Definitely an improvement from older Edges! Much clearer screen and much faster. Much nicer software to set profiles. Just nicer to set and control options. And one friend noted how nice the new sound was with my radar light. Still, there's lots of stuff I'll never use, though I'm sure some people will. And then there are the warnings about an animal ahead, and I wonder when that was seen. It was a splurge, even on sale, but I am enjoying it.
This Edge 840 is a very good upgrade to the Edge 520 it replaces. I've ridden with it for over a month and have these observations.
- Battery life is greatly improved, with many more rides between charges.
- Display is larger on a similar sized device, permitting more stats while maintaining readability.
- Touch screen controls easier to navigate than buttons, especially during a ride.
- Improved map details, which includes road and traffic alerts.
- Fewer false incident detection for urban riders. Much of my ride is in urban landscape, with rapid stops that triggered incident detection on the Edge 520.
Bikesdirect was fast and easy to use. Pedals were on the bike, setup, and calibrated ready to ride within 20 minutes. Data seems perfectly accurate. My outdoor testing is within 2-3W of my bests on the indoor trainer across multiple efforts from 2-12 minutes, and heart rate tracks perfectly with my indoor data and power numbers. No issues with sounds as I saw in other reviews. I charged them fully before installing them the first time and they are still holding medium battery after roughly 40hrs of riding time. I would definitely buy these and use bikesdirect again in the future.
This is one of those, 'didn't know how much I needed this,' purchases. The radar picks up cars further back than your ears can hear. I feel much more aware of what's behind me at all times. Can't imagine riding without it.
It works well with my Wahoo Bolt 2, though it doesn't remember my preferred flash settings (takes 15 seconds to configure pre-ride).
Battery life is fine. I can get several rides out of one charge if I'm only doing flash alerts. If I'm also using it as a persistent rear light it needs to be charged by the end of the ride.
Included seat post mount uses silicon bands to secure. Better clamp-based options out there.
