I am a gadget junkie, plus I have been using garmin on my motorcycle for a while and absolutely love it. So I started digging in to edge 800 plus went through articles on this forum on smartphones as GPS devices.
In short, I don't see what a garmin device like edge 800 can provide on top of a smartphone.
With my iPhone 5
- I can use variety of sensors. Fr example wahoo fitness iPhone app + wahoo fitness heart rate monitor + wahoo fitness speed and cadence monitor beats equivalent garmin set hands down plus wahoo fitness can export data from iPhone to about 10 fitness sites including training peaks, garmin connect, strava, mapmyfitness etc etc. I am sure garmin will tie you to itself
- the 'you can't navigate if you don't have SoftBank or phone signal' argument is not relevant. iPhone 3GS onwards all iPhones have inbuilt gps chip. Mapfan or gogonavi will download and cache whole Japan map on you phone using under 2gb. Once you have it take out the SIM card and navigate, you will be able to see ur location on the cached map and even navigate. Gogonavi will let you set and edit paths without the need of a phone connection.
- battery life - I am sure edge 800 will beat iPhone 5 here but here is the deal - yesterday I used my iPhone with wahoo fitness heart rate blue tooth, GPS navigation to Komae and back home, ride recording, Bluetooth connection to my earphones with music running all the time and 2 phone calls plus some messaging. In about 5 and half hours I used up 60% of my battery. For 2500 yen I got a 10,0000 mah battery weighing 230 grams and can charge my iPhone at least 4 times. I recon this combo is way ahead of garmins capability. Note all my songs are either wav or 320 Kbps mp3 point being they consume more battery.
- accuracy - surely garmin can be more accurate than iPhone GPS chip but to be honest the deviation is not that big. I am using iPhone for geocaching both in Japan and abroad for couple of years now and the results are very acceptable.
Now where edge 800 seems to have an edge
- virtual partner - would love to have this
- water proof ? This is a goodie but I don't plan to ride in wet. Plus I won't think anybody will leave their phone back home meaning phone will still have to be carried and protected from rain
So what are your thoughts ? I am not attempting to put water on edge owners here but just laid out my thoughts as I am not really sure who garmin is targeting to sell edge devices too and how long they will keep this targeted consumer segment.
In short, I don't see what a garmin device like edge 800 can provide on top of a smartphone.
With my iPhone 5
- I can use variety of sensors. Fr example wahoo fitness iPhone app + wahoo fitness heart rate monitor + wahoo fitness speed and cadence monitor beats equivalent garmin set hands down plus wahoo fitness can export data from iPhone to about 10 fitness sites including training peaks, garmin connect, strava, mapmyfitness etc etc. I am sure garmin will tie you to itself
- the 'you can't navigate if you don't have SoftBank or phone signal' argument is not relevant. iPhone 3GS onwards all iPhones have inbuilt gps chip. Mapfan or gogonavi will download and cache whole Japan map on you phone using under 2gb. Once you have it take out the SIM card and navigate, you will be able to see ur location on the cached map and even navigate. Gogonavi will let you set and edit paths without the need of a phone connection.
- battery life - I am sure edge 800 will beat iPhone 5 here but here is the deal - yesterday I used my iPhone with wahoo fitness heart rate blue tooth, GPS navigation to Komae and back home, ride recording, Bluetooth connection to my earphones with music running all the time and 2 phone calls plus some messaging. In about 5 and half hours I used up 60% of my battery. For 2500 yen I got a 10,0000 mah battery weighing 230 grams and can charge my iPhone at least 4 times. I recon this combo is way ahead of garmins capability. Note all my songs are either wav or 320 Kbps mp3 point being they consume more battery.
- accuracy - surely garmin can be more accurate than iPhone GPS chip but to be honest the deviation is not that big. I am using iPhone for geocaching both in Japan and abroad for couple of years now and the results are very acceptable.
Now where edge 800 seems to have an edge
- virtual partner - would love to have this
- water proof ? This is a goodie but I don't plan to ride in wet. Plus I won't think anybody will leave their phone back home meaning phone will still have to be carried and protected from rain
So what are your thoughts ? I am not attempting to put water on edge owners here but just laid out my thoughts as I am not really sure who garmin is targeting to sell edge devices too and how long they will keep this targeted consumer segment.