GarminEdge Explore Touchscreen Touring Bike Computer with Connected Features, White

After having my edge 705 for 10 plus years the battery was not holding charge. Sadly this meant I had to try to find a replacement. The edge explore came after weeks of looking, thinking, looking some more and a load more thinking!I decided to go with it and the 5 payment option was a deal clincher! Straight out the box it had battery charge (around 75%) so it was ready to go.Easy to set up and put familiar screens together with data. Maps are good, syncing to apps easy and also linking to cadence & HRM a breeze.Overall very happy and would recommend if you like me, was in need of making a new purchase. Would suggest buying a case to go with it just to add some extra protection.

I came to this unit from a Garmin Edge 810 so perhaps had an advantage over some folk in terms of initial setup in that I had a pre-existing Garmin Connect account and had the App installed on my iPhone already. In that environment, initial setup could hardly be easier: I was up and running in less than five minutes. So far I've generally found it to be very quick to get a GPS lock and, as the unit comes with the Garmin Cycle Map pre-installed, you can ride with it straight away. However, there was a humungous update for that map which I installed a couple of days later (the update ran overnight!). The display is bright and crisp and the touch-screen works much better than the one on my old Edge 810. The screen presents the data I want clearly and the data screens are extremely customisable to personal taste. The map is very easy to read and the zoom control works nicely. Uploading rides to the phone seems very reliable as is downloading routes ("courses" in the Garmin lingo). The turn-by-turn instructions can be a bit eccentric but over the years I've got used to Garmin's instance that I ride on the right hand side of the road and find it more amusing than annoying. I use this unit every day and really enjoy it! 100% pleased I decided to get this unit and would definitely recommend it for use touring, commuting and general riding. Other units might more suited to serious training.

I don't usually write reviews however I just had a great day mountain biking in Wales and I thought I should share my experience using the Garmin Edge Explore.I needed something to get me around unmarked routes as I had a bad experience with mobile phone mounts. This device is small enough and fits nicely on my handlebar and seems very secure once locked. I had 2 reservations about this device one being a 2018 model it now seems outdated and the second was battery life as many users reported their battery going flat after 3-4 hours. I am happy to say that today's ride was 5.5 hours I had 55% remaining when I got back. The battery life is not an issue if updating to the latest firmware. Going back to the first point, this is a basic GPS with Bluetooth which syncs to your phone. Think TomTom or Garmin car satnav from 10 years ago, it's clunky and feels old after using modern mobile phone. As long as you are aware of this the device itself works great and does exactly what you need it to do. You can find pre-made routes on a computer or phone or create your own using Garmin Connect, sync to the device and go for a ride. It will get you to where you need to go and back and this works great. Calorie burn shows higher than normal and there is no way to change the ride type to EMTB but this isn't a deal breaker for me as I ride a regular bike as well. I needed a device for getting me around long cross country routes and this device does exactly that, some fancy training features are missing but I didn't need those anyway. I give this 4 stars due to the outdated design, this device could do with a refresh but then again it's the cheapest bike nav out there with proper maps so can't complain too much. I hope this helps!

This (the "Explore") is the large Garmin Edge, which emphasizes navigation over training. So it's got a nice big screen but no ability to connect a power meter. When I say "big" I don't mean it's as big as a modern mobile phone, which I find too big for the handlebars. It's as big as I want it.I think you can connect a heart rate monitor by Bluetooth, but I don't use any of that stuff so I haven't tried it. I got it for navigation, and it's good at that. You can just put a location in, like a car SatNav. Or you can use the built in course designer. Alternatively you can design a course using Komoot, which is a separate app which I prefer. You also need to download the Garmin Connect app, and set Komoot and Connect to sync to each other. Once that'ss set up, it works really well.I find that I use about 50% of the battery on a four hour ride, so it's got enough battery for most people. It uses a bit more battery if you have it constantly attached to your phone by Bluetooth. That allows some phone notifications to pop up on the Garmin. I don't bother.Note that, unlike a car SatNav, and unlike Komoot if you use it as a SatNav on your phone, there are no audio instructions. You just get warning bleeps in advance of turns or if you go off course. I like that. I hated wearing in-ear headphones to hear Komoot's instructions. There's no need for that with the Garmin. The beeps are quite high pitched, and you can generally hear them in traffic. And I prefer to rely on the visual picture of the route that the Garmin gives you. Like all SatNavs it has a few wrinkles and glitches that occasionally confuse, but in general it makes me confident about where I am and where I'm going.When I don't need navigation I still use the Garmin to record my rides, and to display a screen showing distance, speed, average speed, elevation, elapsed time and time of day. I was surprised I needed to customize it to show time of day, but it was pretty easy. I don't really know why I record my rides, since my phone automatically records them on my Google Maps timeline anyway. I just like having the data screen visible as I ride along, and I like having the weekly, monthly and annual data that the Garmin Connect app collects if you connect the Garmin to the phone by Bluetooth briefly after a ride. I particularly like the elevation data, which gives me an excuse for my unimpressive average speeds. And I think the Garmin distance data is a bit more accurate than Google Maps Timeline, which sometimes seems to short change me.None of the above really explains why I somehow just feel happier riding along with a Garmin on my handlebars, but I definitely do. By the way, I'm not saying it's better than other cycling computers. This is my first one, so I have nothing to compare it to. But I do really like it.