Smartphone vs. Garmin

[dcv]

I have a Samsung s4, my son has an iPhone. Both had enough battery life to last a long century ride (11 hours elapsed time). If it rains we use a sandwich bag.
We also have a Garmin, the pros:
Real time monitoring of speed, distance…
Navigation, this is the real reason I use it, you can load routes
You can buy cadence and heart rate monitors

The pros of a phone:
Instantaneous upload (Garmin can too but you have to link with phone)

[mstone]

My s4 can do a century, but I usually keep mobile data turned off when I’m riding. (If you have a weak signal and something decides to update, it will suck down the battery real fast.) With just the gps going, it lasts for quite a while. A dedicated unit still lasts longer.

I make sure I have offline maps loaded in order to avoid needing a data connection. Locus is the app I use for Android, which can load open street map data among others.

[Jason B]

^^^^^
Same thing, my 4 has lasted for every ride I have done. I have done almost 10 hour rides with it on. It always last long enough to make a call on the ride home.
Another plus to the phone is the upload is wireless. I have a garmin 500 but always upload with iPhone. People complain that the iPhone distorts numbers, but my numbers are so close to my garmin that I no longer look.

[vvill]

Advantages of Garmin
– battery life and having a phone-independent battery
– more accurate altitude/elevation (barometric pressure based)
– more accurate in general, esp. if you use 1-second recording intervals
– customizable displays
– robust
– solid mounting options (and plenty of aftermarket ones now)
– ANT+ for speed, cadence, power

Disadvantages
– another device to look after, charge, maintain firmware, etc.
– takes time to power on, and locate satellites (especially on windy/cloudy days, or inside buildings or with tall buildings around etc.)

I only finally got a smartphone this year, whereas I’ve had a Garmin for a couple years already. The phone is really handy if you just want to log a quick ride without having to take out the Garmin and wait for it to locate satellites, etc. or if you want fast feedback on Strava, etc. (you can always log using both devices and just delete one of the rides later), although the newer 510/810 Garmins can sync online wirelessly I think.

I had the impression the HRM options for smartphones were a bit limited and of questionable quality but I have no first hand experience with one.

[hozn]

I use my Android on occasion when I forget to charge the Garmin. In my case the HTC One X does not have great battery life; when the GPS is active it only lasts a few hours (my Garmin lasts 15). iPhones have generally good battery life, and while their closed platform should make for fewer peripheral options, I suspect in practice their prevalence ensures this is not the case. Certainly the handlebar-mount case options will be more extensive. As someone that believes in open-source software I hate to recommend iPhone, but it is probably the best phone choice for a cycling computer.

Personally I use a Garmin Edge 510. vvill enumerated great pros and cons. For me the question is whether you want a workout and navigation device or a ride recorder. So always on, customized workout screens, lap tracking, customized workout programs, and Ant+ support for HR/cadence/power makes the Garmin (or a dedicated unit) a clear winner in that regard. For navigation, even the non-map units do turn by turn directions for mapped rides. I know there are appa for this (on Android, anyway), but not sure if there are apps that will turn the phone display on for upcoming turns? This is a really useful feature if you want to try new routes.

Finally the Edge 510 does mitigate some of the cons:
– satellite sync is extremely fast (a couple seconds) thanks to glonass support.
– it can publish rides automatically to Garmin Connect, from which you can get a TCX and have services like tapiriik.com sync it to Strava, Dropbox, etc.

[Raymo853]

Another advantage of a GPS over a smart phone, the accuracy. Most smartphones use a combo of their GPS chip, mapped wireless networks, locking to established routes, and distance to cell towers to calculate your location. It saves time and battery power but at the expenses of accuracy. The two images were from the same time on the same bike on the same handlebar.

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[Tim Kelley]

Most smartphones are fine if you don’t care about some of the more specific metrics like HR, cadence, power, etc…

[cyclingfool]

@Raymo853 72896 wrote:

Another advantage of a GPS over a smart phone, the accuracy. […]

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Yeah, my Strava track looked something like that this AM… it cut off some serious corners and had me riding over the marshy area by Long Bridge Park instead of on MVT past Gravelly Point. My commute route is a tad over 7.5 miles as measured on bike computer and online mapping tools like ridewithgps, but Strava counted it as only 7 miles this AM. Not a huge deal, but kind of annoying.

[Geoff]

@cyclingfool 72969 wrote:

Yeah, my Strava track looked something like that this AM… it cut off some serious corners and had me riding over the marshy area by Long Bridge Park instead of on MVT past Gravelly Point. My commute route is a tad over 7.5 miles as measured on bike computer and online mapping tools like ridewithgps, but Strava counted it as only 7 miles this AM. Not a huge deal, but kind of annoying.

O-kaaay… those maps are pretty convincing. If I want to know where I am, I’ll stick with a dedicated GPS.

[APKhaos]

Dedicated GPS/cycling devices aka Garmin models are far simpler to use and more reliable than any smartphone. Still, most current Android models support Ant+ (with apps such as ipBike) to deliver equivalent data channels and displays. Where Garmin is “turn it on and go”, Android takes more care to set everything up and in my experience most phones have a much shorter battery life unless you are super careful to kill everything but the essentials.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[Raymo853]

When I run both my iPhone 4 with Strava and my GPS, a Garmin Oregon 300, I find the differences in distances, elevation gain and time across segments entertaining. The iPhone routinely shows a significantly longer distance and greater elevation gain than the GPS. When it comes to segments, it is most obvious on short segments since just a few segments can make a huge impact on your ranking.

[KLizotte]

I have also noticed that Strava and RideWithGPS will often give slightly different mileages for the same ride. *sigh*

[hozn]

There is also a Strava support thread about how they (incorrectly allegedly) adjust Garmin mileage. They perform lots of “cleanup” to the data. But then apparently rwgps does too …

[Amalitza]

@KLizotte 73051 wrote:

I have also noticed that Strava and RideWithGPS will often give slightly different mileages for the same ride. *sigh*

Yeah, cyclemeter and strava give me slightly different mileages even though I record the ride in cyclemeter and then upload the file to strava. So, exact same data, but different interpretations. Elevations aren’t even close.

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