Garmin 820 worth the dish?

Has anyone used a Garmin 820 yet? What do you think?

I’m most interested in sticking some open street map maps on it and using it for turn by turn navigation on my road bike (though I’d use it on the MTB as well). Is it worth the extra over the 520?

I’m most interested in sticking some open street map maps on it

Why? It already has Garmin’s version of OSM

Is it worth the extra over the 520

Do you want the better map and navigation or are you happy with what the 520 offers?

I’m most interested in sticking some open street map maps on it and using it for turn by turn navigation on my road bike

I have the 800 and it works very well for this, and MTB much of the time.

I don’t have a 520 so not sure if I’d be bahppy with it or not. I think the ability to tell the 820 to put together a 20 mile route automatically would be useful, but depends on how well it works (eg would it try and send me down a bridle way on a road bike?)

I think the ability to tell the 820 to put together a 20 mile route automatically would be useful,

Sounds like it could be like the old MBR routes which involved an afternoon riding up things you wish you had been riding down to then find the epic finale is a smooth fire road…

Also how many dishes and what kind?

If it has the same options as the 1000 you can choose what type of roads you want to be navigated on. Eg. road ride, touring, mtb etc

You can select whether you want road or off road but mikewsmith sums up my thoughts on letting the device pick a route. Most motorcyclists and mountain bikers want to choose a good route in advance then be guided around it. It is only in the car that I simply want to get to a destination. It may work OK for roadies but I haven’t checked for any bias towards smaller roads rather than 70mph dual carriageway

Apparently it looks for quiet roads. I’d only use that feature for roadie stuff. Mtbing I wouldn’t use it other than tracking where I went and as a cycle computer. And maybe strava.

I’ve had my 820 about 6 weeks, it’s good and there are some interesting new features, but in usual Garmin fashion there are also some annoying bugs, elevation correction being the main one as far as I’m concerned (others are whining about the touch screen being too sensitive).
I’m sure Garmin will sort them out, it’s a matter of how long it will take them.

Dibbs – interested to hear more of your experience. Are any of the problems show stoppers? Have you used the mapping – is it any good?

I’m pleased with mine.

The maps and routing have worked well for me. I thought I’d never give up on my OS 1:50k maps but I’ve been won over and couldn’t go back. There isn’t quite the detail but they are clearer to read and you can zoom in as much as you like.

Screen sensitivity isn’t perfect but manageable and may even have been tamed slightly by adding a screen protector.

Crash detection is a little mixed. I mostly turn it off but have triggered it once when I did crash and twice when all I’d done was stopped abruptly. You get 30 seconds to cancel before your nearest and dearest get emails and a text. Last false alarm was on a group ride, as the alarm went off on my linked phone everyone backed off like I was a suicide bomber 🙂

If you want turn by turn navigation with maps it’s between the 820 and 1000 and the 1000 wins on screen size but I didn’t want the bigger screen and did want the much smaller unit size.

I’m just about to buy an 820 Explore. From what I can gather the only things it doesn’t do are the Strava live segments, some performance monitoring stuff and wifi.

£50 cheaper and I think the only thing I might miss is the wifi but it’s not essential.

If you will be linking the device to a phone you won’t miss the wifi. As far as I can tell the wifi would only be used for uploading after a ride or downloading routes and updates all of which is done via my phone before I get near my wifi network

I’m so use to plugging my 800 in using the cable for uploading rides/routes etc. I won’t even know I’m missing it tbh 😀

Still having teething issues with mine which I’ve highlighted in other posts.

A few things. Firstly, in following a downloaded TCX file the E820 was constantly ‘off course’ due to being more accurate. Or at least more accurate than the device the TCX file was recorded on.

This can also be said for general riding and Strava. Upon uploading a ride into Strava I’m noticing segments missing due to partial or no match.

Some of the elements have been user error e.g. leaving sampling on smart rather than 1 second which resulted in missing Strava segments again due to straight lining an aspect of route.

Also, I should have perhaps tested the maps and navigational features somewhere familiar before riding something new.

Apart from these niggles I’m liking the E820. The settings and functionality are endless.

Well I bought one. Seems to work a treat – told it to make me a 25km loop from my house just now and it did – pretty nice little route as well. Even took me up a road I didn’t know existed.

Only slightly annoying thing is that it tried to take me on cycleways, need someway to tell it that cycleways in the UK are normally muddy or crap.

Happy with my 820 so far. Not used any of the mapping stuff yet though. Like the way the new sensor connectivity works so you don’t need to select a bike. The screen seems clearer to me even though it’s a bit smaller than the 810. The auto brightness thing is good, don’t need to turn on the backlight when it gets dark.

The touch screen does seem super sensitive which takes a bit of getting use to. And I don’t think the button placement is quite as convenient as on the 810.

Oh and if you have wifi it’ll download updates to itself and connected garmin devices too. Which was a bit of a pain when it did my Vector pedals and un-paired them.