looking for a gps. never had one, and i am a bit of a numpty where tech is concerned.

what is good?

In the spirit of “I’ll recommend what I have….”

I have an Edge 1000 and it’s truly excellent in almost every way. Apart from, potentially in your case, battery life. More than enough for half day rides as I’ve found so far, but I suspect it might struggle with a big tour without a recharging facility on board. Will have to try it on a bigger ride sometime! Eeek!

However, in the plus side of the ledger;

Stunning screen, really easy to read and use in pretty much any weather.
Touch controls works brilliantly with almost any gloves I’ve tried so far
Easy to set up your own chosen profiles (What’s on which page, etc)
Fast. Really fast. Picks up satellites very quickly and rarely loses them and/or suffers speed changes as a result.

Edge 810 works for me. Not as fancy as the 1000 (eg b&w screen) but battery life is pretty good. Also cheaper.

There’s loads of good stuff, but good at different things. What is your intended use? Training? Touring? Day rides, multi day rides? Recording routes or displaying maps? How big a screen do you want?

to be used for a mix of touring and day rides.
doing a 6 day version of the trans cambrian in september, so something i can load a route onto.

big screen is good.

Size matters! 😀

From a very good in depth test of the Edge 1000 here –
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/06/garmin-1000-depth-review.html

I have the 800 (I thought the 810 had a colour screen) which I would recommend. But if you only want it for gps and nothing else the etrex range is also well liked and with the newer models just announced the older ones may get a bit cheaper. Also garmin do the touring range which is like the 800 but without the cadence power etc bits.

TBH I could have done with only the gps but I like knowing my cadence so plumped that instead.

6 days? Garmin Dakota 20, takes AAs, can add and follow routes on os maps, can just have a dashboard of data and it can connect to hrm & cadence if necessary.

Or an Oregon if you want a bigger screen

Etrex series?

I have an Etrex 20. Takes 2 AAA batteries, uses OpenSource free maps. Doesn’t do HRM or cadence.

About £100

Etrex 20 or 30 for multi-day stuff (20 is the best value really). Some decent AA batteries will last 25 hours. Or the Dakota like Johnny mentioned is similar.

There’s the Touring, but I don’t know a lot about it, and I’m sure I’ve heard some negative reviews. It might fit the bill perfectly though.

The Garmin Edge series are more training focused with endless functions you probably don’t want or need. And the inbuilt battery makes them less practical for touring. I do like my 500 for day to day riding though. Despite the initial learning curve, once you get it set up properly it’s extremely simple to use. The Etrex is more basic but you have to take care to reset everything before you set off on your ride and it save it at the end.

Hey Ton,you are more than welcome to borrow my Garmin 800 for nowt for your trip. Software is free, but with the unit plugged in via USB you will have access to the full 1:50000 GB mapping so you can plan road by road and then upload to the unit.

Conrad, i might take you up on that mate, that way you can show me how to use it……. 😀