Garmin vs Navig8r vs 3Gs

[QuangVuong]

It's here! But I don't think the bike mount will arrive by Saturday for the 75km ride. Still can use it with the arm band though. Will get back on how it performs. Maybe root it in a couple weeks if I want some of the extra features.

[Dr_Mutley]

Give us a review soon!

[QuangVuong]

Motoactv on the bike using the arm strap. Works well enough and actually feels more secure than the bike mount. Had no issues on the 65km and 15km rides. Bike mount did arrive a few days ago, and only had the chance to test it out today. The Motoactv isnt in the mount as tight as the arm mount, but theres a retaining clip holding it in.


66km ride. Was supposed to be a 75km one, but legs died and I took a wrong turn.
Motoactv site. Avg. speed is 18.33 km/h and max speed 59.58 km/h
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava somehow cut 10km off the ride. It should end at the star point. Maybe it lost GPS connection. And it also has variance in ride data: Avg Speed 19.3km/h and max speed 52.9km/h
http://app.strava.com/activities/58919740" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

15km rides at Lake Gillawarna. This is my usual route I go around.
Motoactv. For some reason the sessions end the ride down the road.
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/59448910" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Motoactv. Cuts off around the same point. Maybe there's crap GPS reception down that way.
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/60428311" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Overall, I quite like the Motoactv, but Ive never used any Garmins, or other brands of GPS units. Colour touch screen is something I prefer over the buttons and standard screen of the Garmin 500. Battery life drains quite a bit, as on the 3.5 hour ride, it went from 100% down to 20% battery. I could save more if I set the screen off, rather than have it on all the time. Auto start/pause takes a bit of time to kick in, but then again, I dunno how the Garmins, etc are like. GPS locking happens within a minute from my place, and thats fine with me.

Website wise, its laggy, and will soon die off I reckon. Fortunately there are alternatives like Strava. Oh, the cool thing about the Motoactv is that it will automatically upload a session when its within a recognised wifi area. From there, you can access the sessions to export and upload to other sites. Theres also the Motoactv software which is installed upon connecting to the computer via USB for the first time. This can export/import the sessions and music as well. Theres a complaint with this though. I cant seem to delete any music, but I dont listen on rides anyway.

For $150, I reckon its great value.

[gromek]

I have a Garmin Edge 200 and my dad has the 500,
Mine is generally a lot quicker at picking up the gps position

And my old 3Gs was wildly inaccurate, however i regurarly use the strava app on my iphone 4 with no issues, just remember you wont get the current speed youre riding at definately good for maps and finding segments on the go

[macca33]

Motoactv on the bike using the arm strap. Works well enough and actually feels more secure than the bike mount. Had no issues on the 65km and 15km rides. Bike mount did arrive a few days ago, and only had the chance to test it out today. The Motoactv isnt in the mount as tight as the arm mount, but theres a retaining clip holding it in.


66km ride. Was supposed to be a 75km one, but legs died and I took a wrong turn.
Motoactv site. Avg. speed is 18.33 km/h and max speed 59.58 km/h
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava somehow cut 10km off the ride. It should end at the star point. Maybe it lost GPS connection. And it also has variance in ride data: Avg Speed 19.3km/h and max speed 52.9km/h
http://app.strava.com/activities/58919740" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

15km rides at Lake Gillawarna. This is my usual route I go around.
Motoactv. For some reason the sessions end the ride down the road.
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/59448910" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Motoactv. Cuts off around the same point. Maybe there's crap GPS reception down that way.
https://motoactv.com/public/show?workou ... activity=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Strava
http://app.strava.com/activities/60428311" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Overall, I quite like the Motoactv, but Ive never used any Garmins, or other brands of GPS units. Colour touch screen is something I prefer over the buttons and standard screen of the Garmin 500. Battery life drains quite a bit, as on the 3.5 hour ride, it went from 100% down to 20% battery. I could save more if I set the screen off, rather than have it on all the time. Auto start/pause takes a bit of time to kick in, but then again, I dunno how the Garmins, etc are like. GPS locking happens within a minute from my place, and thats fine with me.

Website wise, its laggy, and will soon die off I reckon. Fortunately there are alternatives like Strava. Oh, the cool thing about the Motoactv is that it will automatically upload a session when its within a recognised wifi area. From there, you can access the sessions to export and upload to other sites. Theres also the Motoactv software which is installed upon connecting to the computer via USB for the first time. This can export/import the sessions and music as well. Theres a complaint with this though. I cant seem to delete any music, but I dont listen on rides anyway.

For $150, I reckon its great value.

