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Garmin or can I get away with the iPhone?

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  • March 20, 2013 at 10:01 pm #18274
    snappyandrew

    Hi there
    Just joined the forum so excuse any protocol muck ups.
    I have an Iphone but am thinking of getting a Garmin so that I can get a SatNav and GPX compatibility. I want this to go on long journeys and not be constantly stopping. There’s also the battery life thing.
    I’d be really interested to see if anyone has any views
    Cheers
    Andrew

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  • March 21, 2013 at 11:00 am #723421
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    KirinChris

    Haven’t fully checked it out
    Haven’t fully checked it out yet but the Wahoo stuff looks very interesting to me.

    Essentially replacing the Garmin unit with your phone to pick up cadence, speed and HR, plus you get the mapping ability.

    And they make a mounting unit which contains an additional power source to extend life.

    I haven’t really made a full comparison in price, weight and functionality but I think it’s the way things will go.

    The new Garmins are a bit disappointing. The don’t really seem to move the game along very much and I think they will potentially be overtaken by smarter apps on smarter phones.

    March 21, 2013 at 9:28 am #723419
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    notfastenough

    Welcome to the forum. Just
    Welcome to the forum. Just don’t mention helmets or hi-vis and you’ll be fine! 😀

    Depends what you want when you refer to navigation capabilities. I couldn’t justify a Garmin 500/800, and got the 200 instead. I hadn’t realised how good the ‘Courses’ feature is.

    You create the route on garmin connect (or just find one on mapmyride or something) then send to the device. I thought that since the 200 doesn’t have street-level satnav it would just show each waypoint marker (i.e. 500m that way), but instead the screen shows an accurate representation of the road ahead with the bends etc. There were a few times when I thought “that can’t be right, this road is a dead-end”, only to find that no, if you’re on a bike or walking, the thing was spot-on every time.

    It’s really easy if you’re using pre-created courses as well, just connect it to the PC, browse to it same way you would any other USB drive, then drop the gpx file into the ‘newfiles’ folder. Done.

    If you go off-course, it alerts you, then shows an arrow pointing you back on course. It doesn’t matter if you skip a bit, it doesn’t insist that you start back exactly where you deviated.

    The only inaccuracy was that the little line showing the road went the wrong way round roundabouts, presumably due to it’s US origins.

    It also runs for longer than an iphone (think I could probably get 8-10 hours), is smaller and looks less obtrusive mounted on the bike. Plus obviously you get all the usual computer functions, it’s waterproof without a bulky plastic case, and you can press the buttons with gloves on.

    Constraints:
    You can’t change the course once it’s on the device.
    The device has no awareness of anything off your course (side roads, diversions etc) or satnav-y things like points of interest, traffic conditions, roadworks etc.

    If, on the other hand, you want turn-by-turn satnav, then unless you’ve really got the cash (and indeed the enthusiasm to know that you’ll still be using it in say 2 years time), I’d probably settle for the phone for now.

    March 21, 2013 at 8:07 am #723417
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    andycoventry

    I use my Iphone and
    I use my Iphone and cyclemeter app with a heart rate monitor, it supports import and export to GPX to upload to strava if you wished.:D

    Personally I do not need navigation, half the fun of being out by myself is getting lost / finding new routes and dont need navigation for the club run.

    I suppose its down to preference, I looked at it last year and personally felt the price difference between a cheap app and a Garmin wasn’t worth it for the added functionality you get.

    Battery life on the iphone is the only downside – for longer rides I use a extended battery pack I got for £20 off amazon and this is more than enough for6 hours in the saddle.

    March 20, 2013 at 11:16 pm #723415
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    cidermart

    GPS unit because it is
    GPS unit because it is purpose built.

    March 20, 2013 at 10:59 pm #723413
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    amc654

    Also worth considering the
    Also worth considering the Bryton options. I love my 40T, and I got it for the price of a Garmin 200 with Garmin 500 capabilities. And I even got a HR monitor for free. 🙂

    March 20, 2013 at 10:32 pm #723411
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    dave atkinson

    personally i prefer a garmin
    personally i prefer a garmin as it’s designed to do specifically that job and i find that it does it better than a phone. but there’s plenty of people on here that are more than happy using a phone for navigation, and there are plenty of ways to extend battery life. i did a ride a couple of years back where i was running a garmin (for routefinding) *and* a phone (for live tracking) and I had a big portable battery pack (5000mAh) that kept them both going for the whole of a 16-hour ride.

    March 20, 2013 at 10:10 pm #723409
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    getoutofmyway

    Garmin, battery life,
    Garmin, battery life, waterproof, specific purpose made.I would never go out without it. I have a Garmin Edge 705 and swear by it. Got second hand on ebay with heart monitor and cadence. I think its why I got addicted to cycling!!

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