EP36 - October 15, 2025 - Deep Dive chat on Coros Apex 4 (ft_ AI Insights)

EP36 - October 15, 2025 - Deep Dive chat on Coros Apex 4 (ft_ AI Insights)

Resources & Links:

• Buy One: buy Coros Apex 4
• Official Coros Apex 4 Product Page
• Bikepacking.  Review of Coros Apex 4.
• Dcrainmaker: YouTube Coros Apex 4
• Desfit: Youtube Coros Apex 4
• Chase the Sun: YouTube Coros Apex 4

My other channels: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/the5krunner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

—Credits: Content in this episode was generated using AI tools (NotebookLM) based on original content from @the5krunner, and other sources as cited (Chase the Summit, dcrainmaker, bikepacking, Chase The Sun)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Deep Dive. We're digging into that stack of
reviews and analysis you sent over, all focused on the brand
new Chorus Apex 4 Multi Sport Watch.
Yeah, it feels like Chorus is really trying to shake things up
here. Define that premium outdoor
spot. It's been, what, nearly three
years since the Apex 2 Pro? Feels like it, and we've got a
lot to sift through today. Bikepacking.com's take those

(00:22):
super detailed video reviews from DC Rainmaker Chase the Sun
and does fit. Right.
And don't forget the buyer's guyperspective from the 5K runner.
Lots of angles. Exactly.
So our mission today is pretty clear.
Does this Apex 4 sitting at what, $429 to $479 actually earn
that price tag? And a big part of that is

(00:44):
unpacking their choice to stick with the memory and pixel
display the MIP screen. Yeah.
Is that a smart battery play or just kind of dated looking now
compared to all the AMOLED screens out?
There, it's all about the trade-offs, isn't it?
We need to figure out who who exactly these compromises are
for. Does it match what you know a
serious athlete actually needs? OK, let's get the confusing bit
out of the way first. They went from Apex to straight

(01:06):
to Apex 4. Why skip #3?
Desfit covered this. Carl's basically said it was
just internal logic trying to sync up the numbers with their
other watches, specifically the Pace 3.
OK, so it makes the lineup look neater?
Pretty much by calling this the Ford, they're sort of setting
the stage for a future pace for maybe a Verdicts 4 or five down
the line. It stops the, you know, entry

(01:28):
level watch. Having a higher number than the
mid tier one makes sense for their marketing, even if it's a
bit weird for us buyers initially.
Fair enough. So structure aside, let's talk
cost. 2 sizes, right? But features are the same
otherwise. Yep, identical features apart
from size and battery life obviously.
The bigger 46 millimetre is $479and the smaller 42 mil is $429.

(01:49):
And the sources seem kind of surprised the price jump wasn't
bigger. Desfit definitely highlighted
that the 46 millimetres only like 30 bucks more than the Apex
2 Pro from years back, which considering the hardware
updates, seems pretty modest. But, and this is where the
premium justification gets tricky, we need to look at what
it's actually made of. Right, it's got the titanium
bezel, sapphire glass lens. That sounds tough.

(02:13):
Scratch resistant, premium stuff.
It does, but then you flip it over, go chase the sun.
And bikepacking.com pointed out the back plate is now a
composite polymer. So plastic.
High end plastic maybe, but still plastic.
Exactly. The Apex two had a metal back,
Coro says. It's for weight saving and it is
light down to 52 grammes for the46 millimetre with a nylon band.

(02:36):
But you know, if you're paying almost $500.00 for a premium
outdoor watch, swapping metal for plastic, well, feels like a
compromise, doesn't it? Maybe one that doesn't quite fit
that price point for everyone. Yeah, I can see that.
OK, So if the Biddle is maybe a bit debatable the screen choice,
that seems like the defining feature here, the thing
everyone's talking about. Oh absolutely.
This MIP versus Anna LED thing is the central debate.

(02:58):
So why are they sticking with this third Gen memory and pixel
display and like everyone else is moving to bright shiny AMOLED
well. Corals is definitely playing to
a specific crowd here. Chase the Sun called them the
MIP diehards. And you know, the display does
have advantages. It's like.
Battery life, presumably. Battery life and the fact it's

(03:19):
genuinely always on. It uses almost no power to just
sit there showing the time or your data fields and in direct
sunlight it's super readable. Way better than AMOLED
sometimes. That's how they get those a huge
battery stats. But the downsides seem pretty
significant, especially indoors or if you need detail.
That's the trade off exactly. Indoors it's just duller.
No way around it. Dis Fit and the 5K runner both

(03:41):
hit on the visual limit. Max resolution is only 260 by
260 pixels. Which isn't great for maps I
bet. Not great at all.
Hertz map clarity makes watch faces look less sharp compared
to the competition and Jason's son made a good point.
That durable sapphire lens. It actually adds glare and
washes the screen out a bit indoors compared to the regular
glass on the cheaper Koros Nomad.

