Coros

It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at expensive Garmin watches and thinking that maps are a premium feature, when, in fact they are not. Suunto and Coros offer them on affordable devices, should you require that feature for trail running, hiking, and more.

If you want to use the Coros Nomad for navigation while cycling then it’s bad. I tested it when cycling from Morges to Cossonay a few weeks ago. The problem is that it tells you “straight ahead” or turn left, but not in a cycling/driving context, so it’s unreliable for that.

Over the last week or two I tested the Garmin ForeRunner 570 when navigating from Crans-Montana to Leukerbad. I also tried a group run navigating with the 570 during a Décathlon run, before spotting that the Coros Nomad and Coros Apex 4 offered full map navigation without paying the Garmin premium price.

Hiking with the 570 is a red line on a black line. You look at the squiggle and intuit where you’re meant to go. With hiking it worked most of the time, although in one or two situations context would have been nice to have. In the second I was running with a group as unofficial navigator. I had the red line helping me intuit where the track was and I got it right.