The Garmin Forerunner 165 and Coros Pace 4 are both among the best sports watches and show how quickly wearables have developed. They both offer features that were only available on flagship devices costing twice the price.
These are both entry-level watches in terms of price, but have enough features to satisfy the most demanding of athletes, all packed into extremely small and lightweight devices that I found comfortable to wear 24/7.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Price & availability
The Coros Pace 4 is the newer watch, having launched in November 2025, and it costs $249 / £229, which makes it cheaper than the Garmin Forerunner 165’s MSRP, which is $249 / £249 for the standard model of the watch and $299 / £289 for the version with music storage.
However, since the Garmin Forerunner 165 came out back in February 2024, it is a watch you can usually find in sales, and it’s typically reduced to $249 / £249 for the music model of the watch and $199 / £199 for the standard version.
Coros doesn’t tend to offer deals on its watches, partly because they are generally already cheaper than their main competition. Assuming you can find the Forerunner 165 in a sale, the two watches are similar in price, and the Garmin is actually cheaper if you opt for the non-music watch.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Specs
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Coros Pace 4 | Garmin Forerunner 165 |
Price | $249/£229 | $249.99/£249.99; $299.99/£289.99 (Music) |
Size | 43.4 x 11.8mm | 43 x 11.6mm |
Display | 1.2in 390 x 390 AMOLED | 1.2in 390 x 390 AMOLED |
Bezel | Plastic | Plastic |
Screen | Glass | Glass |
Weight | 40g | 39g |
Water resistance | 50m | 5ATM |
Battery life (watch mode) | Up to 20 days | Up to 11 days |
Battery life (GPS) | Up to 24 hours (multi-band, always-on) | 19 hours (all-systems GPS, always-on) |
Storage | 4GB | 4GB |
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Design & display
Both watches have plastic cases and glass displays, and both are exceptionally lightweight at around 40g, even with a silicone strap, and around 30g with a nylon strap. The Forerunner 165 comes in a wider range of colors and uses 20mm straps as opposed to the 22mm straps the Pace 4 uses.
The screen size on both watches is 1.2in, and they both have bright and engaging AMOLED displays. The Forerunner 165 allows for more customization of the stats on its watch face, though, which is a bonus.
Despite being small, plastic watches, they both feel sturdy and I like the design of both watches, especially as the lightweight, thin designs make them comfortable to wear 24/7 — they fit my skinny wrists better than chunky devices like the Garmin Fenix 8 or Coros Vertix 2S.
One big design difference is that the Coros Pace 4 only has three buttons; one of these is a digital dial, whereas the Forerunner 165 has five buttons. I slightly prefer five buttons over the dial, which I find quite easy to activate unintentionally when wearing the Pace 4, but both designs are easy enough to use to navigate the watches.
Both watches have a 5ATM waterproof rating, and shared sensors include a barometric altimeter. However, the Pace 4 has an advantage in offering multi-band GPS tracking, whereas the Forerunner 165 only offers all-systems GPS, which is theoretically less reliable than multi-band — more on that later.
Lastly, the Coros Pace 4 has a built-in mic, which you can use to take voice notes, such as at the end of a workout, to be transcribed into a training log. The Forerunner 165 doesn’t have a mic or speaker.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Sports tracking & training analysis
The Coros Pace 4 is a full multisport watch with a triathlon mode, whereas the Forerunner 165 doesn’t have this as an option and is much more focused on runners in particular. Along with the lack of a multisport mode, the Forerunner 165 doesn’t connect to cycling power meters, which the Coros Pace 4 does.
Another advantage of the Coros Pace 4’s sports tracking is that it can show up to eight stats at a time on its data fields, whereas the Forerunner 165 is limited to four at a time.
The Pace 4 also offers more detailed training analysis, with info on your training load, which is something Garmin reserves for its more expensive sports watches. Coros offers the same analysis across its range, so you’re getting a lot of useful information on the Pace 4 that will satisfy athletes of all levels.
One area where the Forerunner 165 does have an edge is the daily suggested workouts it offers, which can be helpful for new runners in particular, as following them will ensure you have a balance of easy and fast runs in your week.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: GPS & heart rate accuracy
Despite not having multi-band GPS, the Garmin Forerunner 165 has been very accurate throughout my testing, and when I’ve used it at the same time as multi-band watches like the Pace 4, the GPS tracks have lined up.
That said, multi-band GPS does grant peace of mind if you are an accuracy obsessive like me, and if you regularly run in city centers or under tree cover, it tends to produce more accurate results on the whole, so it’s certainly a plus for the Pace 4 to have it.
With regards to heart rate accuracy, I compared both watches to the readings from a chest strap throughout testing, and both were above-average in how accurate they were. They almost always matched the chest strap beat for beat.
The Coros Pace 4 has been a little more prone to error, though. On easy runs, it sometimes spikes erroneously, and on a hard interval run, its readings were a little high throughout.
Overall, I’d say the Pace 4 has a slight edge on GPS accuracy, while the Forerunner 165 edges it on heart rate, but both are very good on both fronts, and match watches that cost several times as much.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Battery life
As small watches with bright AMOLED displays, the Forerunner 165 and Pace 4 aren’t the most long-lasting sports watches on the market, but this is an area where the Pace 4 is stronger. It beats the Forerunner 165 for battery life in both watch and GPS modes — the latter is impressive given that multi-band tracking is more power-intensive.
With my use, running every day with the always-on screen enabled, the Forerunner 165 lasts me three to four days on a charge, whereas the Pace 4 lasts me five days, and I can get more than 10 days from the Pace 4 with the screen set to raise-to-wake.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Smart features and navigation
The Coros Pace 4 only has basic smart features, such as a weather forecast widget and notifications from your phone. It can store MP3 files for playback via Bluetooth headphones, and will soon get music controls for a linked phone, but can’t link up to streaming services.
This is something available on the music version of the Forerunner 165, which can link to Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music premium accounts. The Garmin also has NFC payments through Garmin Pay, plus access to the Connect IQ app store, which contains some useful third-party software, plus more watch faces.
Neither watch has offline maps, but both offer navigation through breadcrumb trails, so you can follow routes with turn-by-turn directions and get a back-to-start pointer if you get lost during activities.
Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Coros Pace 4: Verdict
While both watches have their strengths, I think the Coros Pace 4 is the better sports watch of the two and would get my vote if you’re looking at both. The Forerunner 165 is a great watch, and if you want to link to a streaming service, then that would be a big reason to get it, but the Pace 4 offers more sports features and battery life.
Garmin has not updated the more affordable end of its watch line-up for a while now, so a new model could be due to supersede the Forerunner 165. The fact that it’s an older model does mean it’s often in sales, though, so if you don’t need the music feature, the standard Forerunner 165 will likely be available for less than the Pace 4, which is a point in Garmin’s favor.
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