(04:03):
Interesting point. And one usability thing that
kept coming up, you can't adjustthe backlight brightness.
It's just on or off fixed level.OK, so the big defence for
putting up with a dimmer lower res screen is usually amazing
battery life, but is that defence still as strong as it
used to be? This is where DC Rainmaker
dropped a bit of a bombshell, actually.
So the advertised numbers. The other huge 24 days daily

(04:26):
use, 65 hours in endurance GPS mode for the big one market
leading stuff, right? However, DC Rainmaker did some
serious real world testing. A 70 kilometre trek using
navigation the whole time, so pretty demanding scenario.
OK, He found the MIP based Apex 4 burned battery at roughly the
same rate, about 2% per hour as an AMOLED Sunto Vertical 2

(04:50):
running the exact same demandingGPS mode.
Wait, really? The same burn rate?
So the gap closes right up when you actually use the GPS
heavily. Seems like it in that specific
high demand GPS and navigation scenario.
It's seriously challenges that core idea that you have to
accept MI PS visual downsides toget usable battery life for long
adventures. Wow, OK that that definitely

(05:12):
changes the calculation for endurance folks.
If the battery advantage shrinkswhen you're actually navigating,
the main reason for MIP gets weaker.
Precisely, It suggests the tradeoff might be more marginal than
the marketing implies, especially if long activities
with navigation are your main thing.
OK, let's pivot to what's new. Inside they added a speaker, a
dual mic, a new action button. Is this actually useful for

(05:35):
athletes, or is it just, you know, more notification stuff?
No, the reviewers seem genuinelypositive about the hardware
additions, the new button layout, the offset dial, the
back button, and that new customizable action button.
Got a thumbs up? What does the action button do?
Chase the Sun really liked it. You can set it up, for example,
to quickly flip between your main workout data screens and

(05:57):
the map view during a run or ride.
No need to scroll through menus,just one press.
Pretty handy made activity. Yeah, that sounds useful.
And the audio, that's totally new for Koros, right?
First time yeah. Built in speaker and dual
microphones with noise reductionand the uses seem pretty
practical. The speaker gives you audible
alerts for splits or even turn by turn navigation prompts.

(06:18):
Loud enough to hear when you're running.
Apparently so, and you can receive phone calls too.
You can't make calls from the watch, but reviewers said taking
an incoming call works surprisingly well.
Speaker was loud enough to actually use.
And what about the voice pins? That sounded kind of
interesting. That's probably the most
innovative bit using the mic, but let's you drop a voice memo
that's geotag to your current location during an activity.

(06:40):
So you could say like watch out washed out trail section here or
good water source. Exactly.
Perfect campsite view, tricky climb ahead, whatever.
You just record it quickly. Then the chorus app
automatically transcribes it andcategorises it later.
Much easier than stopping to type notes on the watch.
OK, that is clever. I like that.
All right, we've covered the newstuff, but now what did they

(07:03):
leave out? Because the 5K Runner and
bikepacking.com definitely flag some things missing, especially
for a mountain watch. Right.
This is the other side of the compromise coin.
And these omissions are pretty significant for the target
audience. The biggest one?
No built in LED flashlight. Really on a premium outdoor
watch? Yep, both Chase the Sun and the

(07:25):
5K Runner called it a significant omission.
Most competitors at this price point have one now and it's
genuinely useful for, you know, finding stuff in your tent,
early morning starts, even emergencies.
It feels like a miss. Agreed, and the smart features
are still pretty basic. Very basic, still lagging behind
there. No NFC for payments.
Koros Pay is still missing in action.

(07:47):
No proper music streaming support like Spotify or Amazon
Music. You're stuck loading MP3 files
like it's 2010. Wow, OK.
And like we said, you can take calls, but you can't make them.
Koros is clearly doubling down on the pure sport tracking, but
stripping out convenience features that people kind of
expect now, especially at nearly500 bucks.
All right, what about performance?
New processor, right? The Apollo 510?

