Garmin Edge Touring Do you have one?

[francovendee]

Does anyone on the forum have one of these and how easy are they to use? I'm thinking of buying one but when I look at the reviews on amazon they range from very good to very poor so it's hard to find out. I don't want to spend more than £200 and I'm not looking for anything other than a device that lets me plan a route on the laptop, then download it to the Garmin. Cadence, heart rate etc. aren't needed. I'm no whiz with electronic gadgets but get the hang of them in the end but I'm not an instinctive user
I do like paper maps but we don't always have the ones we want and the IGN 25K maps don't have any overlaps at the edge, this makes it harder to plan your route.
We were in Brittany last week and bought a map of the area so we could explore. When there we found we liked the area to the south more and guess what, our map ran out just where we wanted to go, this meant hunting down a shop and spending another €12 for another map. It's not the cost, just the agro having to keep getting yet another map. Any user information would be very useful.

[stewartpratt]

I recently bought the Touring Plus. Then I sent it back and bought the 800. I've made comments elsewhere on the differences, here and here.

I would very much recommend spending the small amount extra on the 800 (Handtec have it for under £200). It's not totally flawless, but it is very good and for my money it's much, much better than the Touring.

[Vantage]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=82435&hilit=Garmin+Edge+Touring

[al_yrpal]

If thats all you want to do, the Etrex 20 does it.

Al

[stewartpratt]

Well, to be honest, if you're looking to just follow a wiggly line on the screen (which largely works fine IME) any Garmin device will do it. The 200 does it on a budget; the 500 will do it with a less restrictive display and should give you turn notifications if your route planning software will output TCXs with course points; the 800 will do it nicely with maps; and the eTrexes will do it nicely with maps on a budget provided you don't mind the added bulk and less convenient mount.

[Mick F]

If you want a big screen, lots of facilities, very versatile, loads of profiles, hiking, mountaineering, walking, driving, cycling, marine, aircraft ..... the lot ...... and it will go for 17hrs or more on AA batteries or 12hrs on the Li battery, buy a Garmin Montana.

The Montana is nicely big and chunky, and even my tired old eyes can see it to operate it. All the ones suggested above have tiny screens, and I would need reading glasses to see anything useful on them.

[chocjohn9]

I DID have one....as many, many reviews and reviewers say, and mine was no different, it kept on crashing, I got fed up with it quite quickly and so I sent it back.

With the advent of the new Garmin 1000, 800s seem to be going cheap at the moment. I bought one of these and it does not crash....

[firedfromthecircus]

s'funny, cos I've got one and thinks it's great.
Easy to use and none of the peripheral 'racer' stuff that I have no need for! If I was having problems I would get in touch with Garmin in the hope that they would sort it out.

[geocycle]

I've got one. I'm very mixed about it. The hardware is quite good, seems waterproof, the mount is great and has no trouble getting a gps fix. The downside is that the autorouting is very hit and miss and the battery will only last around 10h even when mainly using the dashboard display. It's not very intuitive and you need to look at all the online links posted above to get to know it. You can use it for simply following a line but there are other options that can do that as well. I actually prefer my phone with memory map software on it (the battery is not as good of course 6h) as the screen is much better and the detail on the maps far superior on a bigger screen.

[ChrisF]

I bought one and then returned it because it just crashed all the time.
Ended up getting an Android phone, into which you can download all sorts of maps (including the IGN ones from MemoryMap) and predefined routes. Also loads of other mapping apps available.
Unless you want to view the screen continuously, most modern phones will run for 8-10 hours using GPS. Plenty of bike mounts available as well.