As per the heading please: Is there any noticeable difference between the Garmin 800 and 820 ??.
I have the 800 and am thinking of treating myself under a deal to the 820. I only use it for road cycling, I don’t ‘do’ Strava and I don’t use a heart monitor, etc.
I do have maps loaded onto the 800 and I do download sportive routes and plot my own via Garmin Connect and/or MapMyRide.
I think the 820 will allow more route markings to be recorded (less opportunity to go off course) – but anything else ?. Any horror stories re: reliability, battery life, etc, etc.
Thanks all.

I think 810 and 820 have Wifi, where 800 doesn’t

I have an 800 and replaced it (mistakenly thought I;d lost it) earlier this year with an 820.
The 820 is smaller, the navigation is better, although it has some quirky “Garmin interface” issues like very Garmin product, the battery life is about 50% greater and it takes a micro USB connector rather than a chunky old one.
In September I used it to navigate a near 600km route in Tuscany and it was fine.

50% increase in battery life interests me. My rule of thumb for the 800 was/is 9 hours on the map screen and 11 hours on the data screen; what are you getting?

Like my 820. Mapping is good. Display is good, I can have quite a bit of data on there and it’s all easy to read. The touch screen is ok (though water pooling on it does make it go a bit crazy, and it’s a bit hit and miss with thick winter gloves.) It would be nice to have another couple of buttons to use with the ability to turn off the touch screen (I think maybe it can be locked.)

Connected stuff with the phone is good. Automatically uploads rides (can’t remember if the 800 did that, I think the 810 did.) Connectivity from phone is good too with it displaying incoming messages and calls. It’ll also upgrade itself and connected devices via Wi-Fi, which is nice.

Prefer the way it manages devices, it’s just a long list now and it connects to what it can.

Battery life is ok for me.

When I do use the nav stuff I like the garmin remote too. On a road bike I can switch between screens on the drops if I need to check the map. But then I think that works with the 800.

Software seems ok to me. Most regular annoying “feature” is it bouncing the ANT+ stack and everything having to reconnect (and invariably one of my ant+ things don’t.) Most rides it won’t do it at all, but occasionally it’ll do it a few times in a ride.

Re the mapping. I don’t use it that much. Usually on holiday where I’ll quickly knock up a route on garmin connect on an iPad. Then transfer it to the 820 via my phone. Sounds fiddly but isn’t. Even the garmin connect website isn’t that bad these days.

50% increase in battery life interests me. My rule of thumb for the 800 was/is 9 hours on the map screen and 11 hours on the data screen; what are you getting?

Hmm I probably get less than this from the 820. Ride about 12 hrs a week and need to charge at least once a week. But then I do have it permanently connected to my phone during rides for notifications. And I run about 6 different ANT+ devices so it’s doing a lot of comms. Disable the bluetooth notifications and it’ll run a lot longer.

I got about 12/13 using mapping before it started to complain – it had gone dark for the last 2 hours so was lighting up at junctions. Italian video guys couldn’t start the drone up so we had to wait around for 45 minutes so only just made our stop 25km outside of Florence… 😉

Thanks all. Think there’s sufficient difference for me to justify a new purchase (he said practising his rationale to Mrs jiff when she sees the bank statement……

Had 800/810 & now 820. The main advantage I can see over the others is live Strava (which you don’t use) Bluetooth & WiFi connect & maps already installed & IQ apps which are a decent novelty but Touch screen is lousy & battery life is shocking never had longer than 4 hours on maps without it wanting to go into battery save mode.

I prefer the 800 to the 810 and 820.
The 820 has to get a special mention for its spectacularly useless rain operated touch screen.

Thought I’d revive this thread as I have lost my very reliable years old 800 today. Seem to hear some mixed reviews of the 820.