Strava On Cheap Phones

khumbu8000

I'm a bit behind with mobile technology but I am going to upgrade my old blackberry and wondered which cheap phones actually work with strava. The Sony miro is my top choice but not sure if it will be too slow a processor for strava... I think it has glints as well as GPS.

If you have had good or bad results with strava and a phone then I would really appreciate if you could spend 1 min making a comment.

I couldn't find a similar thread but if you know of one then post a link please.
Cheers

gethinceri

iPhone 4S, Strava works well and charged battery will do 4 hours at least.

thistle_

If you're just recording your rides then there's other, more lightweight apps you can use than the official Strava one. They work in a similar way - press go, press stop, upload straight to your Strava account.
You could even use a more basic GPS logging app provided it records a time with each point and lets you export to a format you can upload manually to Strava.

The Strava app seems to want to sync your rides to your phone every time you open it up, which is great if you use the app for checking your times and positions but I use the website on a desktop/laptop for that side of things.

I've got an Xperia Ray and it runs Strava and IPBike no problem. Strava for Android doesn't work with ANT+ devices as far as I know, hence using IPBike.

junglist_matty

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 works well with Strava

papad

Do NOT use the HTC Wildfire S - it drops the GPS all the time

smoggysteve

Not sure people get the name of the thread "Strava on CHEAP Phones" iPhone 4S - Have a word. Even a 3GS on ebay cost about 150 for a good condition one.

sw465

HTC Desire C is hit and miss, has started to cut my rides short by about a third. Resorted to using 'Google My Tracks' which records fine, and then upload the .gpx file to Strava afterwards.

joeweston3

I run strava on my miro seems to work fine for me, never been on a ride that's run my battery out either, pretty chuffed with the whole set up if I'm honest!

deadhead1971

You may find that a more basic app like Google's MyTracks will perform more reliably on an older, slower phone, and may reduce battery drain.

lawrences

A phone with a bigger screen will have a better battery because the screen's more of a drain for normal use, so will last longer when using the strava/ a gps app with the screen off. In terms of holding signal I can only second whoever said not to get a wildfire S mine struggles to send texts.

greggbaker

I think you need to compare each phone with something consistent to gauge how accurate it is. My mate who I ride with has a good computer set up on his bike. When riding together and comparing his read out with strava on my old iPhone 4 his computer readings of mileage, climbing and time spent moving were very close to strava. However I now have a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini and when compared in the same it was way out. So I think phones definitely differ with regards to accuracy.
Hope that helps.

Hawmaw

Strava won't run on older Android operating systems. If I remember correctly it will only run on Android 2.2 or above.
If your phone has a lesser system you won't even be able to download the app.
My phone runs Android 2.1 so I use Map my Ride then export the data over to Strava on the PC.
It's a Sony Xperia X8 and the battery is good for around 4 hours when running MMR.
And I seem to get excellent GPS connectivity.

kingofthetailwind

As others have suggested, avoid HTC. My Desire S has lost half a dozen rides/runs over the last couple of months. Counting the days till my upgrade!

overlord2

You'd be better off with the Garmin 200 imo. Smart phones arn't good enough - poor battery life, random reboots/crashes, and a mystical force field that seems to drain your battery in 10 minutes occasionally.

seanorawe

Overlord2 wrote:

You'd be better off with the Garmin 200 imo. Smart phones arn't good enough - poor battery life, random reboots/crashes, and a mystical force field that seems to drain your battery in 10 minutes occasionally.

This

If you are buying a cheap phone, just to run Strava and you are planning on using your current phone for normal phone usage, buy a garmin. They are more accurate and have better batt life. You can upload your data on to Strava for your segment data. The classifieds on this site I noticed have a few for sale

whitestar1

iPhone 3GS

khumbu8000

I already have a Forerunner 305 so no probs recording, but want to do away with the uploading bit. I also wondered if a smartphone with starva app would tell me when I was approaching a segment, or do you just have to remember where they start and finish?

smoggysteve

This is my last fortnight with various GPS.

iPhone 3GS - Reasonable, but hit trees or built up areas, it goes all over, Strava records me as being over 50m away from path in places
Nike+ GPS watch - Better results but still patchy in heavy overhead foliage.
Garmin 500 - Big Big difference. Clean and accurate paths. says I was were I actually was, not 50m vaguely either side on winding uphill paths. so much better. You do not know how good it is until you use it.