Garmin 820 owners - your experience?

[Firozfx]

Having dropped my old faithful 810 at Ironman transition, i decided to replace it with a 820

 

So far I am still deciding if its a good piece of kit. 

 

I have had it freezing on me.

 

And a question on battery life. I switched it off with 80% life on Sani2C day 2, displayed the greyed out power graphic on the screen. Next morning it only had 17% life. No time to charge, had to ride in power saving mode which lasted 2h53 on day 3. Did not get the whole ride.

 

In the mean time, a guy in PE found and subsequently returned my 810.

 

Now have to make a call as i have to sell one of them!

[Bateleur1]

Having dropped my old faithful 810 at Ironman transition, i decided to replace it with a 820

 

So far I am still deciding if its a good piece of kit. 

 

I have had it freezing on me.

 

And a question on battery life. I switched it off with 80% life on Sani2C day 2, displayed the greyed out power graphic on the screen. Next morning it only had 17% life. No time to charge, had to ride in power saving mode which lasted 2h53 on day 3. Did not get the whole ride.

 

In the mean time, a guy in PE found and subsequently returned my 810.

 

Now have to make a call as i have to sell one of them!

 

Sounds like you are in two minds about the 820.  What would be your reasons for keeping it?

[EmptyB]

Had the 820 since it came out....touch wood, never had a single problem.

 

Never used live tracking so far

[Bateleur1]

One of my commuting buddies have one and he is happy.  But he has not had previous devices so do not have something to compare to.

[NotSoBigBen]

Look as a fancy computer with GPS it works great, it's the 'connected' features I'm struggling with mostly but maybe I expect too much ... Perhaps I must take the Spinnekop Luddite approach?

 

Sent from my LG-D958 using Tapatalk

[Titleist]

I'm not very fond of my 820. It's slow and has a crappy touch screen that irritates the sh$t out of me. I have found that the less pages are activated and the less details are shown on the map, the quicker it's response is. But still, the performance is not equal to the price.

 

I should have bought an Edge 25.

[Paul Ruinaard]

you can tune the sensitivity of the screen.

[Grey Hubs]

Rode for the first time with the Garmin 820 on Sunday 1h30 MTB ride.

Unit was insurance replaced a month ago.

 

Connected to HRM and Powertap.

Used Live tracking

 

Everything worked 100%. No drops with HRM, Power or live track.

Ride uploaded via BLT on cell after ride save.

 

Screen was set to high sensitivity. It was a little difficult to change the page info while cycling and operating the screen with gloves, but I managed. Think the "ICONS" are a bit small and close together so you often select the ICON not intended.

Visibility of the screen with photocromatic glasses was good. I have 6 data fields and data was easy to read and distinguish.

 

Overall, so far, I'm happy. More compact than the 810, so fits snug on the MTB stem.

 

Time will tell...

[Man with no name]

I regret moving from the 520 to the 820. The touch screen sucks and the wifi struggles to connect. That said, I have two "heavy users" read: youtube junkies at home and the Garmin does not have sharp enough elbows to get to the front of the router que.

 

It does pair nicely with my etap but struggle with the iqconnect apps which are a bit of a gimmick

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Madone69]

i have moved from an 800 to the 820.  and all the issues mentioned here as well as on other forums are not being experienced by me at all - as yet.

i have come to terms with the screen operation - "its NOT cellphone like" which i think is the mistake people make in comparing it to.  

 

i have had no issues using the screen with long finger gloves, even when wet. - i tend to drop my finger onto the screen and lightly press before moving whichever way. 

 

connections via bluetooth with both mobile data and/or wifi has been flawless.....

 

maybe some just expecting too much  or just don't know how to use it properly

[NotSoBigBen]

My phone recently updated to 'Nougat' and it would appear that now at least LiveTrack and Auto Upload is working. Not getting smart notifications anymore that was working #SMH.

 

Despite being an IT guy I guess I am not as technically astute as madone69 et al so I'll just stumbled along best I can ...

 

Sent from my LG-D958 using Tapatalk

[semisub]

I upgraded from an 810 to the 820 in Feb this year because I wanted a new screen and Garmin suggested I upgrade and gave me a good deal on the upgrade.

 

My unit froze on me on four occasions (including the 1st day of Joberg2C) and I had to get a dealer to reinstall my software each time which was a major pain in the *&@. I eventually contacted Garmin in Jhb and they asked me to send up the unit so they could check it out but I upgraded to the latest SW version (8.00) and my unit has been stable ever since.

 

Only one change that I made is that I have not enabled WiFI connectivity so this might be the cause (not sure). I use BT to upload my rides via Garmin Connect and this works fine.

 

I have also noticed that the touch screen works a lot better with the latest version so obviously a lot of bugs have been sorted.

 

Wish I had kept my 810 though.....

[bmw1za]

I also come down the 810 to 820 insurance route , seems we dont like change ... 810 was stable and simple to use .

 

have my 820 a few days , it magically lost 20kms along the route on my 1st ride , todays ride seemed happy. It does auto upload via BT very quickly, and i also like the caller data on screen so i know if i want to stop and take the call (aka home emergency)

 

Touch screen is lame compared to the 810 , but its growing on me as i find my way around this new interface.

[udxcob]

I have the 820 for a while now and not one issue, auto downloads are perfect, I guess it has a lot to do with how you have it set up

[Escapee..]

Also just got upgraded to the 820 from my 810.

 

Holding thumbs I dont experience any issues..

 

Will report back