[Closed] Garmin Edge 200 : What are they like?

I've got one for my roadie and I like it: It's pretty basic, with no HRM or cadence option, but if all you want to do is use it as a GPS bike computer, rather than a training or navigation aid, then it is great.

The Garmin Connect website is pretty good for uploading your ride info and checking out the route and ride data.

really good, does exactly what it says on the tin.
the 500 might be more suitable for roadie duties because of cadence and heart rate, but the 200 is spot on for MTB

great for tracking rides and viewing on Garmin Connect, as above, not much use to navigate with though.

Great for road, less great for mtb. You can't set the log rate and the garmin algorithm looses a fair bit of detail on fast twisty covered stuff.

Lol, mixed advice there 🙂

Good for road, if you are not into training data, I've done mtb rides with mine OK, would take map backup anyway in anywhere remote.

The limitations for me are that I've decided to road race this year so wish I had the option to append cadence / wheel speed and HRM

Agree with daveh, great for basic road use and logging commute miles, MTB use suffers because of the low sample rate. Massively obvious when you check your route afterwards on Strava, etc.

Agree with daveh, great for basic road use and logging commute miles, MTB use suffers because of the low sample rate. Massively obvious when you check your route afterwards on Strava, etc.

That sounds about right: When I started trail running I used my 200 to record distances but found it pretty inaccurate so ended up buying a Forerunner 210 for that, keeping my 200 for road duties, for which it seems pretty accurate.

Only had mine a couple of days, but very pleased with it so far - and compared to my crappy mobile phone GPS, it's amazing! I got mine from Halfords where they were reduced to £90 online (reserve and collect). Top CashBack and British Cycling discount got it down to under £80 which was nice. I do have a Halfords code if you go down that route.

With the 510 & 810 coming out the 500's should be hitting some sort of discount period (so I heard)

Great as a replacement cycle computer (i.e. speed/distance etc) with the added bonus of being able to see where you've been.
I also use mine for running and it seems fine for that as well (although I'm not addicted to Strava).
As others have pointed out, it doesn't have more advanced functions such as cadence/HR. Do you need them though? If you do, spend more money... 🙂

This have thrown a spanner in the works. I would be using it mainly on a MTB. Surely sign loss cant be worst than my Android phone and endomondo/Strava ?

Ok but I sold mine and went back to logging rides with my phone as I couldn't be bothered plugging it in to upload routes.

Gonetothehills - interested in the codes can you mail me details please.

Might have to sell my two Cateye Strada wireless models and get one

Bit confused about this bit:

Agree with daveh, great for basic road use and logging commute miles, MTB use suffers because of the low sample rate. Massively obvious when you check your route afterwards on Strava, etc.

I can't see any spec difference (in terms of sensitivity) than the 500 having a barometric alimeter over the 200. Would that make a big difference to how accurately it logs off road riding?

[url= https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?cID=141&compareProduct=36728&compareProduct=90675 ]Garmin website - compare 200 and 500[/url]

Zooming in on my road routes, there are slight jumps when you view the recorded route completely zoomed in. How / why would that accuracy differ off road? It's not using Google maps to constrain you to the road?

I got the edge 500 bundle with HRM & Cadence for the missus, great setup logs really well.
Was on special, as above they should also be coming down a bit. The Cadence and HRM also mean you can run indoor training logging which is going well now I'm injured.

The follow route thing is also meant to be good but not really sorted that out yet.

keep an eye out for bargains

Pleased with mine, seems up to what I need it for (simply logging distance and routes off road). Not massively accurate according to some people who know more than me, but then I could never get too excited about a regular bike computer that always needed re-calibrating for different tyre sizes.

I find Strava and Garmin website ok for logging rides and also useful to try and identify routes you may not know about yourself.

Would love a mapping model, but price is an issue.

simonr2011 - ygm 😉

On the accuracy thing - the two rides I've done this weekend I ran mine with the existing computers still attached and really didn't have any more than 0.05 miles difference over 20 or so miles. Speeds seemed pretty similar too.

I can't see any spec difference (in terms of sensitivity) than the 500 having a barometric alimeter over the 200. Would that make a big difference to how accurately it logs off road riding?

zilog6128 - Still unsure of where it states the spec difference? I change direction a lot on the road bike, and ride some dead straight tracks on the mountain bike, but as far as I can tell from the Garmin website, they both use the same receiver:

Edge 200 features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver with HotFix® satellite prediction to calculate your position faster.

Edge 500 features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver with HotFix® satellite prediction to calculate your position faster.

My phone recorded data whenever it wanted 🙂 - certainly not as good as at 1s intervals! The difference in the resulting route record between the 200 and my mobile is lightyears. I'm genuinely interested to see if the Garmin receiver records at a different rate - just can't see for looking on their website! It's been a long day though...

I thought you could set recording interval but I might be making that up!!

Really happy with mine. Occasionally has a fit and straight lines some routes but not that often. Perfectly good for navigation. Use OS getamap to draw a gpx route and away you go. Could argue the basic screen is better for nav at speed than trying to make out a detailed map at a glance. I'd never go out without "proper maps" even if I did have the colour mapping 800. Battery life is excellent, but then compared to how quick an iPhone kills batteries it couldn't fail to be. It's also so much more useful on the stem than a phone.

Thanks mikewsmith - think I've found something:

[url= https://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId={4481c050-6aaf-11e0-ed7a-000000000000} ]'Every second' v 'smart recording'[/url]

So it looks like the 200 (presuming it can't be altered) records key points where pace / direction / elevation change as opposed to the option to record points every second. I don't know that's going to make any more difference whether you're riding on or off road, unless I'm missing something very obvious?

As I say - and back to the OP - it's vastly more accurate than my phone's inbuilt GPS recording capability, so well worth the investment so far for me - plus it's doubling up as a computer and not draining the phone battery which was always a major concern for me.

zilog6128 - Still unsure of where it states the spec difference? I change direction a lot on the road bike, and ride some dead straight tracks on the mountain bike, but as far as I can tell from the Garmin website, they both use the same receiver:

My phone recorded data whenever it wanted - certainly not as good as at 1s intervals!

I thought you could set recording interval but I might be making that up!!

I like the little unit. I basically say its like a Cateye Strada with GPS function. It's a basic bit of kit but if you want it to tell you how fast your going, measure distance etc and give you the ability to track your performances on the likes of strada, Garmin connect etc then its a good bit of kit. I you want hrm and cadence then its obviously not for you but as you've been looking at it I would presume these may not be of interest. The mapping function is great although basic. I mainly use it on the road where I don't like stopping to look at maps. Use Garmin Connect to create a route which will tell you the ride distance and ride time based on your average speed (input yourself) and then follow the route. It takes a little bit of getting used to and requires some common sense approaches but for £100 its great. Alternatively you could look at the Bryton alternative which comes with HRM for a few pounds more. Garmin just seemed sleeker to me

I am swaying towards the 500 as the 1 sec interval setting , altimeter and temperature feature will come in handy.....now to find a bargain

..........and then Taff mentions Bryton 😯

Thanks zilog - it's all making more sense now. I don't have an iPhone and the lads I ride with who have them certainly got better recording than my android unit.