Thanks for the info John. I am thinking I might be better off in general with a stand-alone unit that isn't tieing up my phone. I have an iphone 6 as a work phone and the battery life stinks. I have to keep it plugged in all day, only a few months old. My personal phone is an iphone 4s with the original battery. It lasts a lot longer than the new 6 does.. For backpacking and other outdoor activities I track my trips with the GaiaGPS app. I have it both on my iphone 4s and an android tablet. It works great. Generally I ride with the tablet screen on the map - I like the bigger screen and I like the android platform better. Though, if I can do both the map and my computer data all in one device that would be great - and a waterproof device at that so I don't have to worry about a shower on a day tour/ride.

I am looking at the Garmin 520. Does anyone know if the bugs with the turn-by-turn directions not working all the time has been fixed? A lot of reviews say they just plain don't work, or the device does not have that feature at all, however the video in the following link describes them working some times and the unit menu has an option to turn the directions on or off? The video is ~9 months old so I assume there have been some software updates between then and now - maybe that open up that feature for more solid operation?


There is also mention in that video about stava live segments not working real well. Has that been addressed since? I have a basic membership to strava. I am not sure that I will get anything out of the live segments, of course I would have to upgrade to premium for that functionality also. I don't race and I don't "train" in the sense of beating times on segments and rides. I am more of a long distance leisurely rider doing a lot of self-supported day tours. I like to keep track of my averagencadence, distance, average speed, ride time, sometimes max speed, and GPS track. The rest of the "training" features aren't very meaningful right now.