Tourist in MSN Possibly things you and others may or may not care about. That's part of the reason there are so many choices and each has some features the other doesn't. Or that the features, though seemingly the same thing work a little differently.

• Does your handheld GPS upload your ride information automatically to RWGPS, Strava, Garmin Connect of other cycling oriented site for viewing ride data and track?
• Does your handheld allow you to connect or control speed, cadence, Varia radar, bike lights, power meters and other cycling accessories? Probably some, but not all. And it probably won't have the screens to display the data from some in the various ways that some cyclist want to see the data used during the ride.
• Does your handheld have group tracking so if you are riding with friends that have devices capable of group tracking, you can see where they are in relation to you if they've gotten out of sight for some reason.
• Does your handheld have incident detection which, if in cell service, can alert chosen contacts automatically if a suspected crash happens? In the good case scenario, it'll just be a false alert, but what if you are knocked unconscious and need help quick. At least your contact might choose to call 911 if they can't reach you on the phone.
• Does your handheld give you climb profiles for what's ahead?
• Does your handheld auto pause your activity when you stop for red lights or other brief times you stop and don't what that included as actual riding time?
• Does your handheld give you the ability to follow training programs with on-screen cues?
• Does your handheld give you the ability to connect your Di2 electronic shifting to it so you can manipulate the screens and answer basic pop up's by pushing the buttons under the Di2 hoods that are configurable for such things? You also get the ability to see info about what gears you are in in various ways as well as battery status.
• Does your handheld give you info about what that ride did for your training status, such as Low Aerobic, High Aerobic and Anaerobic benefits of that ride? As well as other training effects?
• Does your handheld easily fit in your pocket so you can stop for a while and go into a store and not worry that someone will remove it from your bike and steal it?

Probably more that I missed. Probably some that handhelds do to a certain extent.

For sure I don't use most of those things. But some might find them important. I use to think that automagically uploading the ride to the various websites was being lazy. It didn't take but a connecting of the cable and a couple clicks to get the ride off my very old Edge 500. However my new Edge has spoiled me and I appreciate not having to take it off my bike and the fact it's uploaded before I even get into the house with the bike.

None of those are going to be important just to ride a bike. We've ridden for years with nothing growing up. But once you've used some of them, you might find you don't want to do without them.

My point for the OP was that they need to think about what it is that they really want from the GPS. They seem to be waffling back and forth between a handheld or one made for cycling. There are advantages to both. But neither will do all the same things or show data in the same way. The OP also needs to figure out what stuff they'd do on a PC or Mac or phone prior to the ride and what they'd do with the device during the ride.

I'm not big on using my device for planning. Planning is done on the PC and very easily transferred to the device. The device is mostly for recording and getting info from the sensors. Some of which a handheld typically won't connect to. (AFAIK, since it's been a while since even looking at new handhelds).