My Garmin Edge 705 has been experienced for approximately 6 weeks during road riding and trail hiking, and the results show that this GPS is the best one I have ever used, or even the best one among other solutions offered by the market. So, everything is great about the device – both the heart rate monitor and the mapping software, speed or cadence monitor, and just everything else.
As for the endurance of the batteries, I can state they get charged in a few hours, and then serves you for quite a long time.
After setting the cadence (speed) monitor on the stay, especially on the aerodynamic stays of a carbon fiber bike, it will be excellently tight. The installation guide fails to explain the installation details properly, so I’ve tried to install it myself, and now I recommend you to loosen the screw before setting it up, and keep the sensor arm not close to the unit body. So, you should, first, test the sensor speed for the wheel, and the cadence for the crank, and afterwards, everything should be drawn down.
As for the handlebar settlement, I have got some complaints about it. Well, first of all, it could have more options, and a high-quality design, a more comfortable catch latch that would be released more easily when being new, and wouldn’t break off so quickly afterwards; besides, when running or hiking, it could also make a safer clog from the GPS to the body (or bike).
If you’re interested in the Garmin Edge 705 hard case, Amazon and Garmin offer a hard case that is able to fit 4 devices together. As you can guess, one of the worth mentioning points concerning the Edge is its compactness for off-bike uses. Of course, it would be great to have a wrist mount! On the other hand, the Forerunner mount cannot be used. So, an iPod holder would be the most preferable solution in this case – with a face being clear and with no colors, and with a small joystick hole. Besides, I recommend you to buy a fine protector for the screen.
I advise you to spend some money on purchasing a map card. The Topo card is preferable in those cases when you travel around the US, the City card is preferable for those places that are marked by Garmin. As for me, I use both of them – the Topo card includes data that exist on the City card, and also data on hiking trails, and on elevation and lines or outlines, etc. I’d like also to mention about the base map because there is nothing great about it – it looks like the base map of the Garmin 12. So, you have to make your own one beforehand with waypoints, tracks, and then make it downloaded into the unit. So, in case you get off the already marked track, you should refer to your track and the loaded waypoints. Thus, purchasing the card is highly recommended!
As far as the satellite acquisition is concerned, I’d say it is the most perfect one, for various GPS, I have ever had. As for the accuracy, when you get off the road, you’ll be reported about it, and in case of the majority of roads or trails, it serves just to a great extent!
There are some other astonishing features concerning Garmin Edge 705 – these are the Garmin Training Center (TC) software, and the fact that the information on your rides can easily be exported to the Google Earth. So, the points (during your rides), originated by the Google Earth, are to show your heart rate and velocity, cadence and other features.
The only complaint I can express in this regard, is that the exported data is carried out as follows – the TC exports them into tcx files, which are the modified versions of the xml formats. In order to keep these data recorded in a history file, I go through all the data for each separate ride, then a data row is created for each of the collected points in approximately 1/30seconds. Well, all these rides are kept recorded in the mentioned file.
To sum up, I’d like see the Power recording options at affordable prices. On the whole, I can really state this is the best and the right option for cyclists. I will never change Garmin Edge 705 for another one
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