The Garmin Edge 520 Plus has been the most important item I have purchased for my bicycle. I ride around 16 miles a day, and I has improved my skill and speed on the bike. I love that it keeps a record of every ride so that I can track my progress. I also like that I can read incoming texts while riding.
Unfortunately I had an accident one dark morning on a isolated bike trail, where I dropped a chain, cracked my carbon fiber frame, and injured my right knee. When I came to a stop the Garmin sent an emergency text to my contacts, alerting them I had an accident, and before I could get up from the ground I received a phone call from one of them. It was really reassuring that I could get help if I was total disabled in a crash. I'm riding again and will always have my Garmin with me.
I highly recommend other bicyclist get a Garmin Edge 520 Plus, because it could save your life.
Im new to Garmin GPS units and reading the history on them the new 520 Puls seemed to be a good place to jump in. Pretty decent tech for the rapidly falling price. The data and screen are great, more than I know what to do with. The Garmin Connect App is pretty basic, seems you need Strava and other third party apps to get more value out of the GPS data. Uploading routes is still clunky having to plug your device into a laptop but its pretty solid once you get it in the device. All and all its a cool toy, we arent totally there yet with GPS cycling computers but its cheaper than ever to try it out.
Replaced my 10 year old Garmin 800 Edge with this unit. works fine! I do miss the swipe and touch capability of the 800....but not the 800 price. Does all you expect a Garmin head unit to do. the bluetooth link up to the Iphone is nice - no more running to the laptop to upload data. comes with the incident notification feature - which does work, based on personal experience. A good value if you want a Garmin unit and are willing to use some slightly older tech.
I have owned a Garmin 520 for several years. One too many mtn bike crashes probably did it in. Anyway, my biggest complaint with the old 520 was battery life, especially in cold temps. I didn't want a bigger computer, so I took a gamble with the 520 plus. Battery life is exceptional (8-12 hours average) and am really enjoying the navigation features. I have it synced with my wife's cellphone number so she can track my riding, thus giving her peace of mind that I'm not dying on the side of a road or trail somewhere. All in all, I am very pleased with the features and the price was the lower than anyone else offered.
I had some difficulty getting it to work at first, but great customer support from Garmin got me going. 520+ doesn�t shut down mid-ride like my 510 was doing. It also automatically reads the right sensor from different bikes.
This is my second 520. The first died after heavy, heavy use. The cyclone has all the metrics required for effective training in a small body yet readable screen (I use at least 5 screens with 10 elements in each). It is easy to shift from one bike to another, connect to you phone, get messages, alert a designated person in the event of a crash, plan and follow routes, and the list goes on.
Physically not much larger than Garmin 520.
Better Battery life, map on the device, clarity and size of characters, Speed of booting up, ease of use. Setup - connected my 530 to Garmin Connect and it sucked down most of my screen settings, saving setup time.
meh Track of where i've been on the map is very hard to see on the map.. maybe a setting somewhere? 520 map is black and white.. so pretty easy, though the map itself on the 530 is much better than on the 520.
If you have a bit more money, buy the 830 .. map is the same, but touch screen helps navigate the map itself, slide left and right, etc..
I bought this wanting a solid GPS for mountain biking. There's lots of options out there but Garmin has a long history and reputation. I Iike the quick startup and customizable screens. I thought I'd want to see my cell phone notifications, which this one offers but I actually find them an annoyance. It can upload 3rd party maps for turn by turn directions but I wouldn't use it for mountain biking as often there just aren't really many turn options. It was a little challenging to get it connected to my phone consistently as well as a 3rd party heart rate monitor, but it eventually settled down. I have an iPhone X so iOS upgrades might have disrupted the settings connections. I really like the app and it offers some of the measurement features that one must pay for.
There is nothing that I dont like. I use this on my road bike and it goes on and off with ease. Also comes with a rechargeable plugin cable. This computer will last for several rides before it needs to be recharged.
Upgraded from the Edge 25 to the Edge 250 Plus I like the longer battery life and being able to see more info on the first screen that is completely modifiable to your liking would recommend this over the Edge25 any-day it's nice to have the maps even if you can not set destination on the fly best to set some points of interest in advance
This product syncs with satellites so much faster than my previous product. Really enjoy that. Still learning all the features and it does seem pretty feature rich. A little disappointed that many Strava features require a paid subscription to Strava and Garmin Connect just doesn't have the same appeal. All that said, I found the display very easily visible in all light conditions. Hasn't dropped a signal yet. Battery life is probably better than I expected which is nice. Would definitely recommend to others.
My decided to upgrade my old Edge which still works fine but I wanted an upgrade that would communicate via Bluetooth. I have used it for a couple hundred miles and I have been happy. The device connects very quickly to GPS better than any of my other Garmin devices. It also connects very quick to my phone using Bluetooth. The navigation is a toy that I do not really need but works fine. If you have a slow internet connection, initial setup takes some time and patience.
This is my first GPS unit. I bought it for an upcoming self supported bike trip from Albany NY to Portland ME. I'm still getting used to it and find the interface a little confusing. It tracks your ride, showing time elapsed, average speed , maximum speed, elevation gain and calories used. It interfaces with their app Connect, Strava, Map My Ride and others. Once you're set up everything uploads to the other sites.There is some question about battery life, but I've kept it on an external battery or my dynamo hub and have had no battery loss over a 7 hour period
You will want this product if you have the Di2 system. Easy to setup and view your gearing and if you have the auto mode on a tri bike it will beep when you reach the last gear before a front ring change. Battery status and copious amounts of data fields to display.
Terrific GPS cycling computer. This is an exponential improvement over my prevous Garmin Edge 500. Highly customizable color screens, all the cycling metrics you could want, fast GPS signal acquiring, and great large screen. Pre-loaded mapscourses and live strava segments are also a nice feature.
My new Garmin Edge 520 Plus is my third Garmin device.
As far as I am concerned, Garmin is the only way to go. You can get any and all ride information that you could possibly imagine. And I download this direct to my Strava account. This is a great computer, and I strongly recommend it.
I bought the Garmin 529 Plus on sale. My needs are pretty simple so I don't use much of the functionality the Garmin provides (e.g. heart rate, cadence, power, etc.). So far I am satisfied with the Garmin. It is hard to give a complete review at this point as lack experience with it.
I have used the 520 for years and love the simplicity and "BUTTONS". I hear a lot of issues with touch screen. With gloves or cold fingers i can't be messing with touch screen. The only reason to swith to 520 plus was for the Varia integration.
I was just looking for an upgrade from the garmin edge, and this checks all boxes. I'm not into power management or heart monitoring, just more things that ain't gonna make me faster. Just train. Still need to discover the potential of this like using the nav for set routes or races. No issues, battery life is good. Would recommend to others.
I use this product to record my rides. The unit is dependable and has good battery life. It seems overly-complicated (I prefer Lezyne's fewer buttons) and things like backlight and switching screens can be cumbersome. The screens are customizable, but depending on how many fields you're displaying re-sizing a particular field or fields may not be available. Other than that, the unit works well.
