[Closed] Garmin - touring, 520, something else?

Navigation is probably better in the Touring than the 520 so unless you need fitness data then the touring would be the way to go. As you'll be off road its worth seeing if you can upload any more detailed maps than the Garmin base map which is pretty basic.

The maps with the Garmin Touring are surprisingly good. They don't have all the detail you get on an OS map (and on the OS maps that you can buy for the Garmin Touring) but they're much easier to navigate by as the full OS mapping with contour lines isn't that clear on a small screen. It's always a good idea to have a paper map in your pack.

I've not used the 520 but, with a bit of tweaking, the Touring is by far the best cycle navigator I've had (old B&W etrex, Colour etrex 20, Edge 605). There is still stuff it won't cope with - figure 8 routes/loops just don't work.

However, don't make the SDW the first time you use it - you'll need a couple of rides to get the hang of it.

Recommended settings -
Routing mode - mountain biking
Lock to Road - off
Recalculation mode - off
Course turn guidance - OFF - just follow the pink line
Off course warnings ON

The 520 lacks touchscreen and memory is very limited for mapping.
I bought a 820 last week and, so far I'm pleased with it.

820 looks good, tempted to treat myself! Any "undocumented features" so far?

Just picked up a Touring myself, they were in Halfords for £133 the other week. If you don't need all the training functions of the 810 / 1000 then its great.

I'm all set to push the button on an 820 as well, Dibbs any further thoughts or findings?

Just come back from a ride on the Quantocks, still no problems to report yet.

No doubt - the 820 is a much more capable unit with a lot more features....but the navigation is no better than the touring and the price is c£300 vs c£150

I got an 820 last week. Been solid so far, no issues. It's a really nice little unit

Don't get a 25 - It will die after 8/9 hours and leave you a little unguided for the last 5.

I went with a touring plus about a month or so back, and it's been great, I've been really pleased with it. I don't need any of the performance stuff as I just ride for the fun of it and pootle along at tourist pace (plus I've got a Fenix 3 which can do all that other stuff should it ever be required on a bike).

I did quite a bit of reading up on which GPSr first tho' - given the touring does come with some challenging behaviors if you don't change the settings (simons_nicolai-uk's post up the page a bit refers).

I did expect to miss the OS level of mapping, (and was ready to pay for it), but as it turned out, I rather like the map it ships with, along with updates using the maps over on [url= http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ ]garmin.openstreetmap.nl[/url].

I picked mine up in one of the 'sales' Halfords seem to keep having.

You can augment the battery too if you need more range (dynamo / external pack) - but I expect that's equally true of the 5nn/8nn/1000's too.

along with updates using the maps over on garmin.openstreetmap.nl.

What's the advantage of those rather than the maps supplied (which Garmin seems to periodically update)? Mine came with the whole of Europe.

Is there any way to get Garmin's version of the OpenStreetMap maps for other countries (eg the US) or is that what's on the site you link?

You can augment the battery too if you need more range (dynamo / external pack) - but I expect that's equally true of the 5nn/8nn/1000's too.

I suspect it's the screen backlight that eats battery. Turn by Turn navigation means the screen is often on so battery life suffers (suspect the extra processing it's doing doesn't help). Without turn by turn you just touch the screen to get the backlight for [whatever you've set it to]. Used like that I still had a lot of battery left at the end of a 6 hour ride.