Garmin Edge 840 users

I have an Edge 530 and I’m fairly happy with it, save for a minor annoyance. After dark when the backlight is off, I can only see the information on a data screen when I “wake it up” by pressing a button. This will have to be one of the two “scroll” buttons which means that the data screen rolls off to screen 2, which means I have to press it again to get back to screen 1.

Does the 840 handle this any better? For instance, does pressing the touch screen wake up the backlight?

It does on my 830, I’m sure the 840 will be the same. The backlight occasionally fails to fire, when that happens I just press stop and start quickly, which fixes it.

Don’t have the same issue on my edge 530. Back light stays on at night, screen display ‘reverses’ to white text on dark background. Not sure if there is an option in settings to turn back light to ‘always on’ ?

@ransos – thanks. It looks like you’ve just cost me the price of an Edge 840.

@WBC – I run my Edge in battery save mode so never have the backlight switched on.

Whatever you do, don’t downgrade to an 830, terrible in the rain. 840 is supposed to be fine.

Regards back light. I run my 830 in battery save mode, but the back light comes on at night. And yes, as ransos says, just tap the screen.

For the 830 and rain issues I bought a remote which solves the rain problem but waking it up from the remote causes the same issue as you described @scotroutes

After dark when the backlight is off, I can only see the information on a data screen when I “wake it up” by pressing a button.

I thought that was just a setting. I don’t have mine at hand to trawl through the menu to find it. It’s not always easy to find where the settings are on any Garmin device I’ve ever had.

It would definitely be an 840. There are a couple of other features that would be nice to have and I’m aware of the rain issue on the older Garmin touchscreens (I have an Oregon too).

I’ve got an older 800 and you can definitely set the backlight to always on for night rides, just set it to the bare minimum. It uses battery but not enough that the Garmin dies before my legs.

Colin, I recently changed from an 830 to an 840.  I really rate it.  I haven’t used it in the dark however yet.  One big improvement is that the screens and details can now be set up on the phone app, like with the 1040, rather than scrolling through things on the device buttons.  Wheelbase were the cheapest when i bought it last month.

Whatever you do, don’t downgrade to an 830, terrible in the rain

They seem to be hit and miss. Mine is fine unless it’s tipping down, I just lock the screen when that happens.