The Garmin Fenix 8 and Coros Vertix 2S are two of the best sports watches available, and two of the most expensive as well, sitting at the top of the Garmin and Coros ranges respectively.
I’ve used both watches to track a lot of running individually, but this weekend I used both watches at the same time while racing a half marathon.
The event was the ATW Events Lee Valley Half Marathon in north London. It’s my local half marathon and takes place on a flat, mixed terrain course.
I ran 1:12:06 on the day and both watches impressed me with their accuracy overall, but a few differences did stand out when using the watches over the weekend.
Garmin Fenix 8 vs. Coros Vertix 2S: Price
The Garmin Fenix 8 costs from $999 to $1199, depending on which model you opt for, with titanium watches with sapphire crystal screens costing $100 more than the steel/glass model of the watch.
At $699, the Coros Vertix 2S is significantly cheaper than the Fenix 8 and it comes with a titanium bezel and sapphire crystal screen as standard.
Design
These are both big watches, but the Coros Vertix 2S is especially large. I’ve tested both the 47mm and 51mm Garmin Fenix 8 and both feel thinner and lighter on the wrist than the Coros, especially the 47mm watch I ran with in the half marathon. The fact Garmin has more size options for its top watch is also an advantage.
The Coros Vertix 2S also doesn’t have the AMOLED screen that is available on the Fenix 8. Coros does now have an AMOLED watch in its range — the excellent Coros Pace Pro — so I expect the Vertix line to have that option soon, but for now the Garmin Fenix 8 has a much brighter display, which was noticeable when racing on an overcast day.
One upside of the Vertix 2S’s memory-in-pixel display is battery life. It will last a lot longer on a charge than the Garmin Fenix 8 AMOLED, but Garmin does also have the Fenix 8 Solar in its range, which has a MIP display and solar panels to extend its battery life.
Another notable design difference I noticed when using both watches at the same time is the built-in flashlight on the Fenix 8, which was handy on race morning in helping me to get downstairs without turning on lights and risking waking the kids.
GPS Accuracy
Although the Lee Valley Half Marathon is outside the city center and there are no tall buildings to affect GPS, the course had some sharp twists and turns under tree cover, and both watches sometimes had me running in water rather than on the trails.
For the race I had the Coros Vertix 2S in its most accurate multi-band tracking mode. I meant to use this on the Garmin as well, but I accidentally left it in AutoSelect mode, where it chooses between settings itself based on GPS conditions, so it might not have always been in multi-band mode during the race.
Overall the Garmin was a little closer to the overall race distance of 21.1km, and it’s unusual that the Vertix 2S came in slightly short, as in general in races you don’t run the shortest possible route as you take wider turns on corners than the measured route.
However, looking at the GPS tracks using the DC Rainmaker Analyzer, the Vertix 2S was often more accurate than the Fenix 8, keeping me on paths where the Garmin ran wide or put me in the water.
Overall both watches were highly accurate and helped me to pace the race, with the lap splits coming up in line with the markers on the course.
HR Accuracy
To test the accuracy of the optical HR sensors on the watches I also wore a Garmin HRM200 chest strap in the race and connected it to a Coros Pace Pro I carried in my pocket. Then I compared the readings from the watches and the strap afterwards.
Over many years of testing I have found that chest straps are more accurate than watches in general, using electrical signals from the heart rather than the less reliable optical sensors on watches, so I felt confident the HRM200 would give a good reading I could check the watches against.
Both watches produced admirably accurate heart rate readings throughout the race, matching the Garmin HRM200 pretty much beat-for-beat for the entire event, with my HR rising throughout the half marathon as I tired.
Verdict
I was impressed by the accuracy of both watches during the race, especially the HR readings they both produced, and while both had some quirks on GPS they were both useful for pacing the event.
On performance I’d be happy to use either as my main running watch, which is a feather in the cap of the Vertix 2S as the much cheaper watch.
The Garmin Fenix 8 does have a more attractive and comfortable design, however, and the AMOLED display is a big plus point in particular. If the price isn’t a problem, it’s the watch I’d get.
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