Coros Nomad review: An endurance-led outdoor watch with a journal-style twist

When your weekend plans involve long walks, routes you don’t know by heart, and the kind of weather that makes your phone feel a bit too precious, the appeal of a tough, readable outdoor watch is obvious.

That’s the space the Coros Nomad is aiming for: a rugged, round-faced alternative to the usual suspects from Garmin, built around the practical stuff that matters outdoors.

What makes the Nomad a little different, though, is that it’s not just trying to outlast you on the trail – it’s also trying to capture the story of the day.

In the wider outdoor watch market – and compared, most naturally, with the Garmin Instinct 3 – the Nomad’s promise is simple: strong navigation, big endurance, and an outdoorsy design that doesn’t try too hard.

The real question is whether those strengths add up to a watch you’ll reach for every day, not just on the occasional “proper” walk.

Price and availability

The Coros Nomad launched in August 2025 and retails for £319 (approximately $349 or €369, depending on the retailer) at the time of writing, though there are likely to be deals available.

The Nomad is best understood as an outdoors-first buy: you’re spending your money on offline maps and navigation and endurance-led battery life, not contactless payments or a sprawling app ecosystem.

If you mainly want a general fitness tracker for the gym and commuting, you’ll find cheaper options that cover the basics, like the Xiaomi Watch S4.

Design and build quality

The Nomad’s round case and outdoorsy, gorpcore-leaning styling suit its purpose nicely: it looks like something you’d wear on a long walk, rather than a gadget trying to show off.

As someone with a preference for round watches, I really liked the Nomad's slightly Army-esque look, and it suits the watch's purpose perfectly.

The 1.3-inch always-on, memory-in-pixel display also fits that brief, prioritising at-a-glance clarity over flashy colours, and the watch is rated to 5ATM or 50m for water resistance, so it’s built for whatever the UK's weather delivers.

Day to day, it’s been comfortable to wear for hours at a time, even when I’m layered up in winter and getting a bit sweaty. The strap is easy to dial in, and the tail neatly clips into itself, preventing it from catching.

Even the presentation feels well-judged, with a nice, paper-based box that matches the outdoors-first vibe and can go straight into your recycling.

Compared to Garmin’s Instinct-style approach, the Nomad feels a touch more “lifestyle outdoors” than pure utility; still rugged-looking, but easier to dress up with a jacket and trainers rather than a full hiking kit.

I also appreciated that it doesn’t try to cram every possible metric onto the screen by default: there are loads of watch faces to choose from, but the standard face struck the best balance of useful data and quick readability.

The build quality is high, and I would expect the Nomad to withstand months or years of use without significant degradation, even with a few knocks and bumps along the way.

Features

I'll start with the Nomad’s headline trick: Voice Notes. These are a simple, fun way to drop an audio reminder tied to a place or moment, which then feeds into Coros’ broader Adventure Journal features.

In practice, it’s the kind of feature that might not become a daily habit, but it’s pretty handy when you want to mark something quickly without stopping to faff with your phone.

Where the Nomad really earns its keep, though, is the way maps and navigation integrate with the Coros app.

Sending a route across is straightforward, and once a walk is finished, you can immediately see a detailed route view and a full stats breakdown on your phone, without any waiting, as shown below.

The on-watch interface is also easy to get along with: it’s different from most smartwatches, but it’s logical, quick to learn, and simple to use for basics like jumping into a Walk (or Fly fishing) mode.

There are plenty of extra touches too, including weather-focused watch faces that look great and give you the essentials at a glance – although for anything more detailed, I still found it easier to check my phone.

One minor frustration is that the screen can lock and grey out fairly quickly by default, so you end up waking it more often than you’d like. Tweaking Auto Lock helps.

The Nomad supports safety-style alerts and storm warnings, which can be reassuring on longer walks or solo outings, but they’re best viewed as everyday safety nets rather than a true off-grid solution.

It’s similarly strong on breadth: there are dozens of sport profiles to choose from, and the mapping side goes beyond a basic breadcrumb trail, with a more detailed look at roads, paths, and points of interest.

A few rivals in the same outdoor bracket also make a big deal of solar charging, something the Nomad doesn’t have.

It’s also not trying to be a full smartwatch – there’s no contactless payments, no app store, and no full music streaming – so if those are deal-breakers, you’ll want to look elsewhere.

GPS and activity tracking

For everyday outdoors use, the Nomad’s tracking is solid.

I tested it on walks around London, including sections of the Capital Ring Walk, and the GPS trace was generally accurate enough that I’d happily rely on it for route-following and logging day-to-day activity.

Where it stumbled was in the predictable places: it dropped signal occasionally in tunnels, and I saw a few moments of instability in more tree-covered stretches.

The mapping side helps here, because it’s not just recording a line and hoping for the best. When you’re using navigation, the on-watch guidance is clear in fair conditions, and the post-activity sync to the Coros app makes it easy to sanity-check your route and stats straight away.

Coros also offers multiple satellite modes (including more demanding options aimed at improving accuracy), although real-world results will always depend on where you are and what’s overhead.

Heart-rate tracking also performed well in my testing, falling broadly in line with what I’d expect from a modern outdoor watch and remaining consistent with other wearables I've used.

It’s not the kind of device that bombards you with gimmicky insights mid-walk, but as a straightforward tracker for distance, pace, route data, and the basics you’ll actually look at, it feels dependable.

Battery life and charging

Battery is one of the Nomad’s biggest strengths, and it’s a big part of what makes it feel like a proper outdoor watch. Over my review period, I needed only two charges, which aligns neatly with Coros’ endurance-first claims.

Coros quotes up to 22 days of daily use (or up to 50 hours of GPS tracking), and while your mileage will vary depending on how often you use navigation and GPS, the underlying point holds: this is a watch designed to go the distance.

Charging is also refreshingly fuss-free. The connector is proprietary, but it terminates in USB-C, so you’re not adding yet another cable to the pile. There's also no cable in the box, which is a nice eco-friendly touch.

Verdict

The Coros Nomad gets the fundamentals of an outdoor watch right.

It’s comfortable enough to wear all day, the round styling feels nicely judged, and the always-on screen is built for quick readability rather than showing off.

Add in quality mapping, a slick app for routes and post-walk stats, and battery life that barely registers as a concern, and it’s easy to recommend.

The headline Voice Notes feature is a fun twist, and it can be genuinely handy for marking moments or waypoints, even if it’s hard to say whether most people will keep using it once the novelty wears off.

The trade-off is that this isn’t a smartwatch-first device – there are no payments, no third-party apps and no music streaming.

Still, if you’re choosing between rugged, non-AMOLED outdoor watches (think Garmin Instinct 3) and you’d rather prioritise navigation, endurance, and a distinctive outdoors “journal” angle, the Nomad is very compelling.