Confused old Hector

[BobScarle]

I have had a 500 for nearly four years now and not had any problems with it at all. I have now started to ride longer and in places that I don't know. I can follow a route sheet, but as the rides lengthen so will the time spent in the dark. A head torch, maybe, but probably not.

With this in mind I bought an Edge Touring. Very disappointed with it. First 3 rides it turned off at times, froze, lost it's position on the route, and that's to say nothing of the battery life. I have now returned the unit for a refund.

The thing is all I want to do is plot a route on my PC, load it onto the GPS and ride. I want it to give me turn by turn instructions and I want it to record the actual route I took. That is all I need it to do. The touring was perfect. Well, except it wasn't because of the above.

Now I am really confused. The Touring sounded perfect and if I could pair it with an external battery, even better. I want to buy another unit, I have already bought an Anker battery. Question is what do I buy? An 810, a 1000, or maybe an Etrex, or maybe some paper maps. I know the 810 and 1000 will be far more than I need but if they work well they will also replace the 500. The Etrex I could use in addition to the 500.

Whatever I buy do I need to use a charge only lead, or can I use the standard data cable as supplied?

Bob

[Kim]

Sounds like a job for an eTrex, which neatly avoids charging faff.

[yoav]

I have an 810. Probably more than I need too but when I started doing longer rides, I put a battery pack in the handlebar bag and connected it to the 810 via cable. Works fine, no problem. Even on the recent Machester-Morecambe night ride, I had the backlight on constantly and the external battery only went down a tad*.

* tad = one of the 4 indicator lights went out.

[BobScarle]

Ok. It's looking like an Etrex 30x is the favoured option. Can I ask a couple of questions about using it first, please.

I will be using it as a navigation aid so during the ride I will have some sort of map displayed. Can I have a couple of data fields displayed at the same time? With the Edge Touring I had my speed and overall distance displayed on the map screen. Can I do that on the Etrex?

I like to site at home and plan out a route. I would normally use Garmin Connect to do this. Can I still do that and use the download to device in GC? Will the Etrex talk to and sync with GC?

Are the defaults maps good enough for navigating in the UK? I am not thinking at the moment of going abroad.

Depending on the answer to the question above, do I need to buy an expansion card to provide extra memory?

Sorry if this is a load of stupid questions but any help would be gratefully received.

[Kim]

I will be using it as a navigation aid so during the ride I will have some sort of map displayed. Can I have a couple of data fields displayed at the same time?

Up to four of them.

I like to site at home and plan out a route. I would normally use Garmin Connect to do this. Can I still do that and use the download to device in GC? Will the Etrex talk to and sync with GC?

I believe so, but I've never used Garmin Connect.

Are the defaults maps good enough for navigating in the UK? I am not thinking at the moment of going abroad.

The basemap isn't much good for anything.  I don't know if they're shipping them with OSM these days?

Depending on the answer to the question above, do I need to buy an expansion card to provide extra memory?

There's 2gig of internal storage.  That's certainly enough for one map of the UK, and all the usual user data.  If you want multiple maps, or to cover wider areas, then you'll probably need the space of a MicroSD card.  You don't need a very big one, though (I've got an 8gig card in mine, with various maps on it), so it'll cost less than a fiver.

[BobScarle]

Thank you Kim for your answers, you are selling it to me. It sounds as if it is just the unit I need. I just hope that is more reliable than the Edge Touring was.

[frankly frankie]

Read a review - of the E30 not the 30x - here:
http://www.aukadia.net/gps/e30-review.pdf (pdf)

and some basic setup tips here:
http://www.aukadia.net/gps/lw3_0.htm
and here:
http://www.aukadia.net/gps/lw3_4.htm

[JonB]

I like to site at home and plan out a route. I would normally use Garmin Connect to do this. Can I still do that and use the download to device in GC? Will the Etrex talk to and sync with GC?

I believe so, but I've never used Garmin Connect.

While GC will recognise my etrex it really doesn't work very well with it (or synch), the etrex is set up to talk to Garmin Basecamp which you can download from Garmin.  This doesn't mean that you have to plan routes on Basecamp, I normally plan on Ride with GPS, import into Basecamp where I might cut it into sections, convert from track to route or other formatting then I export from Basecamp to the etrex (it sounds more of a faff than it is).  In terms of downloading a ride to GC then it's no problem just pick it up as a GPX file and GC will read it fine (as does strava). I think the newer touch screen models (E25/E35) might be GC compatible but not 100% sure, might be worth looking into if this is important to you.

[Pingu]

... I normally plan on Ride with GPS, import into Basecamp...then I export from Basecamp to the etrex...

Works for me too.

[BobScarle]

Frankie, thank you for the links. Some good reading there.

I am a little worried about buying the Touch. A number of people seem to have a problem with Garmin software being released "before it is ready". The idea of buying a fairly new product does concern me a little. That said, it is likely to be an Etrex 30 with a touch screen so similar software.

There doesn't seem to be too much faff moving files about between Basecamp and Connect. As long as I can create a course somewhere and get it onto the unit, it should be ok.

I am going to go for an Etrex, just which model. More reading.