Right off the bat I was instantly drawn to this watch. Maybe it was the rugged styling, or maybe it was the rather unique colours it comes in. Either way, something caught my eye and I had to try it out. I am the first to admit that I am not exactly the target market for this watch. After all, the Coros Nomad is branded as an adventure watch that is specifically advertised to have fishing features.
Although I don’t fish, I feel there may be another market for this watch. So, I put the Coros Nomad through its paces as a running watch, as well as my daily driver. After all, at its heart the Nomad is still a GPS watch that can do basically anything other sports watches do… or so Coros claims.
Table of contents
- Specs and price in Australia
- Design and comfort
- Features and performance
- Fishing and adventuring
- GPS and heart rate
- Battery life
- Display and interface
- Health and smart features
- Who is it for?
Coros Nomad specifications and price
| Dimensions | 47.8 x 47.8 x 14.8 mm |
| Weight | 61g |
| Battery life | 22 days |
| Memory | 32GB |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth |
| Bezel | Fiber Reinforced Polymer + Aluminium alloy |
| Screen | Hardened Mineral Glass |
| Display | 3rd Generation Memory-in-Pixel touch screen |
| Strap | Silicone |
| Price (RRP) | $649 |
| Official website | Coros Australia |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Colours | Green, Brown, Dark Grey |
Design and comfort
Typically when reviewing a GPS watch, my main focus is on the more practical areas. The functionality, features and performance are the key areas for me. For the Coros Nomad, I think the design of the watch is possibly the biggest factor. Let’s remember that this watch has been marketed towards the adventurer, and the fisherman. I think the strong and rugged design of the bezel and strap are great choices. It gives me the sense that this watch is durable and can be taken anywhere. As Coros says, it’s “your go-anywhere, do-anything adventure watch”.
The build of the watch also feels sturdy while still not being heavy, weighing just 61g. I noticed right away that the band is nice and wide making for a comfortable fix with the silicone strap. There is also a nylon option, yet the silicone looks great. The screen is made of hardened mineral glass and the bezel is made of fiber reinforced polymer and aluminium alloy.
I mentioned earlier on that there may be another market for this watch outside of the fishing enthusiast. The Coros Nomad has a certain style about it that reminds me of the classic and very popular G-Shock watches made by Casio. Having a few of these watches myself, I can’t help but make comparisons between them and the Nomad aesthetically. It’s the bold, strong looking exterior that has an almost armoured look to it.
With your standard running GPS watch, the current trend is making them look more and more sleek and minimal, removing chunky edges and bezels. For this reason, the Nomad may stand out in the crowd, and possibly draw in a new customer base that is looking for a different look.
I think the colours are one of the more unique aspects of this watch. GPS watches traditionally come in black, silver or some combination of the two. There are also a fair few brightly-coloured options out there as well.
With the Coros Nomad, there are three options that I think all work perfectly. The colours are green, brown and grey, yet that doesn’t tell the full story. Each of these colours are a rather deep, almost forest-like shade, making them feel ready for an adventure. I got my hands on the green version, and it looks great. The black accents around the green couldn’t be nicer.
Features and performance
The Coros Nomad has over 40 sport modes that includes your standard running, cycling and swimming variants. It also includes a bunch of less common activities like jump rope, rowing, padel and climbing. The list goes on. I am sure if it’s an outdoor activity or exercise that you enjoy, it’s probably on there.
At its core, the Nomad is rather similar to the other Coros watches like the Coros Pace Pro. It includes many of the standard activity tracking features, like step counter, running fitness, training load, VO2 Max, recovery and sleep tracking. To be fair, there isn’t much you would expect a running watch to have that isn’t available on the Coros Nomad.
Fishing and adventuring
Coros built the Nomad with various adventures and fishing-specific features, although some of the latter are lost on me. For adventurers, Adventure Journal is a relatively new feature that lets you take photos, record videos and even voice memos as you explore via the Coros app. The Nomad is one of Coros’ watches that contains a built-in microphone, so you can record voice notes directly into the wearable.
Adventure Journal also lets you can upload pictures later from your camera roll, and each item is saved at its location on your activity map. This sounds great for hiking, camping, fishing or just general outdoor exploring.
In terms of fishing, there are so many interesting features. The weather planning is a great addition, giving real-time weather data to better plan your day. There is also the ability to log each of your catches directly on the watch as well as tracking the moon and tide.
