New Garmin bike computers

If you are buying it to follow routes, rather than as a performance capturing device, I would try and borrow a device or two from a mate, ready configured for using.

I've been a long term Garmin user - my first Garmin with a bike mount was a Garmin eTrex Legend which I thought was brilliant for navigation and they haven't been as good since they dropped using waymarks and on device recalculation rather than the current many breadcrumb approach.

I was happy with Garmin 800 navigation once I'd defeated the quirks and used one for about 8 years, but the new 530/830 has a couple of irritating problems. Mainly it is to do with the advanced warning hint, where it will signal that the next turning is left in x miles. However, that left turn may be after some straight on crossroads. I had an example where it was saying left turn as I arrived at a minor road crossing a major road - and only checking did I realise it was saying 2.1 miles not feet. It also always insists that a right turn at a roundabout needs to be signalled left as that is the way you go round. (Edit: actually it is worse than that, I've had it showing a right turn when I know the next turn is to the left. Not sure whether it is because it thought a shallow left was straight on so unworthy of note or some other peculiarity, or mapping error possibly if a road is mapped continuously on OSM Garmin will not necessarily generate directions, so if a road is mapped following a turn and the straight on is joined onto the road, it may give confusing results).

While it does have pop ups for a zoomed in view, the arrow is confusing and distracting and not what you need when leading a group ride where you need to position the group well ahead of a turn or roundabout.

There are also lots of options you need to turn off to get the thing usuable - like heat maps might be a nice feature but when it appears in a similar colour to the track you are trying to follow... turn that off. ClimpPro takes up about 25% of the map space if you want a couple of data fields (again for ride leading I show speed and average lap speed to allow me to check the ride pace is in the right ball park) and it is entirely unclear what this pointless green strip at the bottom is for (I am not riding in the Alps or Snowdonia so it rarely shows anything else).

I was quite impressed with an early B&W Wahoo but that was a while ago and I don't know what quirks they have now.

I haven't yet tried any on the fly re-routing on the 830 - the 800 only could contemplate the end of the ride as a point to recalculate to - not a good thing 3 miles into a 100 mile circular route.

Have been quite impressed with the ease of loading rides and stats to and from the 830 - I just get the route into Connect and send it, then switch on the 830 when I ride and the route magically appears - not sure whether it uses BT or WiFi, same, stop recording on the 830 at the garage door and the ride is bleeping from Strava in no time without any intervention.

I think the last refresh suffered bugs for a while, something that generally happens with tech as they rush to market to maximise profit. It was why I stuck with my 820 for so long, I only updated the last month as I wanted to use the navigation more and the 820 is slooooooow for that. Basically if a new one came out now, I would want to wait at least six months for a couple of firmware updates before even contemplating buying one and didn't hesitate to go for the 830 now in the knowledge it may be replaced this year.

It's like any piece of computing equipment: buy the thing you want/need now, now.

Yeah the 530's been around for a while, but it's unlikely a new version at that level in Garmin's range will incorporate game-changing upgrades. The 1030 Plus was very much an incremental improvement over the 1030.

And given that you can get it for £200 from Decathlon,  the 530 currently looks like really good value.