[Closed] Garmin Edge 830

I haven’t used it a lot off road. However, it’s a MASSIVE improvement on the 820. Great battery life, sensitive touch screen and good navigation. The times I’ve used it off road the navigation has worked well.

i have a 530, so basically the same but without the touchscreen. The base map isn't great, i need to find out if i can improve it. But generally if your following a route it works well, points you in the right direction, warns of upcoming turns. I found the climb screen helpful because it lets you know how much further the climb goes and you can gauge effort accordingly.

Thanks for the replies. I like the idea that it warns you of upcoming turns. What's the battery life like on the 530? Is it visible all the time or does it go into power save mode after a certain time?

@mrmo can you scroll around the map on the 530, obviously using the buttons? Sorry for the hijack.

You can but it’s so much faff that you won’t want to.

Maybe it’s just me, but having used touchscreen Garmins for the last few years, I found going to buttons was horrible, which was the main reason I sent the 530 back (also one of the buttons had terrible tactile feedback, which appears to be a common issue). It probably would have been different if there was an eTrex-style joystick or a cursor pad.

Loving my 530 and I'd probably be saying the same as Bez above about the 830 if I weren't coming from an 820 with the worst touch screen ever. For me the buttons are a faff but at least you know when you've pressed one. The 530 is also a good chunk cheaper than the 830.  I have found off road navigation good even in areas like Surrey Hills where trails are packed in but off road the left/right type instruction isn't as good as on road due to the nature of trails so you need to keep an eye on the screen more. The screen is a bit small for browsing the map (I get my phone out if I'm really struggling) but is great for a pre planned route and the unit is relatively small as a result.  Battery life I have found excellent even running navigation, I think it actually lives up to Garmin's claims.  I really like the trailforks integration too.MTB dynamics is not of much use to me really.

can you scroll around the map on the 530, obviously using the buttons?

To elaborate on Bez's answer, yes you can. Instead of swiping your finger around on the 830 touch screen you have to use a button to choose whether to zoom in/out or scroll up/down or scroll left/right then use another two buttons to do the zooming or scrolling. You get used to it but it is nowhere near as easy.  If the 830 works as it should it is way, way better.  (My 820 lagged so bad the scrolling and map refreshing was horrible)

If I plan an off road route and import as a GPX file to the 830, will the Garmin use the waypoints to tell me where turns are?

I'm really pleased with my 830. It's everything the 820 should have been. I's much faster to use and the touch screen works. The 530 is a great option to save some cash if you can live with buttons. Have a look at DC Rainmaker's review, I think it's only missing one or two of the features of the 830.

I have an 830 and think it's great.

What Rubber_Buccaneer says about navigation, first time I used it on a trail I kept glancing at the screen and went over the bars.... Incident detection kicked brilliantly and contacted the necessary people that I'd had a moment......

Claimed battery life is 20 hours on GPS, I tend to do about 3 hour rides so I have no reason to think it wouldn't do it. After my first 3 rides it was still at 56%. I have it on the brightest screen setting.

Has wifi built in so syncs automatically when connected.

I highly recommend it. btw it's rock solid when used with a stem "top cap" mount.

Sounds like people's experience of the 830 matches mine of the Explore, which is that Garmin's battery life estimates are actually quite accurate these days.

On the "waypoints" question, if it's like my Explore then cue points don't get brought up on screen during navigation, but the unit should give you its own directions such as "turn left on trail". Cue points come up on a separate screen which shows you distance and estimated time (which for some reason is different, and IME much more accurate than, the ETA or time to destination fields in the data screens). This makes them really useful for big road rides where you can set cue points at towns (or petrol stations) along the route so you can gauge when to stop for supplies, but not useful for custom directions.

That said, I'm pretty sure that firmware updates to the Explore have changed some aspects of how it behaves in terms of navigation, so I would advise the usual caution when it comes to Garmins: they love to break stuff with firmware, so if you find it works for you then never plug the damn thing into a computer that you've installed Garmin Express on.

By the way, if navigation is your main objective then I would look at the Explore. It's about £150 cheaper than the 830, has a bigger screen, and uses the same maps AFAIK. The 830 is smaller (if you like that), has more battery life and more data features including Garmin's new (and arguably totally useless) Sicky-Gnar-o-Meters or whatever they are, but at quite a price.

@fathomer, that's not the issue, it is more what the base map contains, mine at least, is missing minor roads and tracks. I think it would be nice to have a little more detail. The scrolling is fine if a little slow.

ok, seems like i had deleted/not installed the correct map. Just done an update and looking much better. A small screen is never going to be able to show every little track clearly.

Thanks everyone. I currently own an 820 (my third) and don't find the touch screen to bad but it can be frustrating. What is annoying is that I'm getting a really bad screen halo for the third time, Garmin warrantied the first 2 but doubt they will do again.

So my plan is to wait until they've ran out of 820's to replace it with and then hopefully they'll 'repair' it with a 530/830.