Looking to treat myself, just not sure what's the difference between these, anyone using them,Cheers Saleem.

I've got a garmin edge 305. What are you planning on doing with it? Are you a racer?

colleague at work got a Garmin Forerunner 405 for £199 from amazon.. inc heartrate strap

£70 less than wiggle and isn ANT+ compatible

looks good and useful for cycling as well as running etc

I think the 500 can't follow uploaded gps routes, i could be wrong.

It looks as if from the Garmin website that they have stopped making the Edge 305 and the replacement are the 500, 605 or 705.

reading through the spiel it appears that the 500 is just an updated 305.

The 500 can't do mapping or routes, you can follow an uploaded course, but that's all. It's got ANT+, so you can use it with PowerTaps and what not.

Essentially the 305 is better for navigation, the 500 is a more advanced computer.

The 500 seems to have less navigation abilities.

I believe with the 500 you can still upload a track and do the rudimentary "keep yourself on the dotted-line thing". But I don't think you can upload a route consisting of a series of waypoints and get it to guide you along it as you can with a 205/305. The fact that the specs on the Garmin site say under "Maps and Memory"; Waypoints = 0 and Routes = 0 would support my belief I reckon.

(See this thread for my description of what I mean by following a route on a 205/305; http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/gps-reviews-have-any-of-the-magazines-done-one
)

EDIT; Too slow! What he said.

Essentially the 305 is better for navigation

If you've never used one before, careful what you say.

The 305 is useless for navigation. Its a training aid only. Do not buy it if you want to follow routes with it. You're much better off with a map, or following the stars, or just guessing.

If you're a racer, and you want to get really fit, it has great cadence and heartrate functions, and is really good for training.

+1 with all what RM says

RealMan – Member
The 305 is useless for navigation. Its a training aid only. Do not buy it if you want to follow routes with it. You're much better off with a map, or following the stars, or just guessing

I just don't get this at all!

With my 305 I plan a route, upload it to the unit and then it beeps at me every time I approach a waypoint and shows me which way to go. How is this useless?

With my 305 I plan a route, upload it to the unit and then it beeps at me every time I approach a waypoint and shows me which way to go. How is this useless?

+1

You can't do that with the 500, that really is just a training aid.

ive got a 705 and thats rubbish at nav so i dread to think what the others must be like. i keep feeling like throwing mine in the bin after everytime i try to use it ;-(

With my 305 I plan a route, upload it to the unit and then it beeps at me every time I approach a waypoint and shows me which way to go. How is this useless?

Well it only has the memory for 100 waypoints, so its useless for a road ride of over about 30 to 40 miles, and useless for off road of over 25-30 miles, depending on the number of junctions obviously.

And if you use a proper navigational based GPS, you really realise how useless it is. It isn't designed for navigation. Its awful if you get lost as well.

But the point is that it has memory for 100 waypoints, which is 100 more than an Edge 500!

At the end of the day, none of the Edge range were designed with navigation as their primary function, they're all very good computers, which have varying degrees of navigational performance. I must say that the navigation on my 705 with City Navigator is fine, only used it a couple of times, but it's just like using a sat nav.

I need something for gps as I'm going to France in September and didn't want to get lost, nice area that I'm going but still would like to get home to my bed at night.

I'm to fat to race so that rules out the racer questions, but I do like a spin on the t-trainer at 2am as I don't sleep much.

what would be better for my needs as both seem fine but are unable to live up to my needs.

firestarter: throw it my way then.

Cheers

I have a 500. You can plot out a course and follow it and if you go off it beeps to warn you. I've used it to follow routes without any problems and it's obvious where you are heading. 100 points isn't enough for a road ride so (I think) you end up doing the same thing with courses on the 305. You can link the 500 to powermeters and it's the later product and nice and small and neat.
If you are not interested in heart rate and the like then consider a 605 which would be the best for navigation (out of the edge range) for the price. Or even consider a 205 as a nice cheap option if you can find one.

I am after a GPS. I have the gramin etrex. Was thinking of 550t
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=26876#specsTab
Says 10,000 points and 200 saved points.

I want to store a whole weeks of riding on the GPS and get it to help navigate me around Italy – Tuscany. I like the idea of using the camera to geo tag my pics so U can up load to FB etc. Would good for passing MTB trails to. Its the map and navigation I want. Anyone got a recommendation? I have maps and can map read but want to treat myself to the ease of in bike sat nav LOL 🙂

I like the 550t because it has a larger viewing area. I note the edge. Topo maps also preloaded so saves a huge amount and I see the price £317 looks good or 375 including all the UK national parks. Handy.

Can anyone comment on the download software. I see it links with google and you save and plan your trips before you leave then upload to GPS. Then you can down load with geo tagged picture – looks good I have seen this online. Feature I want.

