Magellan Cyclo 315
 

Hi All

anyone has a hands-on experience with Magellan Cyclo 315? It's on sale locally in-store for less the $100 and on paper looks very nice but the reviews are bimodal - some like it and some hate it. Anyone here using it? Can it be paired with Wahoo ANT+ sensor (I have one already). I know many swear by Garmin but it will take 2-3x the money for the refurbished unit to get to the same functionality.

I don't think you can load other maps to it. If that's the case, that wouldn't work for me.

You cannot load maps AFAIK you are stuck with whatever regions maps you buy with the device, and on device storage is severely limited. I trialed one for 2 weeks before sending it back and getting an Edge 1000.

The screen is less responsive than the Edge, the memory screws you, as does maps. The roll-a-dice ride routing is a neat feature though.

I have no doubt that edge 1000 is a MUCH better device. The same way Porche is a better car then the Civic but it costs 5x the amount. At this point my budget for the cyclocomputer is ~$150 and I was looking for the following:

Must haves:
1) GPS-based trekking best if independent of the cell phone. ability to relatively painlessly get the data to strava.
2) Ability to pair cadence and in longer term heart-rate sensor. I don't think I would ever get power-meter so these are the two accessories I need.

Within this budget I was looking at cateye stealth (50 or evo), garmin edge 200 or some Taiwanese/Chinese-brands.

Now I saw that Cyclo 315 on sale in addition to 1 and 2 it seems to do the following:
3) Directions in US on a limited sets of pre-loaded maps,
4) searchable but not so good POI database
5) Ability to pre-load and follow the GPX track..


My question is how good is the magellan in #1 and #2? Are #3-5 useful to have compared to the options that do not have these at all? and is Garmin Edge 800 so much better that it is worth getting it refurbished for 50+% more then Magellan new.

The problem with your sportscar comparison....The Cyclo and the E1000 used to cost the same amount of money ($450 versus $500 USD IIRC). Only now over a 2 years after release, and the unit not selling, have prices gotten reasonable and come down.

Check out the Magellan forums...there used to be a gaggle of breaking bugs plaguing the Cyclo. For the better part of a year, using certain speedo sensors bugged the hell out of the odometer resulting in 30,000km+ rides. And sincce odometer is used to calculate everything, all the other ride telemetry was useless.

For a long while...Magellan was running their own Connect-like portal to track rides. WITHOUT USER KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT, they were mirroring ALL that ride data without anonymization of start/end point on a 3rd party GPS ride site. I mean no consent/knowledge, nothing was even in the EULA/TOS about it. It was a huge flap for 6-8 months IIRC. Lots of us users back then were not at all certain that was even legal.

Certain thing like live elevation profile weren't available on the Cyclo either back then, maybe they firmware added it. Then again with how unresponsive Magellan was on the use-breaking odometer issue, I doubt it.

The Porsche analogy isn't really useful. It isn't necessarily a better car than the Civic and the Porsche is more than many people in the US earn in a year. And we are talking about something that costs only a few hundred dollars.

Unlike the Porsche, I suspect that you'd be able to spend $300 (even if you'd prefer to spend less). Don't let that small amount of money force you to buy the wrong device.

3-5 are useful. Using pre-loaded tracks is very common (it's mostly what I do). Being able to have the device calculate routes (#3) is useful. #4 might be better done by doing a search on a phone and then navigating to a place near the location (if the POI isn't on the device).

The 800 is known to work pretty well (for 1-5). The Mios don't appear to be used by many people in the US (they might be more popular in Europe). And you can install different maps on the 800. $100 is cheap but I'd still go with the 800.

I have one. It works pretty well. Mostly I use it for directions when on a club ride. I have not had problems even when some other riders with Garmins have lost the signal or gotten wrong info. I'd say you can't go wrong for 100 bucks.