Why are people jumpy about unhapy owners pointing out misssing or useless features?

It's called product differentiation. it exists in all markets, on all products. You buy the product at the price you are prepared to pay knowingly accepting its limitations. What we see on here too often are people yearning for options that exist on higher priced devices but are not prepared to pay for the extra features.

Buy the device with the features you want. It's that simple. Garmin do a reasonable job of upgrading devices, but why should anyone expect them to put any or all the features of a higher priced device on a lower priced one?

You also have to remember that this is primarily a user to user forum some of what you ask would probably be better to go through the Garmin channels. When I bought my 520 I knew its limitations if maps and routing were high on my list I would have sprung for the edge 1000, just my .02 cents.

If you think Garmin are behind, go buy a Polar. Then you will see that Garmin are miles ahead. I'm quite happy having made the switch. Don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

Garmin could make available features already present in years old 510. Like map panning, elevation zooming, etc.

Explain how you plan to implement panning and zooming with the existing controls built into the 520.

Explain how you plan to implement panning and zooming with the existing controls built into the 520.

Probably I am not the best for this job, but a nobrainer would be to use + and - to zoom in out / OR pan the elevation graph.

"You buy the product at the price you are prepared to pay knowingly accepting its limitations". Do not tell me that I should buy 810 or 1000 just to be able to scroll the elevation graph...

I bought a device based on its marketing. I am a little dissapointed to try to use it and find limitations at every pace. But I give feedback and expect that some improvements will be made.

So out of curiosity where in the marketing does it imply any of the things you are requesting? When I look at the marketing on Garmin's website I get the impression when looking at the edge 520 I will get a small compact unit that will integrate with live segments from Strava and to some extent Training Peaks and work with my external sensors to give me a descent training experience. Now when I look at the Edge 1000 or 810 I get the impression that I will get a unit that will do a much better job at navigation, so I am going to state the obvious you bought the wrong unit for the features that you would like to see on the device. Again just my .02 cents.

Oh and by the way I assume you know that you can zoom in and out on a map its on page 6 of the manual.

Oh and by the way I assume you know that you can zoom in and out on a map its on page 6 of the manual.

Could you be so kind to refer to the page number where they say how to move the map around without changing zoom?

PS, I knew the limitations. I even knew this wierd procedure to change maps.
And still I am happy with the device.
But I totally agree that some things are added for marketing purposes only.
And other things are totally unusable and shall be improved

PPS: And just a real-life example. I am uploading course to 520.
I am at home.
Course is around 30 miles away and pretty compact (10-mile loop within 2x3 mile area).
So If I look at it from my location with the zoom that I see where I am - I see a dot.
If I zoom it - the course disappears from the screen (obviously, it is out of boundaries).
No way to scroll there.

Nice, isnt' it? :)

So out of curiosity where in the marketing does it imply any of the things you are requesting? When I look at the marketing on Garmin's website I get the impression when looking at the edge 520 I will get a small compact unit that will integrate with live segments from Strava and to some extent Training Peaks and work with my external sensors to give me a descent training experience. Now when I look at the Edge 1000 or 810 I get the impression that I will get a unit that will do a much better job at navigation, so I am going to state the obvious you bought the wrong unit for the features that you would like to see on the device. Again just my .02 cents.

Oh and by the way I assume you know that you can zoom in and out on a map its on page 6 of the manual.

... to the point, did you also understood from their website that nested segments will not work? These kind of limitations are we talking about. And no, if I want this to be fixed it does not imply I bought the "wrong device" because guess what: I'm expecting this problem to be found on the other devices as well.

you are wrong about POLAR

If you think Garmin are behind, go buy a Polar. Then you will see that Garmin are miles ahead. I'm quite happy having made the switch. Don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

I (and my wife) are owners of many Garmin devices and a few new ones Polar too so I can compare and Polar made a huge step foward with his V and especially M series and not mention the price tag compare to Garmin. If I take hardware of 520 and its price, its just ridiculous, slow procesor, no card slot with just 100MB memory, 100MB in 2016 !!! Hard to believe, for device that cost more that the most cell phones and has only fragment of phones calculating capacity. But its not my point, Garmin is overpriced, it without a doubt. But the new devices are released with some features, that doesnt work properly, faultly or not at all with no real intention to fix it. Garmin customer support are miles behind Polar. When Polar M400 was released, there were no notificiations, recovery funct, cadence funct ..... All these things were added with a new firmware releases. Their web for upolading is subject of often updates and new feature are added, look at Garmin and their main selling point - Segment, its has not been working for ages, without any useful statement from Garmin, look at their firmware updates periods, its often just fix few bugs and bring some new and coming so slowly - for ex, their radar, there are a few important things to fix - battery status - useluess, following car with speed less than 5mph vanishes from radar ... AND last update, more that 3 month ago, what to add, it just says everything. And somebodys saing that this forum is just for users not for Garmin? It could be reach source of information for garmin, we are just beta testers, but garmin would have care and that the problem.

