Garmin Edge 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.

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.

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!

Purchased to take my cycling to the next level and keep a eye on my progress. I am something of a technophobe, and always worried that I will mess up when trying to set up new gadgets, but this was very easy to set up and was off and running in no time. Couple of things here and there needed to look up for sorting out, but all the whole very comfortable with it. Some annoying little things, like when setting up a road map, and the route you have set up clearly has a cycle path, yet the map wants you to stick to the road, or sometimes its a little to strict to the route and will make you take a strange detour, when you know in your head there was faster and more straight forward routes. Easy to install on bike. All in all most satisfied with this.

I decided to replace my very reliable but now fairly old Touring edge, which, had no connectivity. But its been fine, albeit not very intuitive, frustrating sometimes.... Main reason was, to use the Garmin Radar. I did not want to have my phone with me all the time, although maybe I should? ON longer rides I do. But why have a handlebar full of various displays right? I decided to go for this against the Garmin 530, which is more about data and less about mapping. I would prefer to have the mapping features and the only missing data really is stuff like VO2 max etc, stuff I dont really use as a leisure cyclist. So if you are wondering which head unit to go for, and searching for differences, they are the main ones I found. If you like to use the map and use it to navigate and just upload to strava and interested in HR, cadence, distance, speed etc, this will do all that and more. It connects with my phone upon return and transfers my ride. Its probably made my watch redundant? But not sure how ultimately it will all work together, but certainly my HR monitor, cadence and now radar all connect, so it gathers all the data needed.

This is a very good bike computer for those wanting a simple navigation aid for cycling on road or gravel trails without the need for power meter statistics etc. Easy to use and accurate to follow.

Bike computer gives excellent directions and display. However - the computer went wrong after 8 months and gradually degraded and crashed or froze during my rides - which was very annoying as I used it for directions - Luckily I was with a friend - otherwise I would have been lost. Finally - when I sent in for repair - I was told to return all parts and accessories for repair (which I did in the original box) - and on repair I was sent ONLY the computer - without box or accessories. Cannot work out who / how to complain with Amazon. DISAPPOINTED!

This is very easy to set up and get working but the finer detail takes a while to get exactely how you want it, once fully set up it works very well, gives loads of detail, the navigation works perfectly and it links in with apps like Strava easily and automatically. Not the cheapest to buy but worth the extra in my opinion