I got a 500 today because a couple of friends have the 705 and it's just too cumbersome for my needs. I want it mainly for training / geek reasons and 95% of road rise are from my front door so I can't get that lost and have google maps on the phone.
Having said that I've just plotted a route on Bike Route Toaster and uploaded to the 500, I'll see how it get on following the 'breadcrumbs' tomorrow.

I managed to get lost over the wyre forest on my second ever ride over there, it was as dark as a dark thing, myself and the other lost rider i was with was on his first night ride over there and also didn't have a clue where we were! All i can say is than god I had my 305, followed the route we had already done straight back to the car!
Not sure if i'd be prepared to follow the black squigly line on a day out ride though, really only use mine to upload the route on MM to see where i've been!

Is topographic worth having? I like the idea of the 3d view for planning etc.with the 3d.

Edge 500 automatically zooms the trail size depending on speed and direction changes. Very useful when on a new to you course.

What GPS units actually allow me to see a map?

There is a LOT of misinformation in the posts up there. Here are some facts which might be useful….

Courses.. courses.. courses..

All of the edge units support courses, including the 500. A course is exactly the same as a track but with timing information for the virtual partner. Courses can contain thousands of points, you will not hit any real limits. Waypoint counts on the Edge units are largely irrelevant as they are not used specifically within courses.

Navigation…

So long as you are using courses then there's no real problem, you just follow the breadcrumb trail. The 205,305 and 500 don't have any background maps, the 605/705 do. Getting these units to report grid references is not easy, they are not designed for orienteering style nav.

PC comms …
Careful here. The Edge 500 uses a newish file format called .fit. I can only speak for TrackLogs here, we're adding this format right now and internally its all working fine. The Edge 305 is a technology cul-de-sac. Garmin moved to the training type device protocols but over USB serial then quickly abandoned in favour of memory stick type device interfaces. This leaves the 305 out on it's own (OK, with the 205 and a couple of forerunners). It'll be the first device against the wall come the protocol revolution. Edge 605/705 are a much better future proof solution.

So what's the bottom line… horses for courses but my preferences would be:

tiny unit for following breadcrumb trails with no maps: Geko 201

mountain biking with basemaps: Edge 605/705

walking: Oregon

road biking: Edge 500

I did my first road ride with the 500 today; it was suprising good for navigating. On road the breadline is easy to follow and it warns you of upcoming turns (which may be sharp bends in the road rather than turn offs). I did go off track twice but it auto zooms so it's easy to get back of track again. If you have a phone with Google maps as a backup I reckon it would easily do for navigating and is much quicker than looking at a map at every juction.
To do it I plotted the route on Bike Route Toaster and uploaded it as a Workout course. The only issue I had is that once the workout mode was activate the 500 shuts down after you press through all the screens. It's a pain and I hope it's a glitch.
So overall not that bad for navigating considering it is meant to be a training only device.

Thanks for info digimapper.

Edge 500 loads road cycling stuff but that's not needed. Small screen.

I want basic reliable easy navigation only with colour maps on big screen for an old guy with bad eyes LOL Ok Ill get an OS map LOL

Cheers drive you using edge or orgeon?

Cheers drive you using edge or orgeon?
Edge

cheers_drive – make sure you update your edge 500 firmware to the latest version. There's always a lag between the version online and the version manufactured into the units, especially with the newer models, and there are issues with the course handling in the as-shipped firmware. The firmware update resolved those for me but don't forget to backup your saved files if you want to keep them.

I've recently bought a Garmin 705 and it seems to be pretty good. I can plan a route on http://www.bikehike.co.uk/ or http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/ and download it to the device and then follow it. My understanding is that all GPSs are able to do that.

What makes the 705/605 more useful is the ability to see a map at the same time. Which means you less likely to lose the trail. Admittedly you won't go far wrong without mapping, but its really nice to be able to see on the GPS that you're coming up to a junction and know which road/track to take beforehand.

The caveat to this is that you need to get the maps. I know the Garmin ones are quite expensive, but I've been using open street map from http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm and http://openmtbmap.org/ for off road, which are both free and very good.

In addition to this the 705/605 allow you to enter an address and the device will work like a car sat nav. However I haven't tried this yet and I don't know how well it works.

Cheers

Matt

This was a useful site to see the features of 605/705.

http://www8.garmin.com/uk/edge/

Think 605 may well meet my needs.

Also very useful site full details 605:

http://tramsoftgmbh.ch/gps/garmin_edge605_en.html

Gone for a oregon 450 + 50K OS discovery mapping + bike mount + case

Results
My search initially focused on the hardware but I soon realized it was the mapping that was the really important part. Oregon also supports all the sport add ons.

450 is exactly the same as 550 without the camera. Dont get taken in by topo maps. A quick search of the forms showed how really bad they are. Invest in OS maps and the online free ones.