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Tried to search but singletrack is not always user friendly, sorry
You may have to flesh out your requirements a little
Yeah do you need one for your yacht, or your Polaris RZR?
Also if you pay for STW you get member discounts on Garmin. Up to 40% on some items.
Watch or bike-mounted device?
FWIW since getting a Fenix 6 I've not once used my 810.
What sort of Garmin do you want?
What features are you looking for?
What's your budget?
Bike mounted or wearable?
What type of riding?
......
I have an 810 and a fr936 watch and tend to only use the 810 for turn by turn using Komoot or extended display for the fr936. I don’t use it to log rides anymore as the watch now does that with hr.
Had an 830. Thought it was great. Lost it. Replaced with a 530. Same computer but without touch screen. I miss the 830.
YMMV
Bike mounted. I used to use my phone on the bars (proper mount) but the bouncing messed it up. I’m hoping a Garmin would show me the route like my phone did. Using Strava or Komoot and occasionally Shimano e-tube ride app. Can you run all 3 ?
Budget ? Not too silly….
Oh and ONLY off-road, lots of bouncy fun fun fun !
I’m leaning towards the 830. Will it do all I want ?
I have a 530 that I got for the same reasons as you. My Quad lock mount dropped my phone more than once so I gave up on it and bought a 530.
I use Outdooractive on my phone to create the route based on OS maps, sync it to the Garmin via WiFi or BT and follow the pink line on the Garmin. It works ok. It beeps at you to tell you to turn left/ right or whatever. When it comes to the screen, it's nowhere near as clear as using the phone. I'm using talkytoaster maps which are better than Garmin but still nowhere near as concise as OS.
This is partly down to being a much smaller screen but also, the brightness/ contrast isn't great and the colours on the garmin make it hard to see what's going on. For these reasons, I don't find the Garmin great for navigation and will usually pull my phone out my bag if I need to find an alternative route or want to see what's coming up.
Thanks Bens, that is really useful. I was a little concerned about the smaller screen. Now I’m even more so ! Lot to consider isn’t there ?
It depends what you want to use it for. For me it works because I'm following a route and always have my phone with OS maps as a backup.
I'm getting used to the smaller screen and for most things, it works fine but trying to get an overview of an area on the map isn't great and I find the phone better. But then compared to the 10" screen on my tablet, the phone is pretty rubbish. Look at the small screen enough times and you get used to it.
I find the buttons on the 530 fiddly and the menu system is far from intuitive.
Compared to using a phone, panning around the map and zooming in and out are a bit of a faff. Press the menu button, use the up/down buttons to select browse map, use the up and down buttons to zoom in or out. Then press menu to switch to up/down mode. Move the map up or down using the up/down buttons. Then press menu to switch to left/right, use the up and down buttons to move the map. Press menu to change to zoom. Up/down buttons to zoom in/out. Repeat. Whilst wearing gloves. In the rain. On top of a windswept moorland plateu while questioning the decision to go for a ride in the first place.
The trick is I've found, to not get lost...
However if you do, the rerouting feature works fairly well provided there are bridleways or tracks or whatever around to get you back to the pink line. It doesn't work well (at all) in say, open moorland but you can just point yourself in the right direction and hopefully find the route again. It doesn't seem to guide you back to the route where there isn't a track in the map. I guess this is in part down to the map itself which hold the data that the routes are based on. I'd like to try some different maps to see if they're any easier to follow.
I considered buying a cheap rugged android phone and sticking that on the bars. I don't think you'll get any better that that for features and ease of use and if you're like me and don't really care about the training aid aspect that cycle computers focus on, it seems like a pretty good idea.
I'm still considering it, even though I bought a Garmin but I'm stubborn and will use the garmin just because I own it.
Recently got a Hammerhead Karoo2 and quite liking it in comparison to a Garmin, set up so much easier and screen much better. Not used it in anger route wise yet though.
The cheapest I’ve seen is a refurbished Explorer for £125. Probably all you need to navigate
I have had a Karoo 2 too, it does the job