I’m interested to hear your experiences of using Garmin 205 and 605 (and 305/705 but I’m not really interested in HR monitoring – been there, done that and can tell what’s happening without a monitor now).

Things like ease of navigating, battery life, robustness, ability to upload base maps and so on are all of particular interest. Also direct comparisons to the Etrex models for navigation (since the screen’s smaller)

Thanks

205: maps=none battery=8h max IME 🙁
the 205 can only give lat/long, not grid ref 🙁
It’s fine for recording routes and subsequently following them
I broke the bracket on 3rd ride with it

305: Not really a navigation device. No mapping. Battery life > 1 days riding. Not broken yet. Good training aid with cadence/HR monitors, “Virtual Partner” gives you someone to race against (yourself).

Edge 305 good for riding things like la Marmotte as you can set it up to show heart rate + gradient + height. Not so good for routes.

I have a 305 and use it with Memory Map for navigating.

It’s easy to use and just points you to the next way point and lets you know when you’re approaching a turning point.

It picks up a GPS signal quicker than my Tom Tom and the battery life is at least 7 hours, I’ve never used it for longer though without recharging it, which only takes a few hours through the PC or supplied 240v charger, you can also charge through a car’s 12v socket if you have the right lead.

You can choose what data to display on the two ‘cycle computer’ screens and there’s loads to choose from.

It seems very robust, I’ve had mine for 2 years and it’s been very wet a lot of times and often gets washed with my bike. (I did protect the screen with clear vinyl though). The mounting bracket did break, but as you get two in the box, this wasn’t an issue and to be honest I think I was partially to blame.

However, It can only hold 500 way points and each route can only be 100 points long, which means longer rides have to be broken down into sections, or simplified on the PC.

The altitude reading is via Barometric pressure sensor rather than GPS but seems accurate to within 10m or so, you can do circular rides that show more up than down or vice versa though. But download your ride when you’ve finished, Memory Map never lies!

They occasionally come up at PC World and Halfords for £50 or less, if you can get one at this price you’ll not be disapointed.

705.

Battery good for 2 full days riding (8 ish hours) with a bit to spare.

I have garmin city navigator europe nt on mine. Works well for on the roads. No official topo maps for where I am (some available here http://www.smc.org.uk/ContourMaps.htm, but yet to try) so don’t know what its like with them. Used it for satnav in car also (just no fancy 3D display).

Courses can be loaded on and they are easy to follow, on or off road.

705 has HR/cadence, which you’re not interested in, so 605 might be fine. But 605 does not have barometric altimeter (iirc) so altitude measurements can be a bit dodgy based on gps alone. But motionbase has “MB Gravity” that seems to work well, if you can wait for the info to be downloaded. Used this just recently when elevation didn’t work on my 705 (still to investigate why it didn’t work ❓ ). 705 now calibrates altitude via GPS on start up (was on a software update), but this can take a few minutes to acheive. On returning from Alps, before update, it thought it was at 1000m+ all the time!

Ive had 2 305’s & they have both been excellent up to a point..After a while they develop the annoying habit of turning themselves off mid-ride. I believe its due to a loose connection with the battery..As far as I know Im not the only one who has had this problem. Personally I wldnt buy one again. Try a Suunto T6 with a GPS pod perhaps?