 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Looking for a GPS Road/MTB for mainly monitoring average speed distance and using for routes would also prefer Ant+ just incase I need it in the future, could use my iPhone 5 but don't fancy having it on the bars and battery life I think would be an issue
Any ideas quite like the idea of the automatic route planner on the Mio for the road fitness runs any good ?
If you don't need all the training functions (cadence etc) then I have a Garmin Edge Touring Plus, gives all the mapping functions of a Garmin and can link to a heart rate monitor etc but a bit cheaper.
I've got a Garmin Edge 510 - can't really fault it for what it is. Good battery life, compact, robust, easy to use, clear screen and good customisation, comes with heart rate and cadence sensors etc. The only thing it won't do is route planning - you can create a route on RidewithGPS (other GPS route-planning services are available) and follow it.
The cost of the 810 + maps seems like a lot to pay for the small benefit, although if you did a lot of touring / ad-hoc exploring it might be worthwhile.
I've got an Edge 800 with free (open source) maps.
I'd recommend it. Not sure I'd pay to upgrade to the 810 from what I've got now, and if I was buying new I'd want to wait until the new Edge (1000?) was out.
It's easy to plot a route online (bikehike and bikeroutetoaster are the sites I use) and then put the route onto the device. Then the battery is good enough for an all day ride and there are no worries about a big shiny smartphone getting wet/muddy/smashed.
Haven't used any others so can't compare but if I lost it I'd replace it straight away with the same (or the 1000).
The cost of the 810 + maps seems like a lot to pay for the small benefit, although if you did a lot of touring / ad-hoc exploring it might be worthwhile.
I'm not sure about the 510, but I have the 500 and the breadcrumb trails are a pain in the ass. It has a bug which was apparently introduced with a firmware update, which means the trail keeps disappearing. You need to adjust the zoom level to get it back, but the more you zoom out, the less detail you have, and it can then become very difficult to navigate. I'm always taking wrong turns with mine. Granted, it's not always too difficult to get back to where you where (and to be fair, I do like my 500!), but an accurate mapping feature would be a massive improvement in my opinion. Even just things like being able to see a fork in the road, knowing which one to take... And given the option, I definitely wouldn't use the 500 off road. Not for navigating.
Like I say though, I do like it. Little bit of a learning curve, but very easy to use once you get the hang of it. Absence of moving average speed is a bit odd, but it has pretty much everything else you will ever need. Lots and lots of data. Elevation, gradient, temperature, ANT+ compatible, so HRM, cadence, etc.
When I'm on the MTB I generally use an Etrex 20. No fancy training functions. Just the basics that you'd expect on an everyday bike computer, but great for navigating. And very cheap. Etrex 30 has ANT+, but I've never used it and not sure what it lets you do - it may just be that it records your heart rate.