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TECH NEWS
The Edge 820, similar looking to the 520 but with functionality of the 1000First Ride: Garmin Edge 820
Garmin have revamped their Edge 800 series with the new Garmin Edge 820, taking the place of the 810 in the lineup. We have had a bit of time with the new unit and there's no doubt it boasts some strong features.
Having used the 810 as my unit of choice over the past 3 year,s it was good to try out the new version and there are some marked changes, not least in the size. Whereas the 810 comes in at 51 x 93 x 25mm, the 820 is 49 x 73 x 21 mm - the same size as last year's 520.
- Garmin Edge 820 and Edge Explore 820 GPS computers launched
It sits between the 520 and 1000, with the Edge 1000 offering a larger size for ease of navigation and the 520 more slimmed down without the comprehensive navigation options. In terms of looks, it would be difficult to note much difference between the 520 and 820 at first glance, meaning it sits in the sweet spot between size and functionality.
Navigation has been improved with some of the key features from the more expensive and navigation orientated 1000 moving down to the 820, such as round trip routing, allowing the computer to create the route for you. It's a nice touch that worked well for me when I was testing it out in an unfamiliar area.
It has some other cool new features too, including Grouptrack, which allows you to track up to 50 riders within 10 miles of you. Essentially, if you get dropped or lost, you can easily see where others are. Given the limited time I have had wth the unit I haven't had a chance to test this, but will be looked at in the full review.
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Another change is that the unit does not use external card slots to add new maps or courses. I initially thought that this would be an issue, but Garmin seem to have made some changes to their maps compared to the 810 which has meant that they have worldwide mapping, so no need for a new card if you ride in a different country, and usability is much simpler.
Tracking seems ok, although a couple of lines seem to be off the roads when in wooded areas, but with limited review time it is hard to say if this is much of an issue.
Battery life is claimed to be around 15 hours, which seems about right, but there are also battery saver modes which can help to extend this if you are out on the road and have forgotten to charge the unit. This essentially just turns off the display but keeps recording.
Connectivity on the device has the standard ANT+ and Bluetooth connections, linking to a phone was simple and pairing speed and cadence sensors is also an easy process, familiar to anybody who's used a Garmin computer in the past. Also the speed in which satellites are picked up seems to have improved over the 810, meaning less time searching, more time accurately recording. Much like the 520 and 1000, it also shows call and text notifications when connected to your phone.
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The screen seems clear, maps and directions are sharp and the touchscreen seems ok, although I found that it could sometimes be a little sluggish to select an item or change a screen.
Garmin is offering the 820 with an RRP of £329.99 as a standalone unit or £60 more with an HRM thrown in. It is also available in an Explore model, for £279.99, which offers fewer performance measurements, so is predominantly a navigation device.
Initial thoughts on the device are good, with it offering some really strong improvements over the 810 and taking the best bits of the 520 (size) and 1000 (navigation) in one unit.
Look out for our full review coming soon.
George is the host of the road.cc podcast and has been writing for road.cc since 2014. He has reviewed everything from a saddle with a shark fin through to a set of glasses with a HUD and everything in between.
Although, ironically, spending more time writing and talking about cycling than on the bike nowadays, he still manages to do a couple of decent rides every week on his ever changing number of bikes.
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21 comments
I also have turn-by-turn on an 810 with TCX files downloaded from Ride With GPS (as a non-paying member).
@unconstituted - do you have the latest 810 firmware?
I'm in the 810 is crap camp too, though that's a bit of a 1st world problem! The device is really amazing when you consider what the world was like not long ago. BUT.... the bloody thing drives me nuts. You're riding along happily and you look down and it's OFF. And your ride is gone. A factory reset seems to have helped on that front. I also find its courses very bloody-minded and unhelpful when you accidentally stray from the course - there's no help at all for getting you back on. Then there are times when the cue says go left and the on-screen arrow points right... you can sometimes turn around and come back to the same intersection and get a different opinion. Anyway, I shouldn't really complain, but I do think the above comments are correct re lack of quality control, Garmin being complacent, etc. I hope there will be more serious competition in the market soon.
Re the 820, the reviewer seems to have missed that it has wifi connectivity (but not on the 820 Explore IIRC) and that the faster satellite acquisition is due to the 820 also picking up GLONASS. I also find the small memory puzzling - 5Gb is fine, but I have more than that used on my 810, but it could be so much more.
I want it so badly, I have a 520 (and a touring) and everything that I wanted the 520 to have (a good map without having to do it yourself and a touchscreen to navigate on the map) is on this 820.
But alas, it's a bit to steep to just buy it on top of my other 2 Garmins, but if I can sell my other 2 this one will be in my hands.
