Got my new Edge 1030 Plus in order to replacce my old Garmin Edge 1000. Read a lot of finde things in Garmin product presentations but I have to state that Garmin did not a good job up to now:
1. display: compared with my old Garmin Edge 1000 or even the cheap Edge Explore model the display of the Edge 1030 Plus is an embarassement:
first I thought the display is in a kind of stand by modus (one knows from mobile phones when they dims the display when not used) - however even when Display is
set to 100% it is much darker, colours are pale and weak - both menues and cards, week contrast.
One has to say it is better in direct sunlight, but this is not sufficient for a n outdoor gear! I thought at first that I got a defective Edge 1030 plus but we checked
at the bike shop with 4 other new Edge 1030 plus - alls devices had the same weak display.
Dont know what Garmin devekopers thought when implementing this bad display quality to their new Edge top model ...
2. Basecamp 4.7.2 - so the actual version - does not recognize the Edge 1030 Plus and is therefore only usable iwth lmited functions - distressing
3. Garmin Birds Eye maps: I was not able to chose the "Birds Eye" map download-function with the new Edge 1030 Plus - wherea no problem with the old Edge 1000 this function is not possible for the new top model - so one has no other choice than to upload custom maps - which often does not work properly with garmin devices (my old Garmin Edge 1000 often often crash/freezed during bike/mountain hiking tours when using kmz-maps.
This is really akward for such an expensive device: Garmin seems to sell their new Edge 1030 Plus without updating their own planning and map-loading software!
maybe Garmin can issue a statement to this point and a timeline when this issue will be fixed.
Without this feature and therefore solid maps usable the new Edge 1030 plus device is worthless for long bike tours and especially hiking tours as one can see no paths/trails (forget the new trailfork maps - I checked them for some of the bike locations throughout Euroe where I have biked in the past - not usable).
Anyway I have to say: IF the mentioned 3 issues can be solved by Garmin (dont know how they will do this with the weak display built in) the Edge 1030 Plus could be an excellent device:for the first time the built-in processor has a fine speed eg allowing card moving at amazing speed.The black colour looks great.
So hopefully Garmin reacts very quickly and change a current unsatisfactory device to a successful one. I use garmin Edge devices since a lot of years and dont want to change the brand.
Greetings
ProfGruen
