One of the last MIP holdouts released its first AMOLED running watch

What you need to know

• The COROS PACE Pro is a new running watch for $349, the brand's first watch with an AMOLED display.
• It sports a 20-day battery life, offline maps, a new satellite chipset for dual-band GPS, a digital crown, and the full COROS training suite.
• Compared to the budget PACE 3, it has 2X processor speed, 8X storage, and 2x the dual-band battery life.

COROS has followed in the footsteps of running watch brands Garmin, Polar, and Suunto by releasing the COROS PACE Pro, a running watch with a 1,500-nit AMOLED touch display, after a long string of memory-in-pixel (MIP) watches.

COROS' trademark is affordable running watches with long battery life and MIP displays that are easily readable in direct sunlight. But as MIP displays slowly became less popular, COROS found a way to switch to the more readable AMOLED format while still offering nearly three weeks of battery life.

The COROS PACE Pro is an upgrade over the PACE 3, with a 2X faster CPU and tripled RAM, five extra days and 16 extra dual-band hours of battery life, 3X faster wi-fi downloads, and downloadable offline maps instead of breadcrumb navigation.

While the PACE 3 remains a great option for budget-minded runners, the PACE Pro arguably makes the APEX 2 a bit obsolete. Both the PACE Pro and APEX 2 cost $349, and the latter uses titanium instead of polymer and stronger sapphire glass. That aside, the PACE Pro has far better battery life, quadruple the storage, more accurate GPS, the same sensors, and the aforementioned AMOLED upgrade. COROS even says its maps zoom in three times faster than the APEX 2's.

I've only had a few days with the COROS PACE Pro thus far, not enough to properly judge its new satellite chipset or heart rate accuracy, but the switch to AMOLED is a welcome one for my eyes, and even with the silicone band it doesn't feel especially heavy.

Its battery life has impressed me thus far, and it comes with a new keychain charging dongle that lets you plug any USB-C cable into it to charge your watch. It's a unique solution to the problem of proprietary charging cables.

It's far too soon to say if this is one of the best running watches, but it has the exact same in-depth training software as other COROS watches, paired with excellent battery life and a full-color display that'll make the PACE Pro more appealing to some runners. Now that COROS has gone the AMOLED route, I'm excited to see how the PACE Pro compares to the $449 Garmin Forerunner 265, our current top pick.

The COROS PACE Pro costs $349 and is available from coros.com now; it should become available from retailers like Amazon and REI soon. If you're still more of an MIP display fan, you thankfully still have plenty of options from the COROS PACE, APEX, and VERTIX series!