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A couple of questions regarding the 1030 Plus.

Hi.

I've had my 1030 for a couple of years (well actually several units as I've suffered with Blue Halo twice). I often do long rides with Navigation starting in the early hours so for me long battery life is very important. I have a couple of questions and would appreciate others comparison between the 1030 and the 1030 plus.

1) With the 1030 when loading long routes, quite often the route calculation will fail once or twice before being available to use which can mean 10 - 15 minutes or so into a ride before the route is available to follow with turn by turn navigation enabled. How does the loading speed of long routes compare between 1030 and 1030 plus ? Anyone had any long route recalculations before getting it locked into the device ?

2) I find with the 1030 that charging from low battery levels can be very slow taking hours. Are there any improvements with the 1030 plus that make charging quicker ?

3) I found with the 1030 that I would get roughly 10% battery usage per hour. Anyone got any feedback on the 1030 plus yet as to the approximate hourly consumption ?

Thanks

Phill

0 9006078 over 2 years ago

I have had this 1030 plus for a week I did a grocery store I was gone about an hour and used only 1% of battery I was amazed.

0 steve over 2 years ago

The majority of my rides are about three hours.I also use the Garmin Varia tail light. My battery level is usually around 93-92% full.

0 v1sionmaster over 2 years ago in reply to steve

Same for me - the battery life is amazing (RTL515 radar also) .

0 v1sionmaster over 2 years ago

In terms of charging, do you know what the mAh rating of your chrger is? I use a 2000mAh Garmin Charger. Thed device charge time will obviously depend on the battery drain % you are charging up from. The larger battery would take longer to charge from 0% than the 1030 simply because it has a higher capacity (20 hours which I find completely believable). I doubt that charging will be any quicker, BUT the battery will drain less in the same amount of ride time.

With the current list of problems within the 1030 Plus (some would affect you and some wouldn't depending on how you use it) then I may be inclined if you think you might be able to afford it to wait for the 1040 - perhaps next year sometime? You mentioned the display halo, have you ever seen the display on the Edge 1000? That was SOOOO much more vivid and mine wouldn't have been replaced if I hadn't left it on the car roof and driven off in a rush ;-)

The processor is supposed to be faster on the 1030 plus but I can't see I've noticed any difference on route loading times. In fact I'd say they load no quicker than on the Edge 1000 ...

0 colin-campbell over 2 years ago

I have had my 1030 Plus for over a year. Multiple times, I have run the unit for many rides without charging it, and gotten over 50 hours of riding on one charge. That equates to a 2% battery drain per hour, not using Navigation, and having the screen brightness set to Auto (meaning it is off most of the time, since I ride in daylight). I bought an External Battery Pack when I had the 1030, and using it with my 1030 Plus, I have gone approximately 100 hours on a single charge of the two devices.

This model still uses a USB 2.0 connection, so it doesn't get any more current than the 1000 or 1030 did, so I don't think it recharges any faster. One reply says the 1030 Plus has a larger battery than the 1030. I don't think this is correct; I think the 1030 Plus is better at conserving battery capacity, mostly due to the Sony GPS chip set.

I have plans to test battery life when using Navigation on every ride, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Also note that the 1030 Plus still has "Battery Save Mode", which blanks the screen until you stop, or until Navigation has instructions for you. If you were to turn this feature on, you should be able to ride for 12 hours a day for a week or more without charging the unit.

An opinion about starting a Navigation route: If you plan a very long, perhaps multiple day, ride, break it up into smaller segments, perhaps on the order of half day or full day segments. This will let the Edge calculate your route in a reasonable time. And as you progress through the route, you won't be wasting time calculating through places you've already been. I'd save my ride FIT files multiple times per day, too, to avoid some kind of mishap that causes you to lose a record of your ride.

Lastly, read the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus review at DCRainMaker.com.

You will run out of legs before your Edge 1030 Plus runs out of battery!

0 jsky1234 over 2 years ago

Much better battery life was the main reason for me to upgrade from 1030 to 1030 Plus. Been doing 3-4 hours rides per day in winter season and now don't have to worry about charging the battery for the whole week. It's a great solution for multi-day escapes. Note that is with no any external devices such as lights or phone continuously connected. Charging time is roughly the same and speaking of that my only complaint is no USB-C port. 1030 Plus has a much faster CPU so loading long routes is a lot quicker and it also caches data (not sure if 1030 has that feature too).

0 v1sionmaster over 2 years ago

4 1/2 hours today and the battery was down to 85% with Varia Radar connected, so about 3% per hour :-)

0 Scillonian over 2 years ago in reply to jsky1234

From my experience of the hardware reliability of USB-C ports I think Garmin made a wise decision to stay with Micro-USB for its reliability.

0 v1sionmaster over 2 years ago in reply to Scillonian

Interesting ... there have been strong hints that any future Garmin devices will have USB C. I have no devices that use it, but see the attraction of it not being polarised and therefore able to go in either way up. Some Micro USB ports can be a little hard to see, so ensuring the plug is the right way up before pushing it home can be a problem, especially in low light or if you need glasses (like me) ;-) So USB C removes that problem. What I have often found strange is the way that the plugs (Micro and C) are straight rather than being perhaps set at 90 degrees (in line with the plane of the body) so that there can be less leverage on them. It's that which often results in straining the socket on the PCB breaking the solder joints or ( in the case of micro) the tab in the socket.

However, if you have found USB C to be no stronger then it's a 'double-edged sword' :-)

0 Scillonian over 2 years ago in reply to v1sionmaster

With Micro-USB it is a metal plug in a metal socket. Solid and generally wear resistant.

With USB-C there is more plastic. Choose the wrong plastic in the socket and you get accelerated wear, the plug can move in the socket and you start to get connection problems.