch’s black silicone band is basic but fits snugly and comfortably around my wrist thanks to stretchy elastic. Those with small wrists, however, will need to choke up considerably on the band. For my average-sized wrists, I had to use the fourth from the tightest notch to get the right fit, leaving some excess slack that needed to be tucked in.

The Apex has a simple operational set-up not unlike the Apple Watch, with just a clickable digital dial and one button to make adjustments. (Unlike the Apple Watch, there is no touchscreen.) It took a bit of trial and error since the included Quick Start Guide is nominal, but once I got the hang of the watch’s Spartan controls, changing settings and viewing the extensive data pages was a breeze.

The dial occasionally got caught on coat sleeves, causing accidental mode changes though there is an auto-lock setting that helps prevent this. I also felt the screen was dim and hard to read indoors, so you’ll want to turn on gesture control, which illuminates the display when you turn your wrist.

Setting the Apex up and pairing it via Bluetooth with my iPhone was also a snap thanks to Coros’ well-designed app, which presents the voluminous data the Apex records in a clear manner. My only gripe is that you can only delete activities of more than a minute via the phone app, not directly from the watch, which is strange. 

The Apex offers GPS, GLONASS, or BDS to lock in your location and track distance. I achieved an initial location lock in about a minute from my backyard with a few overhanging trees. The following days from the same spot, however, it took less than 15 seconds. During test runs on the same four-mile course, the Apex said I ran around 10 seconds per mile slower than the other watches I tested, though the measured distance was fairly accurate even during runs on a track. Coros’ Track Run mode, which uses a proprietary algorithm designed to produce more precise results on a track, seemed to help.

The watch has a wrist-based heart rate monitor along with an accelerometer, barometer, altimeter, and compass. My heart rate readings were fairly consistent when tested against a finger-based pulse monitor, which I’ve found to be more precise than wrist sensors. The Apex is water-resistant to 100 meters/328 feet and offers both Pool Swim and Open Water mode making it suited to swimmers, though I found the 46mm size to be a bit large for long swims.

I didn’t mind it for long runs, however, and the impressive battery life means it’s safe to use on ultra runs (i.e. anything longer than 26.2 miles). Battery life for the 46mm version is up to 100 hours in UltraMax GPS mode, up to 35 hours in full GPS mode, and up to 30 days for regular use. The longest run I used it on was ten miles, which barely dented the battery life, reducing it by just 3%. During a week of daily 4-5 mile runs and some shorter track work, the battery dropped by only 25%. 

The Coros Apex comes packed with so many additional features, I could write separate reviews on those alone. As a running watch, it shines; and as a multisport watch, it’s hard to do much better.