I have had an edge 800 for about 6 years, always worked did cool stuff, very happy. My kids thought i needed an upgrade so got me the 820. Wow useless piece of rubbish. Cant easily put maps on it, never stays connected to my phone. Has useless buttons on the main page, IQ that is very low IQ, does nothing, cant remove it, cant change it. No bike profiles. So what was easy is now multiple button pushes. Will not pause without turning off. This is not an upgrade it is a downgrade. Very disappointed and reading the reviews and this forum does not fill me with any hope. Can someone recommend a good replacement.
I’d recommend the Edge 820. Had mine nearly 3 years. It’s great. Most problems people seem to have are a failure to read the manual and an expectation that it will do things it’s not designed to do.
I had an 800 before and unlike the 800 you don’t need to add maps to the 820 because the installed maps are good. IMO the 820 is much much better than the 800.
I've been using a 820 since not long after they first came out. I've had two. They have had many bad functional issues, but of late mine has been working pretty well with how I use it, except for the touch screen, which is still erratic. It's OK (barely) sitting at my desk, but using it while riding is an exercise in frustration and a dangerous distraction. As far as I'm concerned, it's bad enough for me to disrecommend a 820.
I recently got some new Bontrager lights that are controllable via 820. The interface is not reliable and doesn't doesn't respond as you think it would. You have to put your hand in front of the headlight or taillight to verify it's doing what it's supposed to, and if it isn't, use the button on the light to make it right. IDK whether it's the 820 or the Bontrager lights, but given Garmin's track record, I'd bet on it being Garmin.
I ride last week a trip with my old 800 because I forgot to load the battery from my 820 Well indeed the 820 is a lot better (once you know how to use it), the only thing I like more into the 800 is the zoom out synce with the next turn or when I ride the wrong way out off road the 800 zoom out so that I keep seeing the right track. I suppose that those possibility's are not on the 820? (Of course I already put the auto zoom on)
The lack of bike profiles is annoying but overall I find the 820 works well now I know what it is trying to do, especially when navigating a course. The touch screen could be better and Incident Detection is way too sensitive for my liking but onc the 820 stabilised after the latest FW upgrade, I'm liking it more and more.
You can create your own profiles via "activity profiles" page 16 of the user guide pdf, under "training settings". Just add a new one & configure it how you want. I created a seperate profile for each of my bikes & identified them individually (you can also edit the identities of any ANT+ gadgets, replacing the numbers, so they're more meaningful/reognisable to you). My issue is that when pausing a workout (which is an interval session created in Garmin Connect) & then resuming it - it defaults to a countdown timer screen and NOT the screen it was on when I pressed pause. No use at all in an interval session!
