Garmin 830 vs 1030

Perhaps you have not noticed the 7.85 firmware beta available. It has the features of the 830 and works very well.

I like the comparative table in this review:

averagejoecyclist.com/.../

Which of the 830 features have been effected in the 1030 via the latest firmware?

Having owned both: 

1030 - I could not keep the thing connected to my phone.  Every few days I'd have to 'forget' the connection and spend 15 minutes fighting with it to re-pair.  This was with 3 separate units, and 2 phones over the course of a year.  There was just no fixing it.  In the rare instance it stayed connected during a ride, receiving SMS would often shut the device down. 

830 - Phone has (NEVER) had to be re-paired.  Stays connected, messages appear just fine.  I have the occasional sensor disconnects (same as 1030) but they always pick back up.  GPS on the other hand is pretty bad on the 830 / 530.  The new Sony chipsets in the 830 / 530 are not good.  This is not just affecting Garmin, but pretty much all new GPS active-wear devices from different brands.  They're easy on battery, bad on accuracy.  For me, it hasn't been an issue because I put a wheel sensor on every bike and it's accurate enough to tell me which trails I'm on.  I would never rely on GPS alone on any device for an accurate distance on a trail ride, but the 1030 is much more accurate (so far). 

-I will say that climb pro is 100% useless to me as they require that you be following a route.  I was pretty bummed to see that I can't just click around and say 'navigate here' and use the feature.  Who sets a pre-planned route on a mountain bike network?   On the other hand, I can see why Garmin might prefer using routes for this, rather than the elevation map data for accuracy reasons. 

-The Trailforks data is pretty cool.  It's worth noting however that it is a separate map overlap and will double up with the openstreetmap trail data.  This can get a bit cluttered.  You can get the trailforks maps straight from trailforks if you have a 1030.  (Donate to your local club and you get lifetime access to one state of your choice). 

ClimbPro is not a feature targeting MTB. It is for road riders that do follow a course, because it needs a course to compute the climbs. Sure it does not work well for MTB, and that not a fault, just not what it is designed for.

"On the other hand, I can see why Garmin might prefer using routes for this, rather than the elevation map data for accuracy reasons."

I don't think the DEM data already installed on the Garmin is any less accurate than the DEM data being used to create the route. (There aren't that many sources of DEM data.)

It wouldn't be that hard to add elevation data to a route generated on the device.

I suspect the reason they aren't adding the code to do that and use the data is because they are fairly conservative about making changes to the code.

That's an interesting observation regarding the compass. I noticed that my 1030 does not know which way it faces when stopped so I have gotten confused two or three times. 

This is a great improvement and it's nice to have this, I obviously wont upgrade my 1030 just to have this, but it is a small paper cut that I'm glad they fixed.

Looks like the 830 just got a GPS update so my previous statement about poor accuracy is hopefully wrong now.

I always draw routes in strava for mountains , either that i knew the route or not, I like to see the elevation and how much I have to climb ahead in order to pace myself

The 830 is faster and syncs better than the 1030 but the display is smaller.  Because of the constant syncing hassles with the 1030 I’ve sold mine and am happy with the 830.