Originally Posted by
John_V
The big difference is that the Padrone will work with or without being connected to a smartphone. Hoever, if you always have your smartphone with you, it's sort of a moot point.
Unless you ride reasonable distances.
I only get a few hours out of my Samsung Galaxy S5 running the ridewithgps app even if I have it in a jersey pocket with the screen turned off. Before I switched to a dynamo setup for long rides I was able to get 12 hours out of my Edge 500 with 40% battery left at the end. Unfortunately, that's still not enough to use my phone as a bike computer - outside of ultra low power mode where the phone doesn't run apps it's barely enough to keep the phone charged with the screen off, and it bounces in and out of charge mode depending on speed.
ANT+ software support is also a problem with my phone. While the hardware supports it, ridewithgps won't talk to ANT+ sensors and updating my power meter to bluetooth would be a $500 change.