I (and my wife) are owners of many Garmin devices and a few new ones Polar too so I can compare and Polar made a huge step foward with his V and especially M series and not mention the price tag compare to Garmin. If I take hardware of 520 and its price, its just ridiculous, slow procesor, no card slot with just 100MB memory, 100MB in 2016 !!! Hard to believe, for device that cost more that the most cell phones and has only fragment of phones calculating capacity. But its not my point, Garmin is overpriced, it without a doubt. But the new devices are released with some features, that doesnt work properly, faultly or not at all with no real intention to fix it. Garmin customer support are miles behind Polar. When Polar M400 was released, there were no notificiations, recovery funct, cadence funct ..... All these things were added with a new firmware releases. Their web for upolading is subject of often updates and new feature are added, look at Garmin and their main selling point - Segment, its has not been working for ages, without any useful statement from Garmin, look at their firmware updates periods, its often just fix few bugs and bring some new and coming so slowly - for ex, their radar, there are a few important things to fix - battery status - useluess, following car with speed less than 5mph vanishes from radar ... AND last update, more that 3 month ago, what to add, it just says everything. And somebodys saing that this forum is just for users not for Garmin? It could be reach source of information for garmin, we are just beta testers, but garmin would have care and that the problem.

The only Polar watch I have experience with is the RCX5 and it is the same today as it was when I bought it in 2012. I have watched as Polar introduced updates to their watches and improved their functionality. I have been an active member on their forums, helping where I could.

Polar's foray into bike computers has been less than successful. Their flagship model, the V650, was released to the market 12 months later than when they initially promised it. I was eagerly awaiting the V650 to the point where as soon as it was available for pre-order, I did so though a local retailer. At the time of release it was nothing more than a large, touch screen device which allowed you to see how you were performing at the time. There was no mapping, no route navigation, no advanced training features. The capacitive touch screen didn't work with thick gloves and would do its own thing when it was rained on (unless you locked the screen). Polar introduce the ability to change screens with a button press 6 months after they released it and after the southern hemisphere winter when it would have been useful to me. They also allowed you to put maps on the device so you could see where you were. They have only just introduced route guidance and course import. Their route guidance is rudimentary, to say the least, with no turn notifications. They have only just now introduced mobile sync to the V650, but your phone needs to support peripheral mode otherwise you're still syncing with a cable. Power meter compatibility (not that I have one) is a bit of a mess too.

Six months after the V650 they introduced the M450. I was a bit annoyed as it was the device I would have chosen of the two as it better suited how I would use it. Nevertheless, I also bought one of these on pre-order through the same shop as my V650. Smaller, lighter than the V650 and just sat their recording my rides. I was happier with then M450 than I was with the V650 as a computer. The V650 was a bit of a let down.

What killed it for me was the background stuff. Strava sync became hit and miss as to whether it would work. Sometimes the time zone on my Strava data was out and required a find and replace to fix the TCX file. Their development pace was painfully slow and it looked like they were never going to catch up. They would promise features and not deliver on time (if at all). Their updates were infrequent and often only minor (at least for the products I had). I never used their mobile sync as it was slow and their app was only good for looking at your data (because I never had one of their activity trackers, it was of less use to me). I use mobile sync all the time with my Garmin as it is quick and convenient.

I never had need for support through Polar, but they shut down their Australian supply chain three months ago (when I decided to change brands) and are supposed to be setting up Polar Global in Australia. If you need repairs, they have to be sent to Singapore until they set up in Sydney.

I was fortunate in that when I bought my Garmin, it was $100 off, so that made it easier. It was more expensive than any comparable Polar device, but my experience so far has been positive. I already had Strava Premium as it did some analysis which was lacking in Polar's Flow website (training load and recovery). Strava segments on the 520 are an interesting thing. It's good to see the segment come up and you can decide if you're going to attack it or not. I never used Garmin segments and probably won't use them either.

Like it or not, it seems that the cycling world is very Garmin-centric. In the pro peloton the units you see are predominantly SRM and Garmin. Not many Polar devices. Everything just works with Garmin.