Coospo CS300 Computer Review

The first things that many people will ask is – who are Coospo and what is the CS300?

The answer to that is that they are a Chinese company that manufacture cycling computers to take on the likes of Garmin, Wahoo and Karoo.

Their main selling point is the price with the current range of computers being mostly available through their website or via Amazon and retailing in the range of ~£40 up to ~£75.

The second (and probably most important) question is – are they any good?

Well, let’s take a look at the CS300 unit:

Features

The Coospo CS300 includes all the features that you would expect from higher-end units such as:

Current time
Activity time
Current temperature
Current speed
Average speed
Maximum speed
Distance travelled
Current gradient
Average gradient
Maximum gradient
Current altitude
Ascent during activity
Calories burned
Lap counter
Odometer

By connecting the device to any relevant and compatible ANT+ sensors it is also possible to display a wealth of data about Heart Rate, Speed, and Cadence however none of these were tested during this review.

The only major feature this unit lacks is the ability to perform any kind of navigation. We are led to believe though that there is a new unit in the pipeline that will provide navigation..

Set-up and operation

Getting up and running is easy, you just need to charge the unit and go for a ride. However, if you want to get the most out of the unit then you will need to do just a little work.

The first thing you’ll want to do is download the accompanying Coospo Ride app for your chosen platform (Apple or Android). The app will allow you to store and analyse your data, and customise the five different screens available. It is also the place you will need to go to connect to any sensors. Lastly, if you connect your Strava account to your Coospo account then your ride information can be automatically uploaded to Strava.

The unit comes with a Garmin compatible mount, so if you already have a Garmin mount then there’s nothing to do there, if not then the included mount is easy to fix on your bike.

The Coospo CS300 doesn’t have any form of navigation capability so there are no worries about downloading and updating maps, routes etc.

The computer has 2.6″ monochrome LCD non-touch screen. There are two buttons along the front edge of the unit which turn tracking on / off, allow access to the five information screens, and cycle through settings options.

The user manual is quite limited, and only really shows how to set up the basic operation however most customisation, and functionality are available in the App which is pretty intuitive to use.

Accuracy

In a test ride running the unit side by side with a Garmin 830 the accuracy of the unit was very impressive. However, we were only able to test it over 20 miles as the Garmin unit became smashed a couple of miles before the end of the intended 40 mile ride. When we compared the stats at the 22 mile point (coffee stop) there was only 0.02 miles difference and ad-hoc observations during the ride showed it to be continually 0.01 – 0.02 different to the Garmin. Interestingly sometimes it was ahead of the Garmin and sometimes it was behind the Garmin but never more than 0.02 miles

Given that the previous model was similarly accurate compared to Garmin over 30miles we see no reason that this model won’t be just as accurate

App

The CS300 comes with its own app called CoospoRide which will connect to the head unit via Bluetooth. This is intended to provide similar functionality to that provided by the apps from the major manufacturers. The app will show a map of the route travelled and all the data uploaded from the unit itself.
In principle, this should work easily enough but we did have a couple of problems.

The CoospoRide app was inconsistent in its connection to some older models of Android phones but seemed to work fine with newer models.
In the iPhone app after uploading / syncing rides the ride trail is shown on the screen but the map data isn’t showing (in the upper image on the right) however in the Android app this worked perfectly.

If you are a Strava user then it’s easy to connect your Coospo Ride account to your Strava account and have the data from the head unit automatically uploaded to Strava.

Improvements

Coospo have made several improvements to this device over the BC107 that we previously reviewed, a summary of which are:

Screen size increased from 2.4″ to 2.6″.
Increase in data pages from three pages to five pages.
Ability to mix imperial and metric measurements.
Extended battery life claimed at 40hrs, up from 28hrs.
Can pair with both bluetooth and ANT+ sensors (BC107 was ANT+ only)

Overall

If you don’t need Navigation as a feature on your cycling head unit then the CS300 offers great value for money costing less than half of even the most basic navigation-capable computers. If navigation is important then you will need to look elsewhere or wait until Coospo release such a device.