Coros just added offline maps to its most affordable sports watch — but there's a catch
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The Coros Pace 4 impressed from the moment I first strapped it to my wrist, and after using it for several months of marathon training I liked it even more.
One of the very few complaints I had about the watch was that it didn't offer offline maps. Guess what just got added to the Coros Pace 4 via a free software update?
You can now download maps to the Coros Pace 4 and use it to follow routes with turn-by-turn directions, making it one of the most affordable sports watches to offer this feature.
Coros has always done a great job of adding value to its watches with software updates long after they launch, but this is a particularly big upgrade and one I wasn't expecting. There is, however, a minor catch with the new feature…
You only have 4GB of space to play with
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The 4GB of storage on the Pace 4 is a lot less than the minimum of 16GB you usually get on watches with maps, and it limits how much you can download to the watch, especially if you also store your music on the Pace 4.
It's also important to note that a lot of that 4GB is already taken up with system data, so you can't manage it — I only have 1.6GB left on my Coros Pace 4 without any music on the watch.
I consider this a fairly small drawback though, because there is still comfortably enough space to download your local area and you can add and remove maps easily through the app, so you can download places you plan to travel to.
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For example, the size of two areas around me that cover London and the south east of the U.K. is 151.2MB, and two large areas that cover New York and Philadelphia is 122.4MB, so you should have room to download your local area and anywhere you visit regularly.
You can't download the whole world and if you do use the music feature you might have to delete some tracks to make space for maps, but I consider that a minor inconvenience to add such a useful feature to the watch.
How to get maps on the Coros Pace 4
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To start using the new feature on the Pace 4 you first have to update the watch in the partner Coros app— this should come up as an option when you log in and sync your watch, or you can find the option to update in the watch section of the app.
Once the update is done you then have to choose and add the areas you want mapsfor on your watch, which are shown with their file sizes so you can plan how to use your storage accordingly.
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Rather than breaking the world down into areas that fit directly with countries or major cities, in the Coros app you select preset squares that each cover an areaof the world. Once you've picked your squares, hit download and your watch will connect to Wi-Fi and download the maps.
It's a pretty fast process in my experience, and once on your watch you can see your maps during outdoor activities by using the action button on the Pace 4 to toggle between your stats and your map.
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To use routes with the maps you can create them directly in the Coros app in the Explore tab and sync them to your watch.
The Coros Pace 4 doesn't have the largest display, but the bright AMOLED screen means it's still easy to see your maps and routes during activities.
This is a big update for an affordable sports watch, and it will be interesting to see if Garmin in particular responds, because downloadable maps have always been a feature restricted to Garmin's most expensive watches.
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