garmin 800 mapping

Robbie1958

I am looking at buying a Garmin 800. most of my riding is on small country roads around Norfolk. I am wondering if the mapping that comes as standard will be good enough to map routes on these small by roads or will i need to buy the Navigator pack. is the extra £80.00 worth spending?

Thanks

Peddle Up!

Look here

MattC59

In a word, spend the extra cash on mapping. The standard maps are sh*te !

Buy the Endurance pack, ie the bundle with the OS maps. It's better value than the bundle with the City Navigator maps and IMO you get better mapping.

flasher

The maps that come built in are not worth talking about, unless you only want to use motorways and A roads, I just don't know why Garmin bother, it just gets everyone confused!

prawny

Dont buy the maps!! Google how to load the Open Street Maps on there and use them. They're just as good but free.

You can then spend the £80 on shiny tangible things. Mmmmmm tangibles.

andy-64

Don't know why any one buys these things when you can down load Endomondo and Strava onto your iphone or Android phone what tell you ever thing you need to know, and if you get lost just use google maps.

slowondefy2

andy-64 wrote:

Don't know why any one buys these things when you can down load Endomondo and Strava onto your iphone or Android phone what tell you ever thing you need to know, and if you get lost just use google maps.

Battery life is a big factor.

Although I get 4.5 hours from my iPhone with the screen constantly on, or all day if I leave the screen off most of the time.

There's also no good iPhone app with turn-by-turn directions (Bike Hub is the only one I know of, but I think it's crap). My solution is to plan a route in advance, then import the .GPX file into MotionX which gives me a breadcrumb trail to follow. Pretty good, but fails if a last minute route change is required. I also use CoPilot, a car GPS app, but battery life is absolutely awful with this.

There's just no ideal phone based solution as yet (although I'm not necessarily convinced the Garmin is perfect either).

engy

robbie, same here, looking to buy the 800 the end of the week... watching this thread

Peddle Up!

Battery life. And weather proofing. The Garmin is far from perfect, but it does the job.

Robbie1958

andy-64 wrote:

Don't know why any one buys these things when you can down load Endomondo and Strava onto your iphone or Android phone what tell you ever thing you need to know, and if you get lost just use google maps.

Because,my phone's battery life is crap and apart from that i like spending my money on things i like.

I do a lot of Audax's and although i can read an audax route map standing on my head, i still think this is a nice piece of kit. just need to decide what maps to put on it.

flasher

Robbie1958 wrote:

i still think this is a nice piece of kit. just need to decide what maps to put on it.

It's a great piece of kit, but then I'm a geek :oops:

I use the Europe City Navigators which works a treat, but does cost serious money, if I was buying again I'd look at getting the cheapest basic unit possible and trying the free mapping and see how it works, you can always buy the Garmin mapping at a later date, ebay seem to have lots (probably hacked versions no doubt).

freezing77

andy-64

Robbie1958 wrote:

andy-64 wrote:

Don't know why any one buys these things when you can down load Endomondo and Strava onto your iphone or Android phone what tell you ever thing you need to know, and if you get lost just use google maps.

Because,my phone's battery life is crap and apart from that i like spending my money on things i like.

I do a lot of Audax's and although i can read an audax route map standing on my head, i still think this is a nice piece of kit. just need to decide what maps to put on it.

andy-64

Buy a better phone

prawny

I've had an Android phone and I've got an iphone but I'd still go for a garmin over both any day of the week.

I wouldn't want to risk not having charge in my phone in case of an emergency. And I don't trust any of the phone mounts or waterproofing with a phone that would cost £500 to replace.

Also to get HR and Cadence you'd have to have either a Sony Erricson phone (no ta) or an iphone then pay extra for the wahoo fitness kit. Or you could just buy a tool that was made for the job

If I need an 8mm allen key I'll get an 8mm allen key, I wouldn't make do with a 6mm and a 2mm one put together.

Edit: Still don't buy the maps though.

engy

Can anyone tell me the main diferences between the 705 and 800. Thanks

flasher

800 has a bigger touch screen, easier to programme and a bit more user friendly, 705 still good but clunky!

Robbie1958

andy-64 wrote:

Buy a better phone

Or maybe if you don't have anything useful to add, find a subject that you might be able to offer some constructive help on

ben16v

check in your local cotswold outdoor shop - they had os maps national parks going for £20 instead of £80 and the parts that arent in the parks are good to - not quite as good as navigator but good enough

keith57

I stopped using the UK OS mapping on my Garmin 800 and went back to using the City Navigator Europe mapping. The OS mapping looks great, especially when walking or mountaineering where you can stop to study the screen, but I found it far too detailed when actually riding - hard to see the roads sometimes! The OS mapping is raster (dots) rather than vector (lines) based and is noticeably slower when scrolling around too. The City Navigator Europe is mostly very good, easy to see most roads, especially alpine cols with all the hairpins, but can be a bit vague in some parts of Spain!!

The open street maps are definitely worth checking out too. I seem to be always updating the database when visiting new places. Some people complain about the quality not really realising they can fix any issues themselves.