850 Battery Life - OUCH!

Pat Fulghum
21 days ago

The 850 has a great new display like 1050... but battery life is only 12 hours... Less than 1/2 that of a 840.

GARMIN WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?  Please explain yourself.

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to GPLama

    I always follow your excellent reviews and based on that, I commented in this forum too, complaining about the tradeoff between the new screen and reduced battery life. And I was ready to buy a second 840. But I actually tried the 850 in a local Garmin store, and must confess that I did not find the 850 as bad at all as I expected. I had the 840 (with backlight turned off, as I normally use mine) and the 850 (at 20% and 30% backlight),  and found them equally readable, to be honest. It was overcast outside, but the ceiling lights in the Garmin store were quite bright. I even set the 850 to switch off the backlight completely, and I could still read the screen fine. I really did not expect this and I do prefer the old transflective screen, but I may now jump for the 850 too (I have several bikes and always had at least 2 Garmins at the same time).

    Do you have any idea what might be the hourly battery discharge rate with 30% backlight and 1-2 sensors (speed + cadence or HRM), with no BT/Wifi/phone connection enabled? My 840 uses around 2.5% per hour this way (with the backlight off)

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to steveadorjan

    Hi! You might want to check DCR's test because he has the hourly discharge rates for the 30% brightness settings there. I remember, that the battery life went from 10-12 hours to almost 20 hours with the 30% setting. However, for endurance riders who ride Audax it's still a huge step back. My Edge 530 had 20+ hours battery life when it was new with a lot of sensors and Livetrack on. Now, after 5-6 year, the battery life went down to 12 hours which I am extending with the Garmin battery pack. I can not imagine to buy a new device with the same (short) battery life See no evil     

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to s.polak

    Here's a look at what 30% on the 850 looked like for me compared to the 840: youtu.be/Llu6VUcqzpA

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to s.polak

    Just re-read that. Hm, at 30% manual brightness, the hourly burn rate seems to be around 5%. That's still almost double of what my 840 can do (backlight off after 15 seconds, only 1-2 sensors). Not great, not terrible.

    My 3-year old 830 is very similar to my 840: 2.5-max 3% battery per hour.

    I'm not riding Audax type extra long miles, but I do like having a device that only needs to be recharged one every other week or so (I ride at least an hour every day, but usually a bit more)

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to GPLama

    Thanks. I can definitely see what you mean :( It seemed better in the store today.

    Fun fact, when I set backlight to manual: 30% and always on, the 850 showed remaining battery life 20 hours at 50% charge!!! When I selected the automatic energy saving mode (which, I understand, turns off the screen), it showed much less (9 hours, IIRC). I would have expected the opposite. The Garmin store employee was puzzled too and could not really come up with an explanation.

    I'm on the fence here: Shall I just get a second 840 while they are still available (and on sale), or risk an 850 and potentially be unhappy with battery life?

    Btw, the 850 is also noticeably heavier in hand

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to GPLama

    Thats a great comparison thanks GPLama - 30% looks like it might as well be off when in the sun. even with both on auto, the 840 looked brighter/more readable (this might just be the angle). the 850 might have better colour brilliance but i don't really care about that, first and foremost i want to be able to read simple text. if i can't do that and have battery life that will reliably top 10 hours for years of use i don't consider it to meet the basic requirements.

    i've been eagerly waiting for this update so looking for a reason to believe in it but it feels like they've tried to solve a problem that doesn't exist and in doing so have created a fundamental problem

  • 0 5 days ago

    I stretched my legs on bike for one and half hours, then found out my 850 battery went from 80% to 50%, I had not started yet!!! come on!!!

  • 0 5 days ago in reply to pnmckenna

    and now Edge 850 Version 7.10, like 7.09 also includes "Improved auto backlight performance"

    i can only assume that these are attempts to improve battery life by reducing brightness, the question is whether it is by better detecting when high brightness is not required or just continually dropping brightness until they get acceptable battery life.

    can anyone with an 850 provide a meaningful battery life comparison between firmware versions?

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to pnmckenna

    3.20h ride with the stays on backlight and 40% brightness…29% from battery. Not so good. With la latest firmware

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to xcyrus

    That's actually horrendous! Almost 10% battery burn rate per hour with merely 40% brightness? I was thinking you could hopefully get hourly battery use rate to around 5% with 30% brightness, but that clearly won't work then (and 30% may be far from ideal in some conditions anyway).

    My 840 would only use 10% battery during a 3.2 hour ride (or even less)