HCB

I'm looking to upgrade my bike computer from the current Cateye to a Garmin or Magellan. The Garmin seems to be the de facto computer for serious riders. For people who have used both can you share your experiences?

Thanks!

Seattle Forrest

I've never used a Magellan bike computer but I've had their top tier hiking GPS unit (Explorist 710) for years and it's disappointing enough that I wouldn't buy another product of theirs. My experiences with Garmin have been mixed, but generally acceptable. Their new 520 is promising, but all of their new units are always buggy for several months after they're released. Bugs tend to range from annoying to frustrating, but usually not show-stopper.

Marcus_Ti

I tried the Cyclo 505 for 2 weeks. It went back to the retailer where I bought it from.

The 520 while intriguing is a new unit...which means buying it now will make you an Unpaid Beta Tester for a year while the tools at Garmin try to fix their broken firmware.

Garmins are the standard because there really is no competition.

Black wallnut 

What did you not like about the 505? Garmins are great until they stop working and you need customer service. Their web interface is also poor. Having to use Garmin Express to sync data also seems dumb.

Marcus_Ti

I posted my thoughts here last year:

Magellan GPS bike computers -- anybody got one?

Some things like the privacy issues have since been resolved as far as we can know...but only after users threw ****fits over it. The complete lack of onboard storage for even rides is a downer, as is AFAIK the continuing lack of maps for anything other than the retail-purchased locale....and further maps are proprietary and baked into the OS so you can't change them. Also, I'm not sure if Magellan has yet fixed the distance-doubling bug lots of users were having whereby the trip odometer would start randomly doubling+ your mileage: which sense trip odometer is the basis for everything else from speed to gradient...the odometer going schizo pretty much ruins the usefulness of the device.

I'm no fan of Garmin, but between the E1K and the Cyclo...the E1K is the better of the two, which I got in the Cyclo's place after Cyclo got returned. Better screen, better way of doing maps, better storage by a mile. And Magellan's support quickly showed itself to be almost as useless as Garmin's last I heard.


Maybe things have changed....they almost certainly have not...but they could.

Black wallnut 

Thanks for that @Marcus_Ti
I am so pissed at Garmin right now. I know they are the best game in town until you require service, then they suck in a major way. I willbe without my 510 for most of the rest of this month. That is two CX races worth where HR would be helpful. To replace my Garmin will cost $450ish with a competing brand. I may stay with Garmin but if I was starting fresh I would not choose Garmin. I encourage anyone looking for a new cycling computer to look at other brands first. For the same money you cna buy a brand that has to fight for market share, and as such will likely give great service should you ever need it. Garmin is so big I doubt they give a **** about disgruntled customers.

gregf83 

sorry, no experience with the Magellan but the 520 I have has been trouble free. I didn't think I'd be a fan of the wireless syncing but I've gotten used to having my ride uploaded before I can get my garage door opened. I think the must have worked out any issues with the 510 or perhaps I've just been fortunate. Highly recommended.

Ball Bearing

The Cyclo 505 is much better at navigation and will recalculate a route on the fly if you decide to go a different way, but it does not include Strava segments - although Magellan has promised a firmware upgrade that will have segments.

HCB

I ended up with the Garmin 520 bundle kit. I'll break it in this weekend on a 50+ mile ride.

Marcus_Ti

Yea...My experience last year was Magellan was no better than Garmin, and in many ways worse. Just read the Cyclo forums-which BTW users setup by themselves and on their own server racks, because Magellan AFAIK never did.

After buying my E1K, I'm hoping it will be my last Garmin. After Garmin broke their own HRM strap pairing with firmware 3.0 I went and got a 3rd party 4iiii Viiiiva strap...which is a cool piece of hardware because it isn't only an ANT+ strap, it is also Bluetooth Smart....and that isn't all, with the strap in BT mode you can slave other ANT+ sensors into its data stream thusly pairing your smartphone (sans ANT+) to ANT+ data sensors. So you get ANT+ speed and cadence combined with BT HRM sensors all on any phone. Hopefully smartphones will soon drive Garmin into the ground.

Magellan support is much like Garmin's. The occasionally make promises and completely miss the mark delivering. That distance doubling bug was a massive one. Inability to change regional mapsets was another fix promised and so far as I know never delivered.

I do agree the Magellan's routing and software interface is better. The dice-rolling make a route based on time/distance ability on the Cyclo is simply brilliant.

Flatbroke

I have the 510 and a guy I ride with got the 520. It is really nice . I'm considering buying one just for the new strava segment feature .

gregf83 

I like the 520 but not sure about the strava segments. I commute to work and have a few segments that I have KOMs on. Mostly because I ride them so frequently I can go hard when I've got a tailwind which makes it difficult for others unless they happen to ride in the same conditions. On some of the hills I may be in the top 5 or 10 but those are very painful efforts which I'm not interested in doing on a regular basis. Bottom line, most times the segment feature is annoying as I'm not interested in attacking the segments. I've disabled most of the segments I originally turned on.

Flatbroke

Gregf83, that is an interesting point that I had not thought about. I also enjoy the wireless sync that the units offer. My 510 has been a great unit. I would like to be able to see the screen in the dark though. Sometimes I get caught out after the sun goes down.