Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Device, Beware of Hidden Map Costs, April 4, 2008
I've had my 705 for about 3 weeks and have used it on over 400 miles of bike training. It's a great bike computer - very easy to setup, lots of data available, but only the data you decide to have on each screen. The GPS and in-unit maps are great. Installation is also easy since the sensor is wireless.
The Garmin Training Center software (Windows version in my case) is okay, but appears to have only basic integration with the 705 so far. GTC is a separate, but free, download from the Garmin site. Hopefully future versions will provide more/better 705 integration.
Something to watch out for as it isn't mentioned in the 705 docs or on the Garmin site, if you buy the 705 with the map card, those detailed maps will only be available in the 705, not in GTC. If you want detailed maps in GTC, you have to buy a PC/Mac version of the very same maps you have on the 705. That's another $100-130 on top of the $600-700 you just spent on the 705. Why? Ask Garmin.
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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garmin Edge 705 review, April 16, 2008
I have used my Garmin Edge 705 for a little over a week now. I upgraded from the Edge 305. When I first received my 705, the instructions stated to charge it before using it. The 705 came with a half charge so I didn't think it would take that long to fully charge it. 2 days later it was charged. Garmin Support told me "The expected time of charge is around 3 hours. The problem you see is a software bug. Let the unit run completely down and once you charge it next time it will show the correct information." Since doing this, the charge times are back in line.
Using the 705 is very similar to the 305. It uses the same handlebar mounts, heart rate monitor and cadence sensor. The 705 is slightly larger in size and uses a `joy stick' located between the Lap and Start/Stop buttons for navigating the menus. So, those with the 305 should have no problems adjusting to the 705.
Mine came with the pre-loaded Navigator maps. Using Garmin's MapSource, you can download waypoints and routes to the 705. The 705 has an auto-routing feature to guide you from waypoint to waypoint. It has three modes to adjust your route from point to point (Car/Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Pedestrian). Using the Bicycle mode, my routes went waaay out of the way and added many unnecessary miles. Even though I told it to avoid unpaved roads, it tried to route me down several. If you miss a turn, it will re-route you back on course. It would be best to use a third party mapping software and download more precise waypoints/routes to the 705. In Car/Motorcycle mode, it looked to route fine.
The battery life is very long (about 15 hours)! I left it on overnight and woke up to it still running. My 305 had problems with turning itself off when going over bumps. The 705 has never experienced this problem. The 705 is also faster to lock on to satellites than the 305.
Overall, I am satisfied with the 705. It would have received 5 stars if not for trying to route me way off course in Bicycle mode and the initial battery charge issue.
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50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great unit, some flaws, April 16, 2008
Rating is more like 3.5 stars:
It is an expensive unit, but there's not much on the market that has so many features. Most early adopters will have fun playing with this device.
It is remarkably light given the number of features - in fact, it is as light as my small previous computer, given its cadence sensor was wired (wire weight adds up quickly).
First, the positives:
-installation on Mac OS X was flawless - the SW has some major issues (below),
-device setup (both HW and profiles) was trivial
-customizable screens on a LOT of data.
The negatives
-I doubt (no trials yet) the battery will last 15 hours with the backlight on, even for brief moments. I think Garmin knows this, which may be why the unit will not remember your backlight % strength setting: it will drop to 0% each and every time you sync the unit
-The screen is all but unreadable without the backlight at 100%, and, even then, is hard to read, in a common case: when the device itself is in shadow (your own, cast over it from riding on the hoods of a road bike), but full sun is out (presumably the rider is wearing sunglasses)
-The mounting bracket is the weakest I've seen in a long time. There's a huge amount of play between the unit and the mount - and it's all plastic, with a single tiny plastic "foot" that keeps the unit from flying off - so: at least on my road bike, it rattles quite loudly on occasion (on pavement). The mount itself will quickly starting rotating around the handlebar (horizontal mount) unless you carefully place your own compression in the right places by the cheap plastic ties included.
-There's no temperature reading. This is quite strange, given the unit is feature rich, and the barometer should be temperature compensated.
-As the prior reviewer commented, the prebundled street maps are unviewable in Garmin Training Center. Since this is where you would add course notes (I am not sure of their purpose: they don't appear on the unit as far as I can tell), where detail matters, it makes course notes - and all the map viewing - really weak, as far as I can tell. On OS X, there is not option to overlay on Google Earth (presumably Windows users can).
-Even though it's somewhat pointless due to lack of accuracy, there's no estimated power. One must purchase ANT+sport enabled power units separately. The current list are good ones, but they are very expensive.
-SW has a few bugs here and there, especially GTC, and Garmin Connect ... even a few on the unit. I am sure these will be fixed in several months or so.
[Update: Garmin must receive a major demerit for their ability to manage software. Over the course of a year, they've fixed only a small fraction of the SW bugs on the unit and in GTC, and, in once case, introduced a new major flaw (the entire left hand pane of GTC wouldn't update), and took over 4 months to repair it. Ironically, the only fix in this update was this bug they introduced. This unit still has several very annoying SW flaws, a year+ into its release. The good news is, I suppose, none of them fatal - those have been fixed]
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