I’ve managed to lose my trusty old Garmin Edge 800 (don’t ask) so need to sort out a replacement.

The Edge 800 has been pretty good and the only thing that bugs me is trying to use a touch screen with gloves or in crappy weather. So I’m thinking of going for something with buttons instead. The Edge 530 seems the obvious choice and some of the “new” features like Climb Pro look very interesting. I’ve always been more about the ups than the downs whether on or off road. But there seems to be a lot of love for the Wahoo too.

Use cases are Gravel bike (mainly road with some off road bits) or MTB (almost entirely off-road). I’d say that 80% of the time I’m loading a route on the device (from Komoot, Strava or some other site) and the other 20% I’m either riding a route I know well of just randomly riding around to explore an area.

So, which to go for?

I wanted to go for the Wahoo when I was buying just because my Edge 820 had been such a bad experience with poor touch screen, not the greatest battery life and a dodgy halo around the screen but…….with the Edge 530/830 Garmin really took a big leap in the right direction so I bought a 530.  The Roam appears to be a few years too late with what it offers, against the 520/820 I’d have gone for it but not the latest Garmins

Was in a similar position. Had the Bolt but am now pretty tied into the Garmin ecosystem and aso wanted better navigation so was between upgrading to the Roam or getting a 530 or 830. Not a particular fan of touchscreens anyway so ditched the idea of the 830 so Roam or 530.

In the end, given I am fully invested in Garmin anyway I went with the 530. So far pretty pleased with it. The UI is still quite clunky compared to Wahoo but it does an awful lot and you can avoid much of the inner depths of the menus once it is all setup. Maps in particular look nice and clear but won’t get to play with the navigation in full until Sunday.

All the other features work as they should and have already clocked up many hours on the turbo without a hitch. Cheaper than the Roam too so overall happy I went that route.

Thanks both. Although I’ve had Garmin GPS devices since the original Etrex I don’t tend to use Connect and just push everything to Strava then on to Veloviewer. So I’m not massively invested in the ecosystem. Although I do have Garmin mounts (K-edge) on both bikes, which annoyingly don’t work with the Wahoo. An easy fix, I know, but still annoying. Plus the various Garmin devices have never let me down so it’s tempting to just stick with what I know.

The new touchscreens (Explore, 1030, 830) are light years ahead of all the earlier ones. They work with gloves (only my winter lobster gloves struggle) and in rain. They make a world of difference.

Personally I like the Explore, but I just want maps and navigation and basic metrics, I don’t need fancy stuff. I had the 530 briefly and found the button UI was a nightmare to use: I was always pressing the wrong ones, and panning the map is barely worth attempting. And I’ve had a bunch of issues with Wahoo—haven’t tried the Roam but I don’t believe it’s much different (eg, again, browsing a map is horrible compared to the Explore—though the Roam does at least show more detail than the other models). Plenty of people like them, though: the devil’s in the detail, YMMV.

Thanks @Bez That has thrown a spanner in the works as I was pretty sure that I wanted to avoid a touchscreen this time. Mind you, I was watching a video review of the 530 and all those button pushes did remind me of the early days with the etrex and 205. Trying to navigate through all those menus with the buttons was a royal pain. Maybe I’d better take another look at the 830 before deciding. I doubt it would work with my winter gloves, but I’m not sure I could even press fiddly buttons with those on and I’ve got on just fine with the 800 really. In winter I just tend to put it on one screen and leave it there. So, as long as it works in rain and with “normal” gloves that would probably be OK.

The best thing about the Wahoo devices, no more need to wrestle with Garmin software. It doesn’t matter if they have improved I had 10 years of rubbish from them and I would never go back.

@roverpig – the buttons on the 530 are not *that* bad and once it’s set up you don’t go deep diving in the menus for stuff anyway.

Admittedly scrolling around the map is cumbersome however I can’t really see when I would want to do this much anyway. Other people may use the maps differently of course but I intend to load a route in and follow it. With Climb Pro etc you can see the hills anyway so other than that I am not sure when I would scroll the map.

I do scroll about a fair bit when I’m just out exploring as it’s fun to see where that track goes and whether I could incorporate it into my ride. It is something I tend to do more with the phone these days though. Zooming in and out is something I do all the time though and I can’t tell whether that’s just a single button push on the 530 or something that requires me to access a menu first.

I’ve heard a few people complain about the Garmin software but I can’t say that it has ever bothered me. Probably because I rarely use it 🙂 With the 800 I’d just plug it into a PC and upload my activity straight to Strava. If the 530/830 do that automatically over WiFi most of the time that’s a bonus. If it fails I can still just plug it in I guess, which doesn’t seem to be an option on the Wahoo.

Haven’t played much with the garmin, but it struck me that the on-device navigation is still better than a Wahoo.

I still prefer to do most of my navigating on my phone, so the wahoo way of doing things (all the fiddly stuff is done on the phone, but there’s less stuff you can do on they fly on the device) suits me. I’m always amazed when folk can actually navigate from a garmin screen while riding – not a skill I possess.

