Customer Reviews

Garmin Edge 605 Bicycle Monitor with GPS

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I think that the previous reviews for the 605 are a bit harsh. Let me get right to the negatives of the product as I see it.

1. The route algoritm allows you to select an option where it diverts you around major highways and roads. While this works 90% of the time, every so often it will direct me right onto a major highway or traffic circle when there are better routes available.

2. Backlighting settings not being saved is a pain as the other reviewer mentioned

3. The straps that the 605 comes with to attach to your bike aren't strong enough. After a few rides my 605 tends to move around to much requiring constant re-adjustment, especially on bumpy roads. I plan on adding some velcro to the back which should solve the problem

4. The free Training Center software that you can use with the 605 is pretty much a waste. Outside of storing your rides and keeping a history of ride statistics, it's not worth the download.

5. The detailed street maps do not come standard with the unit. For $399 I was expecting them to and don't think Garmin made this point clear on their site.

Outside of the above, I really don't think that I could not recommend the 605. Its not perfect but it really does make riding easier when you don't have to mentally keep track of where you are or worry about getting lost.

I bought the 605 for a couple of reasons.

First was the turn-by-turn directions.

What Garmin is vague about is that to get turn-by-turn directions, you have to buy their City Navigator Map card for another $100.

Ok, fine. Bought the map.

First attempt at getting directions - picked a destination 25 miles from home (nothing too difficult, as a test). The unit literally took 23 minutes to plot the course. 23 minutes! Unbelievable. Car navigators take seconds. Once the unit plotted the course, I noticed that it took me through the Holland Tunnel (leaving New York City) and on a freeway. Not exactly how I pictured my first bike ride with the thing.

Ok, so maybe the plotting doesn't work so well. I figured maybe I could just create routes on my computer and upload them to the device. Nope. Not possible. I took a closer look at the manual. No help whatsoever. It's a joke, actually. On-line help? Ha.

Go to Garmin's website. Download the manual. Try to find any good, specific, detailed information on how to really use the device. It's not possible.

Somewhere in the Amazon listing, Garmin also promises SPOKEN directions. Nope. Totally not a feature either.

It's really amazing how bad this thing is. It does almost nothing except tell you where you are. Which is what my $90 Garmin Geko did 4 years ago.

As for the cycle-computer functions, I got better data with my $30 Cateye. The Garmin's data is very slow to update and the altitude was always wrong. The unit doesn't come with a heart rate strap - and I didn't expect it to. But if you ever want to upgrade later and add one - forget it. You need the 705 for that. I really can't believe what a piece of junk this is.

Also, it lets you set the backlight level - nice feature, except that whenever you turn the unit off, it forgets your setting and reverts to no backlight. So everytime you turn the thing on you have to reset your backlight setting. Arg.

It is true that you can log on to Motion Based (Garmin's GPS web-community) and download other users' routes. But the unit will only hold one at a time. And there's no way to edit the routes. You can't edit your own routes on a computer either. So frustrating.

I've never been so underwhelmed over a product.

Here's all I want (Garmin, are you listening?):

-Decent turn-by-turn directions. For a BICYCLE. And instantly (or under 2 minutes).
-Ability to download routes I've ridden and edit them, then upload them back to the device.
-Ability to create a route from scratch and upload it to the device.

I'm not asking for much. This thing does NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Whatever you do, don't buy this thing. Unless you want to buy mine on eBay.

I agree with the first reviewer, I bought this anticipating it at least had some maps and streets on it, it has pretty much nothing, it is worthless until you buy a sd card with the preloaded maps, to top it off the descriptions of what you can expect when you buy an sd card whether it be a topo map of an area or city navigator is pretty vague, I also thought I would be able to upload routes and follow them, no, nope, not happening until someone hacks into this thing, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't buy this, I bought a Quest (garmin) a few years ago for a couple hundred more dollars and a bike mount and used that with much more success, I would still be using it if it still worked, (kept falling off windshield of car until the antenna broke off)
another better option would be a nuvi with a bike mount, 199.00 + bike mount, anyway I wouldnt reccomend this item. but I will say this, having a gps on my bike has been a life saver where I ride, dirtroads, min maint roads, sometimes far from home, I have been able to ride without fear of getting lost and not getting home or wondering how far from home I am as well as being able to tell my wife exactly where I need rescued at. I do reccomend GPS for your bike if you are going to be in this situation, I love it, but I would go with the Quest with the bike mount.

I agree with all the reviewers.

1. You have to buy City Navigator for 100 bucks! Why isn't it included?
2. The backlight problem is irritating
3. It does lead you off to busier roads sometimes when there are better roads available. (even if you set the unit to avoid using highways)
4. Over and above, if you have to quickly enter a cue sheet or way points on the unit, god help you. You'll stay behind entering info while the rest of the group would have finished the first half of the ride and are on their way back.

And all said and done, it is still useful (if you get City Navigator) and you plan ahead carefully and you do your homework. You can download and upload routes even though it is not so straight forward.
It also needs a little getting used to.

Bottom line: If you have the money....and don't care that it adds only so much value for 500 bucks....buy it.
Otherwise you'll end up with buyer's remorse - for sure.