Not to sound critical, but you've just highighted a number of issues / faults / inaccuracies such as poor batery life - which you'd fix by not having the screen on whilst using it (???) and GPS / recording errors - yet you reckon it was $150 well spent. I don't see it, but good luck to you in any event.

cheers

[QuangVuong]

Battery is kinda fast draining, but it'll last a 4 hour ride using about 60% of the battery(latest ride on Sat). That's with the screen on at full brightness and data refresh rate every second. The GPS tracking is fine. I've figured out why Strava has different info. It's just when I press the pause button, Strava will reckon I have stopped the ride. The Motorola site has the correct stuff, and when exporting out, the files are read incorrected by other sites.

[Warp]

I tried a Magellan 105 (loaned from the distributor) at the Wombat 100 MTB race a few weeks ago, mounted alongside my Bryton Rider 50 for comparison. I've had the Bryton long enough to compare against other devices, and am pretty confident in its accuracy to use as a benchmark. The Magellan read consistently lower speeds (up to 10 km/h at times!), even in open areas with good signal coverage, recorded the course at about 93km (vs 100.7 on the Bryton), yet recorded a longer riding time by several minutes. Both units were paired to common HR & cadence sensors, and achieved the same readings, as one would hope. At a little over six hours riding, both units still had some power in reserve. Although only based on one ride, the fairly substantial deviations in accuracy (~7% distance, at times ~20% speed) were a little disappointing. To be fair, more testing in different conditions would be needed to be sure it wasn't just different GPS sensitivity under tree cover, of which there was plenty. The Bryton is not without its failings, but on the whole I'm pretty happy with it.

Sorry to bring this one back from the dead, but I'm looking at options for a mount for my Magellan 105HC. Mine came with the standard over-the-stem mount, but on the road bike is kinda difficult to read. The shop I got it from does not stock the mounts, but even grocery stores around Darwin can get a Garmin mount so if they are compatible, I will get a Garmin one and call it a day.

------

Anyways, just to share my experience on the 105HC while we are on the subject... I'm happy with it. Not like jumping around delighted in gps-bliss but I can live with the thing.

It comes with ANT+ as mentioned, so HRM and Cadence are in. As per accuracy, I haven't made any side by side tests, but it reads around 300m on the local velodrome which is about right. At any rate, if it reads me slower and with shorter distances, I can live with it so eventually I will run some testing in that regard.

It does everything I expected from a GPS unit, except that it does not automatically upload information to Strava or another online suite. You have to connect the thing to the computer (that means re-start my computer with Win8 as otherwise the thingy does not upload the tracks to the computer for some stupid reason I can't understand) and then save the GPX file and then upload to strava. This is a chore as I was used to simply push a button on my smartphone to do that.

The computer program provided with it has a lot of useful functions (same as Strava Free, at least) but it is not very friendly and the graphic design is pitiful. You can edit the screens on the unit from the computer but in my case, some of the parameters are misnamed on the UI of the computer suite. Editing the parameters from the unit itself is really easy and trouble free. There are like 6 configurable screens plus compass and tracks (not really useful, you can't upload maps into it). You can rotate the screen also.

The buttons on the unit are a little hard to press, but easy to reach with gloves or no gloves and no chances of pushing the wrong buttons. It has back light so reading by night is not an issue. It has the same waterproof rating as the Garmin 500, IIRC.

Battery life is good IF you keep using it. It doesn't make sense, but if I use it everyday, it will go like a week, while if I stop using it a couple days, the battery will drain. Odd. Anyway, using it three hours has drained the battery only to like 85% in my case.

It reads every second, so it may not track as good on MTB tracks as opposed to road ones. Also, if two strava segments are too close, Strava may recognize the two segments with one of them being totally wrong, but that may be something more related to Strava than the Magellan itself. You can also reduce this recording time to record more time into it.

All in all, it does what it says on the tin. It's cheaper than a Garmin 500 and if you can live with a few quirks that is has (not friendly UI, having to download to pc to load up to Strava) it does its job. I will keep it until it decides to die. If I could only get a second mount, that will make me happy.

[AndrewCowley]

Sorry to bring this one back from the dead, but I'm looking at options for a mount for my Magellan 105HC. Mine came with the standard over-the-stem mount, but on the road bike is kinda difficult to read. The shop I got it from does not stock the mounts, but even grocery stores around Darwin can get a Garmin mount so if they are compatible, I will get a Garmin one and call it a day.

I think I read somewhere that the Magellan 105 can use the same mounts as the Garmin 500. If true, and I'll try to find out for sure, then that should give you lots of options.

[simonsausage]

How's about the Cateye Stealth 10 GPS option?
Anyone have any experience/opinions on those units?