Use the Roam, it does the job for me, there are things i don’t like and things i like, predominantly it’s down to my lack of learning and understanding what it can do, and just using what i know and understand, it gets me around, battery works and links up well with the phone, also easy to download routes and so on wirelessly.

Had Garmins before, they worked just as well, not sure there’s really much to choose between them, they’re a bit like my laptop, it can do a million things, but i use it for the internet mainly!

I have the 530. I wish I’d bought the 830. It’s easier to stop and get my phone out if I want to look around the map than try and move the map around with the buttons.

The buttons are definitely more of a faff than the touchscreen on my 510 was.

That excepted, it’s an excellent bit of kit.

I do scroll about a fair bit when I’m just out exploring as it’s fun to see where that track goes and whether I could incorporate it into my ride.

If you buy an OS map (like the 1:25,000 of my area I bought recently) you get a code.

Download the free OS app for your phone enter code and download (ie available off line) 1:25k OS loveliness to your phone – better screen than any Garmin I think. Press a button and it centres on your current location.

I’m not paying for the OS premium app though.

Still use the Garmin for GPX routes and logging rides through to Strava, but I think a lower end Garmin not an 8 series next time.

If you get an app called “Outside” (iOS, no idea if it’s on Android) then as long as you’ve got a signal you’ve got OS maps for free.

The problem with a phone, though, is that you’ve got to fish it out of a pocket, then unlock it (not possible, or at best a faff, with most gloves); if it’s raining the touchscreen doesn’t work well… there are times when that’s all fine, but also plenty where it’s way easier to just glance at a map that’s already in front of you.

Thanks all. I’ve got the OS Maps app with a subscription as I like to use it for planning rides on the desktop (OS maps, satellite images and the funky 3D fly-through). So, I’ll pull the phone out for any extensive checking out of routes on the trail. I still pan the Garmin maps about for a quick look though.

To be honest I’ve got far too many options for mapping really. Strava, Komoot, OS maps plus free version of Trailforks. But they all have their advantages and it looks as though there are iQ apps for most of them on the Garmins too.

I specifically went for the 530 over the 830 because when you’ve got muddy, grotty hands then swiping can damage the screen if you’re not careful. It does make scrolling around the map a faff but it’s not been critical yet.

There is criticism of the Garmin’s that they’re harder to set up data views but I use mine to track useful data in the Zwift TTT and I was able to change views and data on the fly mid ride last night when I wanted to look at something else.

Just wanted to wrap this one up in case anybody is searching for info on this in future.

I decided to stick with the buttons option and went with the edge 530 over the roam. Mainly because I’d been pretty happy with 800 (until I lost it) but also because ClimbPro looked fun. I’ve only done one 50 mile ride so far, but I’m already kind of glad that I lost the 800.

I’ve read a few comments about difficulties loading courses onto Garmin devices. I’m not sure if this is just an old issue but so far it’s been totally painless. I can plot a route using Komoot or the Strava Route builder. I then just switch on the 530, it connect to my home wifi and downloads them into courses automatically. It’s hard to imagine how it could be easier really.

Just one slight niggle. When I built the route in Strava it gave an estimated time of 4 hours 18 minutes, but when I look at the course on the Garmin it say 3 hours 18 minutes. I guess that could be an issue if you want to use the virtual partner.

I had OS maps on the 800 and was concerned about “downgrading” but it’s actually easier to follow the route on these simpler maps, which I think are OSM. I have an OS subscription and have been tending to use the phone to check out options on the trail anyway.

Overall usability has got much better over the years. I turned off warnings for eating and drinking plus sharp bends, but for the rest the beeps seemed to actually be useful. I can now just leave it on my preferred data screen and it will automatically change to a map when I approach a turn or the climb screen when I hit one.

The ClimbPro feature is fun. It doesn’t detect all of the climbs by a long way, but it gets the bigger ones. In yesterday’s ride it detected six climbs totalling 1,575′ out of a total of 3,000′ of climbing. So barely half of the climbing is covered by the climbs. It’s a but like categorised climbs for the pros I guess. I still found it fun to know that I was on climb 4 out of 6 for example and the picture of the climb makes it much easier to gauge your effort. You can see if it’s about to flatten out for a bit or if there is a steep ramp coming up and knowing that there are x feet of ascent left is great.

At the end of the ride the magic pixies seemed to get to work as the activity was already on Garmin Connect and Strava by the time I’d put the bike away. Presumably it uploaded via the phone as I wasn’t in wifi range.

I’ve not tried all of the features yet, by a long way. I’m going to try starring a few segments next. There is also a neat feature that should make it harder to lose this one as it markes the location when it loses connection to the phone and you can make it beep when you are in Bluetooth range. Mind you, I’m pretty sure I know where the 800 was. It just wasn’t there when I went back to look for it 🙁

I like my 530. Upgraded from a 510 and a 705 prior to that.
It’s an excellent piece of kit, the only issue I have is that when I upload routes to it from Trailforks the nav arrows can be a bit confusing. More than once I’ve had to double back on myself on a fairly simple route – mix of road & off-road.
Anyone else found this?