Originally Posted by
Steve B.
Puzzled as to what exactly a smart phone does better then a dedicated unit ?
Ask what a dedicated unit does better than a smartphone. People already have a smartphone and it does (basically) what the Garmins do and a whole lot more.
The Garmins are very slow compared to smartphones as well.
Originally Posted by
Steve B.
We are talking about the functions of a cycling computer in this thread, so a smart phone would have to have additional cycling specific functions that a dedicated cycling GPS unit doesn't have.
The thread is talking about more than just that.
KH0456 was talking about smartphones (and said some things that weren't correct) and my reply was to that (you are taking what I said out of context).
Cycling specific computers have the advantage of being smaller, better battery life, and better screens for sunlight. Cycling specific computers also tend to have better sensor support but that wouldn't be hard to add to smartphones (ANT+ appears to work better than BLE but it costs extra and there isn't enough of a market to justify it).
Apps for smartphones haven't quite duplicated the navigation that the Garmins provide. It would be easy to add it but there isn't (it appears) a market for it (partly, because people don't want to spend any money for apps).
For software (which is all that navigation needs), smartphones are a much better platform than the slow/limited CPU's in the Garmins.