After many years of dedicated Garmin eTrex use, kilometers requires a close look within Garmin sides 830 to see if it’s a deserving improve from most well known product in bikepacking navigation. Listed Below Are his feelings after a few months helpful, plus a side-by-side parison along with his trusty Garmin eTrex 20x…
I purchased my Garmin eTrex 20x—the same one I continue to use today—back in 2016. I bought they when preparing for a vacation throughout the Kokopelli walk, that has been the first time I had to develop a dependable routing equipment, and almost every blog and discussion board ranked it as being among the best choices for bikepacking. If you’re looking to follow a gpx track from point A to point B, the Garmin eTrex 20x is tough to conquer. It’s run on AA battery packs, the unit is long lasting, weatherproof, and dependable, also it’s fairly easy to utilize. It’s got acpanied me on nearly every bikepacking trip I’ve come on in the final four ages and I’ve created a routine for loading course and map documents that works well in my situation, no matter if that procedure was only a little clunky occasionally.
Since putting van existence on hold and moving to the shore, I’ve have an urban area to contact ‘home’ the very first time in a while. It’s no coincidence that my latest yard is actually bursting with logging highways and singletrack, and is two ferry adventures from Vancouver, making it a great spot to hunker down during the pandemic. Which brings me personally returning to the subject in front of you: with that said, the Garmin eTrex is perhaps the quintessential dependable routing unit for bikepacking around. As mentioned, the interface is a bit clunky, loading routes and maps could possibly be easier, nevertheless supplies effective routing hardware which will have you heading from inside the correct path. For almost all multi-day bikepacking visits, the Garmin eTrex 20x still is my favorite GPS unit. However for neighborhood day adventures on mountain cycle trails? Less.
After some fast internet looking and publishing an Instagram research or two, we landed regarding Garmin advantage 830. The advantage 830 was launched in 2019 as an updated type of the advantage 820, and although numerous facets stayed unchanged, modern adaptation obtained some pretty substantial improvement that appeared promising. This incorporated an updated touchscreen, more quickly running speeds, some pretty unique navigation qualities, and my favorite, Ride With GPS and Trailforks integration. Like the majority of modern-day cycle puters, the Garmin Edge 830 now offers lots of sophisticated training functions that I’m not into. Therefore, because of this review, I’m looking at the device as a parison into eTrex 20x after using it for many several months.
Side 830 VS. eTrex 20x
Decreasing difference between the Edge 830 and eTrex 20x is the fact that former are a cycling-specific GPS puter plus the eTrex try a handheld unit with fewer cycling-specific properties. Whilst sides 830 are stuffed chock-full of different smart characteristics, alerts, knowledge metrics, and a lot more sophisticated connection (Wifi, Ant+, and Bluetooth), the eTrex is much more of a standard gps device tool that is perfect for appropriate a pre-planned course. Without scuba diving also strong, all advantage collection puters may do far more than the eTrex handhelds, but both are great equipment for bikepacking.
Advantage 830
- Battery Life: as much as 40 time
- Display Size: 2.6? Diagonal
- Satellites: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO
- Power Type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion
- Memory: Inner Memory Just, 16gb
- Proportions: 1.9? x 3.2? x 0.8?
- Body weight: 80 grms
- Terms: $399.99 USD
eTrex 20x
- Battery Life: around 25 time
- Display Dimensions: 2.2? Diagonal
- Satellites: GPS, GLONASS
- Battery Sort: 2 AA Battery Packs
- Storage: Internal / External, 32gb maximum
- Dimensions: 2.1? x 4.0? x 1.3?
- Body weight: 130 g (with two AA electric batteries)
- Cost: $199.99 USD
Although I’m a huge enthusiast of my personal eTrex 20x, there are a few important attributes that ready the advantage 830 apart from they. Initial, the 830 makes use of an inside Lithium-Ion power supply instead of two AA electric batteries. I’ve found the interior battery regarding the 830 as less suffering from cold weather, and power draw is more foreseeable while out on the path. Even if making use of lithium AA electric batteries in my eTrex, it’s difficult to predict how quickly they’ll wanted changing and it doesn’t deal with temperatures fluctuations besides. This implies the 830 can be charged via a portable cache electric battery, that will be helpful for those running dynamo hubs, anyone who really wants to abstain from single-use AA battery packs, or on extended more remote visits. My personal earliest ride by using the 830 ended up being six days long, in temperatures merely above freezing with many wind, therefore the electric battery dropped to 87per cent. Most of my tours are typically in ‘battery save mode’ which adjusts the setup immediately to give the battery lifetime for a longer time flights. I’ve additionally combined the 830 with Garmin’s cost Power Pack (133 g / $129), which plugs straight into the back of the unit’s club mount and an extra twenty four hours of life of the battery. The eTrex tends to be run from an external cache electric battery, they won’t fee. Nevertheless, I recognize the user friendliness of changeable battery packs referring to why I’ve caught aided by the eTrex for way too long.
The next greatest differences, which was a game-changer for my situation, could be the graphical user interface and connection options the Edge 830 has. The touchscreen is effective, even though moist or with gloves on, and is also a giant intensify from the clunky user interface for the eTrex. Paired with a smartphone, the 830 may load roads via Bluetooth in just a few moments, which can be certainly one of my personal favourite features. With Garmin’s inbuilt arablounge quizy trip With GPS application, there’s no reason to export GPX data, keep an eye on wiring, and on occasion even use a puter—simply choose and install. The procedure is very simple and fast that I’ve started planning time adventures on Ride With GPS and TrailForks and downloading them on the 830 therefore I don’t need confirm I’m going from inside the correct path and may as an alternative consider operating. For bikepacking, I could see this being very useful whenever upgrading a route about fly without the need for a puter or any cables. It’s well worth noting that newest eTrex Touch 35 is now designed with Ant+ and Bluetooth, however it sells for $299.99 features a battery life of doing 16 hrs, and that’sn’t really much of an upgrade.
