Coros Pace 3 First Look: A Light, Long-Lasting Running Watch That Moves the Game Forward

Introduction

Coros built its reputation on simple, long-lasting sports watches that punch above their price, and the Pace 2 was arguably the best value GPS running watch of its generation. The Pace 3 arrives as its successor, and after close to a week of early testing, the picture is clear: this is an evolution rather than a revolution, with a handful of meaningful upgrades rather than a wholesale redesign.

The headline additions are dual-frequency GPS, a bigger battery, a pulse oximeter sensor, 4 GB of music storage with playback, and touchscreen functionality. Pricing has jumped too: $229 in the US and £219 in the UK, which is $50 and £20 above the Pace 2 at launch. That puts it considerably closer to rivals like the Garmin Forerunner 265 and Forerunner 255, so the value question matters more this time around.

Who This Product Is For

The Pace 3 is aimed at runners and multi-sport athletes who want serious training metrics, reliable navigation, and outstanding battery life without paying flagship money. If you are happy tracking runs with straightforward GPS and do not care about dual-band accuracy, onboard music, or a touchscreen, the older Pace 2 remains a genuinely good budget option. If you do want those extras, the Pace 3 is where Coros now bundles them.

Main Strengths

Design and Comfort

Very little has changed physically, and that is mostly a good thing. The 1.2-inch transflective 240 x 240 memory-in-pixel always-on display keeps the same size and resolution as before, though Coros says the panel quality is higher, and it sits under scratch-resistant glass in a lightweight fiber-reinforced polymer bezel and case. At 30 g with the nylon strap, it is just 1 g heavier than the Pace 2, which you will not notice.

On the wrist it is light, compact, and easy to wear 24/7. The nylon strap is not the softest material around, but it is comfortable all day and noticeably nicer than early Pace 2 straps. A silicone option is also available. One caveat: the strap pins can feel a little flimsy when you pull the strap tight, so it is reassuring that the watch ships with two spare pins.

The touchscreen is new to the Pace line and can be enabled all the time or limited to specific menus. The software also runs visibly smoother than on the Pace 2, with less lag when moving through menus. The screen is small and no match for the brightest, sharpest displays on pricier watches, but it is perfectly legible in most light. The auto-raise backlight was a bit hit and miss in early use and did not always fire when lifting the wrist.

Tracking Modes and Navigation Features

New sport modes include trail running, ski, snowboard, and cross-country ski, though trail running will also roll out to the Pace 2 in time. The familiar EvoLab training, recovery, and fitness insights carry over, along with sleep and activity tracking. Sensor hardware now includes a smaller optical heart rate sensor with less bulge for better fit, an SpO2 pulse oximeter, and a barometric altimeter.

Navigation is generous for the price: in-app route planning, turn-by-turn navigation, breadcrumb navigation, back to start, elevation profiles, distance to destination, GPS coordinates, and storm alerts. Smartwatch features are modest, covering notifications and watch face customization, with no contactless payments and no Spotify playback.

Battery Life: Still the Headline Strength

Battery has always been Coros territory, and the Pace 3 improves it again. On paper you get 38 hours in standard GPS mode, 25 hours with all systems on, and 15 hours in dual frequency mode. Daily use battery life is quoted at 24 days, four days longer than the Pace 2.

Early testing backed much of this up. Overnight drain averaged around 3%, and general use burned about 30% over three days, which included 8 hours of GPS tracking. Standard GPS used 8% over 2.5 hours, all-systems GPS used 7% over 4.5 hours, and an hour of dual-frequency running cost 4%. Dual-frequency mode clearly hits battery harder than standard mode, with early data suggesting roughly 10-plus real hours rather than the quoted 15, which is in line with most other watches offering the same feature.

GPS Accuracy: Solid but Not Perfect

In early tests, GPS was a mixed bag. In standard GPS mode the watch tended to read long compared to a Garmin Enduro 2, and even in dual frequency the track meandered slightly, with small drifts that add up over long distances. It was often a quarter of a mile ahead of two or three pricier watches over the same routes. On one occasion it also struggled badly at a stop, bouncing around and adding distance, which is worth knowing if you plan to use it for ultras with aid station stops without pausing the watch. That behavior is not unique to the Pace 3, as the Enduro 2 did the same.

In dual frequency mode, however, things improved significantly. The track matched the Garmin Enduro 2 in its dual-frequency mode overall, and a separate early 14k run produced routes and derived metrics that looked very similar to a Garmin Forerunner 965 in multi-band mode. For a watch at this price, that is impressive, though longer testing in more signal-challenged areas is still needed.

Heart Rate: The Weak Spot So Far

The optical heart rate sensor is where the Pace 3 struggled most in early testing. Against other optical sensors, a chest strap, and Coros’s own heart rate monitor, it often fought to lock on for the first 10 minutes of runs, produced frequent high spikes, and failed to register drops in heart rate during rest periods. On one low-intensity hiking test, it held much higher BPM readings for long stretches and finished well off the true max and average heart rates.

That said, experiences varied between testers. In a steady-paced run compared against a Forerunner 965 paired to a chest strap, average and maximum readings looked good, and steady-pace optical data on the smaller Coros watches has historically been reliable. High-intensity performance is the key open question. If you do not trust wrist data, the watch can pair external heart rate sensors.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The price has moved away from the budget tier occupied by the Pace 2 and the Garmin Forerunner 55. You are paying mainly for the touchscreen, smoother software, dual-band GPS, the upgraded optical sensor, the 4 GB music player, and the promised battery improvements. If none of those appeal, the Pace 2 still stands as a very good watch, and features like turn-by-turn navigation are rolling out to it as well.

Within Coros’s own range, the Apex 2 Pro offers nicer materials, full mapping, and a bigger battery, but the Pace 3 is the better value if you do not need full onboard maps. Against the Garmin Forerunner 255, the Pace 3 holds its own on metrics and now matches it on dual-band GPS, though Garmin’s ecosystem and smartwatch support still work a little nicer overall.

Buying Advice

For anyone choosing between the Pace 3 and pricier alternatives, the case is straightforward: it delivers much of what premium watches offer, including dual-frequency GPS, breadcrumb navigation, and genuinely long battery life, in a 30 g package for well under flagship money. Wait for the full picture on high-intensity heart rate accuracy before treating the wrist sensor as your only source, and budget for a chest strap if you train hard regularly. If dual-band GPS and music are not priorities, the Pace 2 remains the smarter spend.

Conclusion

The Coros Pace 3 builds on the bang-for-buck formula that made the Pace 2 so popular. Battery life lived up to its billing, the dual-frequency GPS held its own against much pricier watches, and the added touchscreen and smoother software make it nicer to live with day to day. The optical heart rate sensor is the one clear weak point so far, at least at low intensities and during rests. More testing will settle those questions, but on early evidence this looks like a worthwhile update and one of the best-value running watches in Coros’s lineup.