[Closed] PSA: Garmin Edge 500 £79.99 @ Aldi

Bargain price it seems for anyone who wants one and can get whilst in stock!

Interesting. I picked up a 200 in the last sale, is the 500 a sufficient improvement to warrant another £80 of mine?

Serious question:

What's it for?
Preloading routes/maps or does it just log ride data?

Lunge, I'm in the same position as you, I like my edge 200 that I purchased from aldi in June, is the 500 any better and worth more of my cash?

It can't do maps I believe.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2009/12/garmin-edge-500-in-depth-review.html

It doesn't do maps.

However you can load a pre determined course and then follow a bread crumb trail, which works fine until you go off course. Once off course it won't point you in the direction to get back on course

Interesting. I picked up a 200 in the last sale, is the 500 a sufficient improvement to warrant another £80 of mine?

I wouldn't bother. Been obsolete for a few years now. No maps, no segment support, small screen.

Decent enough computer, but I'd pay extra for a 510/520.

However you can load a pre determined course and then follow a bread crumb trail,

Think I will save the money and stick with the 200 following what has been said above. Many thanks for the advise and comments.

The 500 is the PERFECT race computer. There is a reason why the pros have continued to use them for years. I set mine to laps and time for circuit races, distance and time for road races, then record power, HR and cadence via ANT for analysis afterwards. That's a great price. I have dedicated screens for each aspect of training. The HR graph is great - better than the 810 because it does not auto scale.

It also supports three bike profiles and five customisable screens. No touch screen, just buttons.

If you don't need ANT then I wouldn't bother upgrading from a 200 (have one of those too).

I had a 200, the breadcrumb trail works a treat.
It broke.
I have a 500, the breadcrumb trail is useless and now they have stopped supporting it altogether.
500 allows you to customise what it is showing on what screen and how many fields - that can't be done on 200.

Garmin are to software what Jeremy Corbyn is to neo-conservatism.

I wouldn't bother. Been obsolete for a few years now. No maps, no segment support, small screen.

I've had one for a few years and it's great. Reliable, long-lasting, waterproof and connects with my HRM strap and cadence sensor. The breadcrumb trail works reasonably but is at the mercy of your mapping software.

£80 for the features it has is a stonking bargain.

The 500 does have a few other advantages over the 200, other than being able to record HR and customise fields.

The recording interval for the 500 is 1 second, whereas it is 'smart' on the 200, which leads to some big jumps between sampled points (you can see it on the strava comparison tool, where the 200 jumps along tracks in big steps, whereas better computers smoothly glide along).

The biggest advantage is probably being able to tell the time of day without having to pause the activity!

Breadcrumb navigation is faultless on the 200 though, it just works.

Are these sale items normally available first thing in the morning or just at some point in the day? Pass one on the way to work and would stop off if available (not that they have anywhere to lock my bike mind, sidepoint).

More info on Aldi offer here: http://road.cc/content/news/163325-aldi-offers-low-price-winter-clothing-and-large-range-accessories

@Stato

First thing. There may be queues.

I had a 200, the breadcrumb trail works a treat.
I have a 500, the breadcrumb trail is useless and now they have stopped supporting it altogether.

Breadcrumb navigation is faultless on the 200 though, it just works.

Hm.

I had a 200 (now upgraded to an 800) and whilst breadcrumb navigation worked, I found it had two faults: Firstly, the auto-zoom meant you couldn't see any detail when stopped and had minimal forward visibility when moving; and secondly it didn't support course points, so you couldn't get it to pop up a little message.

As far as I was aware, the 500 supported course points so that was the second issue fixed; not sure about the first.

I'm curious to know: What makes breadcrumb navigation on the 500 worse than on the 200? I was under the impression it would be better…

I've had a 500 for three years and it's great... except that uploading courses is a nightmare. Such that I have given up unless I absolutely must. Uploading involves resetting the device (at which point you lose all your settings and data) and then trying to upload. But even then it is sensitive to the type of file you upload and what you've used to create the course.
I've tried a million things including firmware updates, other updates, contacting Garmin, etc.
Garmin have been exceptional in wrapping up the market despite having dodgy software.

I found the breadcrumbs navigation painful UNTIL I started plotting my routes using "RideWithGPS" which adds street names and landmarks to the navigation.
By default you could just see that there was a turning coming up but when there were multiple turns in a similar place it was near impossible to choose the right one.

Other mapping tools might do this too, but I found it infinitely more useful after using RwGPS:) </advert>

I've been really pleased with my 500, I've not been convinced that the replacements have anything I desperately need over and above what it offers...

@brakes, there must be something wrong with your 500. Attach it to computer, drop a .tcx file into the New Files folder, detach from computer and navigate to routes. No resets required. That said, when I used it to navigate from Warwick to Abersoch on a ride with my daughter, her 200 was rather more accurate than my 500.

They have probably all gone now, but bump.

Yep, only 4 at my local store (Deepdale, Preston)... Managed to get one for the missus...

Not worth an upgrade from a 305 then by the sound of it.

Picked up one earlier - thanks for the PSA

My local store had about 10 when I bought mine at 0900