GPS and heart rate
GPS and heart rate are probably the most important areas in determining if this watch is up to scratch for being used as a runner’s watch. From my overall testing of the Coros Nomad, the GPS accuracy was good. I didn’t run into any obvious issues and the data I was seeing during runs felt correct. So this feels like a big tick for the watch. But to be sure, I wanted to directly compare it to another GPS watch, the Garmin Fenix 8.
To compare the two, I went out for a fairly typical 6.5km run. The course I chose included some big hills and I made sure to set a decent pace to see how the watches tracked the heart rate progression.
In terms of the GPS, I was pleasantly surprised. The Nomad did a good job of tracking the run and as you can see, it’s relatively accurate compared to the much pricier $1,849 Garmin watch. As you can see in the image below, the blue line of the Garmin and the yellow line of the Coros are nearly identical, resulting in a very similar distance traveled and average pace.
The heart rate told a different story though. Now, as I have stated many times in the past, wrist based heart rate tracking is super unreliable as it’s just not an effective area of the body to take a heart rate measurement from. I also seem to have a very high heart rate as well as sweat rate, so it’s particularly hard to get an accurate reading from my wrist.
In saying that, the Nomad was a long way from accurate in this area, averaging around 20bpm below the result I was getting from my Garmin. I know from using a dedicated chest strap that the Garmin is far closer to accurate in this case. Once again, take this with a grain of salt as I have had a very similar issue with lots of great GPS watches in the past, and other reviewers have had a much more accurate reading.
Battery life
As you would expect for an adventuring watch, the battery life is huge. 22 days in daily use is spectacular. In terms of GPS use, you are looking at around 50 hours, and you can expect around 34 hours using dual-frequency GPS. For comparison, this is better than all Garmin Forerunner watches, and it’s above or at least competitive with Garmin’s premium watches.
I can’t help but feel there is somewhat of a missed opportunity here. As an adventurer watch that is specifically marketed at fishing, you would assume its target market would be in the direct sunlight a fair bit. For this reason, I would suggest solar capabilities would have been a big plus. Maybe the thinking here was 22 days is already a huge battery life, so it’s not needed? Or maybe it was to keep the price down. Either way, I think solar would have been a great addition.
Display and interface
This is where things go a little downhill. The screen size is decent, and I felt there was lots of room for data. It’s the screen quality that I feel is lacking. Coros chose to go with a Memory-in-Pixel display, opting out of the more recent trend of AMOLED screens. I would assume the main reason for this is to conserve battery life as an AMOLED screen consumes a lot more due to its high demands.
The Coros Nomad screen is still more than good enough, performing very well especially in daylight. I should mention that is it certainly a step up from some of the older Coros models, now being brighter with a better backlight. It’s clear, legible and gets the job done. It’s just a big step down from any watch with an AMOLED as they are so much brighter with more vivid colour saturation and sharpness.
The interface on the Nomad is rather enjoyable to use. It’s very similar to other Coros watches on the market leveraging a digital crown-like button as the main way to navigate. It also has touchscreen capabilities, as well as a back button and an action button. I sometimes have issues with crown buttons as they can be pressed accidentally during activity and even pause or finish your run. In this case, Coros has implemented a lock system that works a treat. I love this!
An action button a new cool thing Coros added to the Nomad. In general daily use, the action button will turn the watch’s backlight on. Simple enough. But when exercising, the action button can be used to switch quickly from your activity data screens over to a map view of your activity. This is such a time saver, skipping the fiddly process of navigating the menu system to find your map view.
Health and smart features
I would hesitate to say this is fantastic smartwatch for day-to-day use as it does lack a little in this area. Don’t get me wrong, you have message and call notification support, so that’s always handy.
On the down side there isn’t any NFC payment option or app store access which is a bit of a bummer. This paired with the somewhat pixelated screen makes the user experience a little lacklustre. I would see a message notification on my watch, and instead of reading it, I would go look for my phone as it’s much clearer to read there. Not exactly what was intended.
Who is the Coros Nomad for?
Although there is no argument that this watch is perfect for the fishing enthusiast and the outdoorsman, I think it’s safe to say that it’s also a decent choice for the everyday runner looking for a different style of watch.
In terms of a comparison or its competitors, you are probably look at the Garmin Instinct 3, yet that is a bit pricier at $829 for the AMOLED model. With the Coros Nomad having such a unique look, and a more affordable $649, it’s a decent alternative.
The post Coros Nomad review: Can runners use this GPS fishing watch? appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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