I can never understand the 520 haters, although am sure all have their reasons based on their user experiences. I've had good service from my 520 so far, finding it easy to use and firmware/software very stable. Have just updated the software and uploaded some new Garmin Connect IQ apps, so have a screen telling how many beers I've earnt after a ride. I'm going to find that useful!
Would like the turn by turn navigation on the 820 though....
Even if you get turn by turn you still need to use the clunky native software. You can do it online with RidewithGPS, which is such a joy to use, but you have to subscribe to that.
I love having turn by turn, you can bomb around new areas more confidently with it, but I really hate using the map software on the unit itself so usually don't bother.
Wish Strava would let you take cues from their mapping, though Strava's route planner is a bit laggy still.
You what? I have the 810, I use ridewithgps for free, download the gpx, and get turn by turn?
How? Cues are sub only.
https://ridewithgps.com/help/compare-plans
Oh manually created cues maybe, but who does that on a century ride ?!
The garmin does it for you when you load the ride. It tells you where to go before each turn.
Maybe some crossed wires here, cany chance you can take a pic of a turn by turn direction you've got on your 810 from a route created with RidewithGPS?
Bit of a hassle but would clear things up. Getting cues for free from that site would be a massive boon to everyone so if there's a trick that can be worked out.. want
I would love to get hold of one of the "good" 520 units - there do seem to be some out there. However, mine:
- Crashes, sometimes losing ride data.
- Often fails to boot after automatically downloading corrupt files to NewFiles for no good reason.
- Sometimes requires factory reset, entailing setting everything up again.
- No longer auto uploads via Garmin Connect, which no amount of reconfiguration and re-pairing can solve.
- Suffers frequent sensor disconnections (HR, speed and cadence).
It also has a deliberately pathetic map capacity.
Good battery life though.
Yep, my 810 is pretty buggy too.
It's fine 95% of the time, but every now and then, especially on long rides, it crashes and loses the ride.
It's when navigation is on that it gets unreliable, particularly the "back to start" option always crashes the unit.
Other bugs with that make me think that garmin's quality control and testing is shoddy, and below industry standard.
I'd go as far too say that they are abusing their dominant market position, because they can get away with it.
What I really want to know is, how buggy is this new 820 model?
Looks alright, but I'd find it very hard to give Garmin more money even if they came up with a killer product due to the woeful experiences I've had with an 800 and 520. They don't deserve to make so much money out of such poor products.
I really don't get 16GB on a mid-level consumer device with no external storage. It's about £4 retail between a 16GB microSD card and a 64GB one. If you're going to be that cheap about it up the price from £329.99 to £334.99.
I find 16GB is quite a decent amount of storage, considering all the device holds is mapping and history data. And it's a huge upgrade from the 54MB of free space on the rightly popular Edge 520. I upgraded from the 520 to go back to the touch screen I'd gotten used to with the 510 (I found the transition back to buttons wasn't for me personally) and had never found the memory on the 520 to be much of an issue: a bit of time on the laptop to change maps for travelling but not a major pain. My profiles, routes and history never challenged the storage space so I see the 820 memory as being more than ample. It can obviously take Garmin's world mapping with plenty free for all other data. My first iPhone only had 8GB!!
I don't see a compelling reason to change from my 800. Size is hardly an issue with me sat behind it.
When the battery eventually dies, I'll open it up before giving more money to Garmin. Surely it's about time there were decent alternatives?
Wahoo Elemnt.
How much on board storage space does it have? My Edge 520 has enough space for maps in a rideable radius around me, but I have to connect to a computer to switch maps in/out if I go away for a weekend. This is using the DCRainmaker technique to put OSM on it.
The storage is 16GB of which 6.1GB is free and 2GB unusable. However, the mapping installed by default is a world map, so taking that out as per DCRainmaker's technique will free up extra space should you need it!
Had to downgrade from 1000 to the 520 recently and am massively missing the touchscreen. It's SO nice when you're wrecked to just flick your finger across the screen. Tap here, flick there. Really is so smooth. 520 feels clunky after you've had the 1000. Actually feels like using one of their running watches, like the FR220! Very similar operation and feel. Surprised about that. Thought the 520 would just be like a smaller 1000. Not at all.
On the plus side, the 520's lighter! That's how I'm consoling myself
I've been very happy with the Garmin Edge 520. I also have an Edge Touring, which has a touch screen, and I don't view a touchscreen as a strong selling point. I much prefer buttons!
what kind of charging port is it? can you charge it mid-activity?
MicroUSB & if it's like the 520 & 1000 yes. Even "unchargeable" devices like the Fēnix3 can be charged if you set the USB mode to Garmin (rather than mass storage)