(08:09):
Did reviewers notice a difference?
Does it feel fast? Oh yeah, that processor, which
is also in the cheaper Nomad, was a big plus according to
everyone. The user interface is snappy,
map rendering is incredibly smooth.
Smooth. Maps are good.
As Fit noted, you can zoom and scroll the global topo maps
almost instantly. That's a huge usability win

(08:29):
compared to some watches where you're waiting for the map to
redraw while you're trying to navigate.
Big plus. There and they finally put multi
band dual frequency GPS in both sizes, not just the pro model
like before. Yes, that's a welcome change.
Both the 42 millimetre and 46 millimetre get the high accuracy
Max mode now. Big win for GPS precision across

(08:49):
the board. There's always a but.
There's a really critical caveathere, especially for anyone
relying on this for serious navigation.
DC Rainmaker found something worrying.
Well, the basic GPS tracking wasgenerally solid.
He found it degraded badly. He called it hot mess territory
on difficult terrain, specifically when Rd following
or navigation was turned on. Whoa, hang on.

(09:11):
So the moment you ask it to actually navigate you along a
route on tricky ground, the accuracy might just fall apart
for a watch aimed at adventure and bike packing.
That seems to be the finding. It's not a small bug, it
potentially undermines its core purpose for some users.
If you need reliable tracking while actively following a
complex trail route, this is a major concern.

(09:32):
That they figure out why. Any fix?
The thinking is it's likely a software issue, maybe the
processor struggling to handle both the demanding dual
frequency GPS and the active navigation processing
simultaneously. DC Rainmaker was pretty clear it
needs a software update to fix this.
Until then, yeah, caution is needed if you rely on that

(09:53):
follow route function in challenging spots.
OK, that is definitely somethingpotential buyers need to know.
All right, let's put the apex 4IN context.
Where does it sit? In the chorus Family now?
Above pace 3, below the big verdicts 2S.
But what about the Nomad? Yeah, the Apex 4 finally makes
the lineup. Makes sense from a price
perspective, fills that gap. But you're right, the internal
competition with a 349 Nomad is pretty stiff.

(10:16):
Because the nomad has a lot of the same new tech.
It has the same fast Apollo 510 chip, the microphone for voice
pins, and the same mapping engine.
The Epex 4 really justifies its extra cost with the more premium
build, a titanium and sapphire, and the addition of the speaker.
And weirdly, as Desfit and DC Rainmaker noted, the Apex 4

(10:36):
doesn't have the new fishing activity profiles that they put
on the cheaper Nomad, so a feature distribution still seems
a bit inconsistent across the line.
Odd choice. So back to the big question we
started with. Does the Apex 4 justify that
$429 to $479 price? What was the overall verdict
from the sources? Well the 5K runner put it pretty

(10:58):
bluntly, he said. It's certainly not a bargain
deal. It is slightly overpriced if
anything. Ouch.
Yeah, the value seems really conditional.
Are you one of those MIP diehards who absolutely
prioritises multi week battery life for basic use and needs
that super fast map scrolling? If so, maybe it's worth it for.
You, but for everyone else. For everyone else, it's it's in
a tough spot. You can often find discounted

(11:19):
premium models from Garmin or Sunto around that price, and
those do have things like NFC payments, music streaming, maybe
even a flashlight. It makes the Apex 4's value
proposition kind of niche, harder to justify universally.
So wrapping it up, the Course Apex 4 looks like a durable
performance first watch. It's got some cool new audio

(11:39):
features, potentially great battery life.
But it's held back by that deliberate choice of the MIP
screen, the lack of expected smart features like payments or
music, and crucially, that potential GPS accuracy bug when
navigating. That navigation bug feels like
the biggest asterisk right now. It really does, and it leads to
a fascinating point about Coros choices.

(12:02):
They added some quite new interesting things like that
rudimentary water depth gauge they snuck in and those clever
voice pins, but they actively left out things that are
arguably more practical and widely used for outdoor
adventures, like the flashlight,like NFC payments.
So it leaves you, the listener with a question.
I think when a company builds A specialised adventure, watch
what's more important, Prioritising novel, maybe

(12:24):
slightly gimmicky features, or making sure they include the
proven, practical tools that have become almost standard for
safety and convenience in the outdoors.
That's a really good question. It forces you to think about
what you actually need versus what's new and shiny.
A tough tradeoff to way for sure.
Exactly. Well, that's a perfect place to
leave it. Thanks for diving deep into all
those sources with us today.