Most helpful customer reviews
30 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Lots of possibilities,
By Bjarne Haug - Papilios
Just got my Edge 800 a couple of weeks ago, and until now I'm pretty satisfied, all though there are some small annoying things and that's why I only rate it 3 stars, but that might not influence your product.
1. I have had 3 freezes so far and that's a little to much within the short time I've had it, so I have had to reboot it.
2. The mount is not fit for my MTB, it simply doesn't work well with the handlebar and NOT at all on the stem, so if you have a short stem, be prepared, it might not mount at all.
3. You might need to turn up for the background light to see your data while biking.
About the mount, I did have a Edge 705 the mount for that fitted fine for my MTB with short stem, so I figured this one would as well. I asked Garmin about it and the only answer they could come up with was: "You may be able to purchase larger bands for the mount"... Dah, what does that help, well I figured that's a typical Garmin answer, so what I did was to cut some rubber from a used inner tube tied it with a ziplock and put the Edge 800 mount on top of that... So now I can use it, but are not proud of my setup :-)
Coming down to the digital part, it's great, just notice that the screen is not at all crystal clear and sharp, but it's working ok, the touchscreen is easy to use and does work with biking gloves.
The setup possibilities are great, you can tune it almost 100% into the computer and info you want in front of you, and that's some great features.
I use it for intervals, and setting that up is a little time consuming, but the workout you have when you are done is perfect and 100% yours, the little "info" beep is not loud enough, so I overhear it and mess up my interval, but I guess I need to make more attention, the Edge 705 was way LOUDER.
I'll post an image of my homemade MTB mount.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Not a real GPS device
By Eric Rose
As a cycling fitness device, this is quite decent and an improvement over the previous Edge models. The ability to have a couple of screens of customisable data fields is a step up, and the move to a touch screen, which works quite well for me, allows for more screen real-estate to view things on.
That said, there are a few caveats that temper my enthusiasm. Firstly, the move to a binary and proprietary file format (FIT) is a retrograde step. The Garmin user forums for all FIT-based devices are full of issues with file corruption, and the lack of tools that Garmin provide for this format mean that data loss can be a real possibility. At least with the (XML-based) TCX and GPX formats used on earlier devices, users and third parties could quickly manipulate the data and fix issues.
The firmware, like all early releases, has teething issues. I have experienced severe problems in a few rides where the device showed my altitude climbing from 2000m to 10000m over the course of a few kilometres while I was riding a fairly flat course. The other big issue that has the forums aflame is the fact that the on-line analysis site that Garmin use as a selling point for the device has moved from Google Maps to Bing, leading to inaccurate location information being displayed and (in the worse case) the inability of people to see where they actually rode. Don't buy this device if Garmin Connect is what attracts you to it! That said, several third-party sites now handle the basics of the FIT format and can show your data on maps that actually contain the correct features.
I also have found that the device is not a real GPS device in that POI data recorded on the device cannot be exported to anywhere for analysis. Garmin has itself acknowledged that it didn't expect customers to be interested in such a feature, so their own desktop software doesn't allow for POI information to be transferred and no third party software can yet decode the proprietary FIT data stored on the device. You'll need to carry a real GPS device with you if you want to do more than record your cycling activities.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Not really designed for mountain biking
By Assaf
I own several Garmin GPS devices, including two Nuvi, a Garmin Edge 705 and a Garmin Forerunner 410. So I was happy to purchase the new Edge 800 GPS computer for my mountain bike. After 3 rides I can definitely state that this GPS was NOT designed for a mountain bike. While it is waterproof, this GPS suffers from an extremely soft plastic touch screen which got completely scratched after 3 rides. I can now see pixel abberation due to the scratches (this is just from flying debris and perhaps dirt on my gloves/hands while manipulating the touch display) which is annoying. Note - I cross country in the bay area, so this is not a result of a downhill/freeride abuse or crash.
So:
1. This model might work for road biking - ride on clean roads and make sure to clean your hands and mitts before maniipulating the display!
2. Perhaps a screen protector might work. Don't know.
3. For mountain biking stick with a lower range Garmin like a 705 (not as scratch prone - after 2 years!).
Other than that - the GPS works as expected.
-al
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