We bought the Edge 605 with the North America SD card for local bicycle safe roads. Without this card, you are directed to highways. My husband wanted a GPS so he could take random roads to find new routes and then be able to find his way home. His average ride is 50 - 70 miles. Being able to meander through country roads and then push "go home" and actually be dropped at your front door is great. He's not computer literate, so it's been a learning curve for him, but he loves it. He ignored a turn and wound up in a busy strip mall with a lot of traffic. He decided to trust the GPS unit, still thinking it would throw him on a highway. He was pleasantly surprised when it directed him across the hwy to local roads.

The only negative comment I have is needing the SD card to be routed to SAFE roads for cyclists. It should be part of the package.

Trying to get directions with this thing is nearly impossible. First, it takes a very long time for it to calculate the route. It gets to 100% then you wait like 5-10 minutes for it to finish. Then on top of that, the route doesn't even end at your destination. It is beyond frustrating.

Just using the map to see where you are barely works as well. I use this in the NYC area and the map gets completely covered with icons that I don't want to see in the first place that the map becomes unreadable. It is laughable broken.

So,the only thing I can use this for is for setting up a preset route that I create using their navigator software. The navigator software is so tedious to use that I've simply given up.

Finally, it sometimes the thing just dies in the middle of a ride and there goes all your data and if you're lucky you end up completely lost with a useless $400 gps.

Defintely do not buy this.

As you can probably tell from my title, I'm a bit dissapointed with the Garmin Edge 605. First I realized that NO maps come with the edge. You must buy them for around $100 each. (I don't really call the included freeway maps relevant to a bike computer.) Anyway, you must find the "Trainer" application on their web site. When you run it, it has all the sophistication of software written for PCs in the early 90s. It also crashes often just like the 90s software. (To be fair, it says you can install Google earth to see your tracks on top of Google maps.)

Last week I purchased a Droid Motorola phone. I found a free app under the "Market", in Lifestyles category called "My Tracks". This app tracked my route as well as the Garmin, and it has better maps, I just tap a menu item to send it to my google account. If you are thinking of buying a Garmin or any handheld GPS you should really consider instead just buying a Droid. Don't fool around with multiple devices especially while biking.

Now here's a "however": I have no mount for the Droid for my bike. It just goes where I always keep my cell phone. So this could be the clincher for sticking with the separate Garmin GPS. But I'll bet dollars to donuts that bike mounts for the Droid will be showing up soon.

After using the Droid and My Tracks, Garmin has some major catching up to do.

Reviews are spot on for this product.
Need to spend another $80 for a map that shows more than interstates.
Backlight annoying.
Setting routes, etc a pain.

All in all, I'm sorry I didn't read the reviews first. Shame on me.

As the title says. This is a great unit for the price. Presonally I have been using this for GPS for 1 month and I am very happy with it's performance and the simple it is to use it. The package I purchased included the detailed maps for an additional $10 in a 2gig card. The unit is very simply to use out of the box, this is my first GPS unit and I was able to figure out the options and settings pretty quickly. Creating, following and navigating routes is not as simple to do, but once you learn how to do it, it works really well and is not hard to do.

I am amazed with the satelite reception, it works extremel good, the day I received the unit, I charged it and turned it on indoors, to my surprise, it took less than 30 seconds to find enough satelites to move on to the next screen. I have tried it in different places of the house, even the basement and the still manages to find enough satelites to work with at least 15 to 20 feet accuracy.

As far as the routing, I am not a road cyclist, but I took the unit with me to a couple of places and requested routing back home. The unit was actually pretty quick in giving me directions and even those times that I purposedly skipped the next turn, the unit re-routed w/out issues. It does take a bit long to re-route for a car, but I think that if I was on a road bike, it the time it took to calculate would be fine.

On the trail this unit does excellent, it tracks my waypoints, the route, elevation, speed... etc. I am very happy with it. bottom line I think this is a grea unit for those who want to have a GPS unit and don't need all that extra stuff for "training" like heart monitor or candace. Love my GPS unit!

After buying and using the Edge 605 and reading some of the negative reviews I can't help wondering if we are using the same unit. I can only surmise that some of these people didn't spent enough time researching before buying and learning how to use the device.

1. It is true that detailed route maps (City Navigator) will cost you an extra $85-$100. This has always been true of Garmin GPSr (except the auto units) mainly because many customers don't want (hikers, hunters) these or already have the maps on DVD (like me) that are being used with other Garmin GPSr. Garmin also has different types of mapsets: City, Topo, Marine, etc. So the customer has the option of choosing which maps they want. Turn by turn instruction has worked fine for me although I don't have the unit calculate the route for me (as one reviewer did for New York City!), I use a free website such as Bike Route Toaster to create and then upload the route to my Edge.

2. Backlight - This is a non issue for me. Outside, where the unit is meant to be used I can see the display perfectly without the backlight on. In fact the display washes out when I use the backlight outdoors. Indoors it is defiantly required. Having the backlight on while riding also drains the battery at a faster rate so I don't want it to automatically come on.

3. Mouunt Slipping - this can be an issue if you don't use the supplied rubber sleeve when installing mount. I did and have had no problems.

4. Manual - could be better but I am familiar with Garmin units and how they work. There was a manual on CD in the box that explained all the features.

In closing I like the unit and does everything I thought it would. The custom screens are a nice feature as is getting rid of magnets and sensors on the fork of my bike. I would suggest checking for updates to firmware before using the GPSr.

Is this a lot to pay for a bike computer, yes. Is this a lot to pay for a turn by turn GPSr with a SiRF-111 chip, no. In the end I justified the cost because I am going to be using it on three different bikes so for the cost of three bike computers I got one.