Best for: When the going gets tough
Playtime’s over, Marine, from this point on we’re breaking out the big guns! Yep, for those relentless runners, uncompromising climbers and borderline psychotic cyclists out there, welcome to the VERTIX S2 from COROS, a GPS-enabled tour de force. How tough? Well, with a cover and bezel hewn from grade 5 titanium alloy with a PVD coating and display and a display encased in sapphire crystal glass, the VERTIX S2 can handle extremes of temperature from -30°C to 50°C, and depths down to 100m (10ATM), so other than deep diving, it’s up for anything you can throw at it, practically anywhere.
Light at 70g with a nylon strap and 87g with a silicone band, the 1.4-inch always-on touchscreen LCD features a resolution of 280 x 280 pixels, making it bright, sharp and easy to read at a glance, which is handy when you’re hanging precariously from a rocky outcrop by your fingertips or thundering down the side of a mountain, clinging for dear life to the handlebars of your Atherton AM.130.1. Or if fingers are too wet or muddied for the touchscreen, the four tactile buttons featured on the case gives access to all too.
Inside the box comes all you need; specifically: the VERTIX S2 itself mounted on a silicone band, the alternate nylon band, USB charging cable, and quick start guide cards. So, scan the QR with your iOS or Android smartphone, download the COROS App and pair up over Bluetooth to open up access to an absolute wealth of tracking sensors, including optical heart rate monitor, barometric altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, 3D compass, thermometer, optical pulse oximeter and electrocardiogram sensor. These combine with the whole array of GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou and QZSS GPS satellite systems to ensure unerringly pinpoint data to track your route and engage the watch’s Checkpoint, Back-To-Start and Deviation Alert features and, of course, explore your surroundings on the touchscreen-enabled map control.
With modes for pretty much every sport you can imagine, from bouldering, skiing and whitewater rafting to the more usual running, hiking and cycling, you’re not going to struggle to find the feature that goes hand in digital glove with your personal fitness needs, while compatibility with all the major third party fitty apps, like Nike Run Club, Komoot, TrainingPeaks, Strava, Relive, adidas Running, Apple Health, Stryd, Final Surge, Runalyze, Running Quotient, Decathlon, means you can explore your training data and body metrics any way you want.
Finally, not just a rough-and-tumble wrist-going fitness finder, the VERTIX S2 also possesses the ability to soothe you as you assail the unassailable thanks to a built-in 32GB of memory on which you can store music to drive you on or calm you down, so business and pleasure.
The COROS VERTIX S2 is, in short, one hell of a sports watch, from a firm that is the training choice of Olympians. Hard-wearing and action-packed, if your choice of sport strays seriously into the camp of ‘adventure’ and you’re serious about your sport, up your game and arm your arm with an S2.
