GPS computer or smart phone

Edge touring plus – under
Edge touring plus – under £200 with openstmap for Europe and no contract and roaming fees when touring in Europe. Robust (been through the washing machine once!) I know how it works, all good. Phone as backup and for – gasp – calls and photos. Plus a battery pack for both <- good for up to 400km. Over that then dynamo to charge things up. I can see why a phone alone might suit, but for Audax rides I want toughness and redundancy.

I’ve been using both my
I’ve been using both my smartphone (Sony Xperia Z1C) and Garmin (Edge 1000) interchangeably over the past year or so. I prefer the Garmin, but if it was my own money (the Edge is a test unit) I wouldn’t be able to justify the extra outlay.

some thoughts:

1) The Garmin is better designed for the job of being mounted. If you just want to record rides and you’re not worried about routefinding/live data, there’s no contest here: just use your phone. Mounting your phone on your bars gets a lot easier if the phone is waterproof, like the Z1C is. I just use a clip-on case with a bastardised Garmin mount on the back and it fits on the XL out-front mount, the same as the Edge. I’ve never had any problems with it, but there’s always a slight niggle about the structural integrity of that solution.

2) There’s not that much in it in terms of battery life. The Edge lasts 8-10 hours, generally; obviously the screen is on the whole time. If I use the Z1C out front and have Viewranger and Strava running, turning the screen on to check the route, I get about the same. If the screen’s on full time (low brightness) then 6hrs is about the limit, still plenty for most rides. Whether you need the screen on full time depends on how you navigate. I’m still waiting for the perfect android app that’ll allow you to make a route with alarm waypoints and then just wake the phone up and give you a warning, then show you map and instructions, at every turn. Viewranger is getting there, but it’s not there yet. Anyone know one that is? On the Garmin I generally just show the route on the map and follow the line. Turn by turn directions are distracting and I’ve always found them to be a bit glitchy. In 317km of following the line yesterday, I only went wrong about 3 times and even then you know within 100m or so that you’re going the wrong way.

3) having your phone out front on a mount (garmin, quadlock) makes taking pics along the way a lot easier. As soon as you have to put it in a case (or use something fiddly like a Finn mount) you’ll likely not bother.

4) I find the Garmin’s screen copes better with the full range of riding conditions. The phone’s screen is better the brighter you go, but that impacts on battery life

Like with their running
Like with their running watches, the best cycling specific Garmins are the simplest ones. Once they try to do too much they screw it up. I was using my iPhone but couldn’t find a durable power solution so got an Edge200 and haven’t looked back. They work as they are meant to work and the breadcrumb course feature is fine (and doesn’t suffer from the “disappearing course” issue that people have with the 510). It has none of the numerous issues that everyone I know has with the pricier models.

DaveE128 wrote:These days

DaveE128 wrote:

These days some smart phones have a better battery life than Garmins. I speak from experience, when my Garmin 800 ran out of juice on a 200km ride, a

I would argue that the Garmin is bust. I did a 4 hour ride – 125K or so and still on 79% when I finished. I have an iPhone and if using it for bike purposes would that be on 79% ? Garmin 810 I have I reckon could last between 8 and 12 hours continuous use.

Sony xperia z3 compact –
Sony xperia z3 compact – battery lasts ages. Mind you all I do is put it in my pocket or seat pack to find out where I’ve been at the end of the ride. I don’t know if I’d want to risk mounting it on the bar…but certainly no problem about battery life, even without turning off mobile data.

These days some smart phones
These days some smart phones have a better battery life than Garmins. I speak from experience, when my Garmin 800 ran out of juice on a 200km ride, and the phone which I was using as backup still had tonnes of juice left. Admittedly it was a Galaxy S3 with double capacity extended battery, but the newer Galaxy S5 has much longer battery life to start with, and you can get an extended battery for that too. I don’t know if it affects the waterproofing though.

Several smart phones are now waterproof eg Galaxy S5, Sony Xperia Z3. These two both also support ANT+ which I’d strongly recommend over BTLE (which they also support) from the reliability point of view.

You can find ways to mount smartphones on the handlebars (eg quad lock), but they are never terribly neat. My main concern is whether they’ll handle the shock and vibration long term. Perhaps I’m just nervous because years ago I killed a PDA by making a handlebar mount. It couldn’t take the strain and the circuit board was damaged. (Admittedly by the GPS fitted into the CF slot in the top so maybe that’s not fair!)

I use my Garmin because the interface is useable in gloves, and because I didn’t find a satisfactory way to mount my non-waterproof phone where I could use it. Best I could find was a top-tube bag with phone window on top, but you had to look down too far.

IPbike was one of the best two android piece of software I found. It is extremely powerful and has many very clever features but it is not easy to use – you will need to spend time and effort configuring and understanding it. The developer warns users pretty much the same thing. It also isn’t terribly pretty. It does support ANT+.

Ridewithgps also has a very very good piece of software. Not quite as powerful but has some very cool features including live tracking. I think you have to pay a subscription for some of the features though. Not sure if ANT+ supported or not.

Fix accuracy from a phone with good GPS/GLONASS performance is easily on a par with most dedicated units, which are often using quite out-of-date chipsets. AGPS on phones makes for quick aquisition these days too.

These days there are functions in the Strava app that you just can get with a Garmin (eg live segments), but they don’t support ANT+ in the app yet! Grrr! (I hear they’re working on it).

I use an old sony Xperia
I use an old sony Xperia Active (£50 on ebay), Its waterproof, lasts about 6 hours in aeroplane mode with the screen on, spare batteries are £4 from ebay. I use it with an app called IPbike and use a cheap ant+ SAC sensor from Decathalon and a mio heart rate sensor from ebay (£15)

IPbike displays and records all the usual data and can upload it to strava or similar over wifi. Full maps of the UK can be downloaded for free and stored offline on the SD card.

I use strava to plan routes, download and save the GPX files to google drive which syncs to google drive on the phone. I then open the file on the phone to load the route into IPbike.

A full garmin may be better but this low cost solution suits my needs.