Garmin Edge Explore 2, latest interface seen on 1040 & 840 for a lot less money, yet has a large touch screen. Does everything I need from a headunit..
Gramin 130 Edge Plus. I need left right power. Don't care about navigation. Who the heck needs help on where to go unless you are on a vacation in an unfamiliar area? Who does that anyway?
This is a sub $200 head unit. If price is the driving factor, I would say there other much better options than this. I.E. IGPsport 630 or even a 2nd hand Wahoo Bolt these days can be had for around the same price. I would by no means (in it's current version) put this in the same playing field as a Garmin. I have been using the Magene for the last two weeks and it has come up far short of expectations. To be fair, this is a budget friendly option and maybe I am being too critical, but even $160 is too much for this unit. I disagree with your screen visibility comments. The screen on this unit is difficult to see on a sunny day. For comparison, I put this next to my Wahoo bolt v1 and the Bolt blows this away in terms of visibility. Not to mention, the overall font size of data displayed on this unit is very small compared to the screen size. There is a lot of wasted screen space and the font size could be increased. As you said, the touch screen is not nearly as responsive as what you will find on a smart phone or tablet. Each finger swipe has to be slow and calculated. Another screen disappointment is when you try to use the device in a wet & rainy environment. You briefly showed it in this video, but when moisture contacts the screen during a ride- the computer constantly tries to switch pages. I reached out to Magene and made a recommendation to add the ability to lock the screen during rides. There is no way to customize your heart rate or power zones. When you import routes created in Strava or Mapmygps- they are limited to 150km in distance. Any route over that distance is automatically rejected. The charts and graphs used to display heart rate/speed/power are nothing more than colored blobs on the screen. It is hard to pull any useful data from them. There is no ability to pan around in the navigation map. You are also limited to the amount you can zoom in/out on the map. I still found myself reaching for my phone when I was wanting to deviate from a planned route. If you rely on power data from a power meter- you will be disappointed. It only tracks instant, 3s,5s, 10s, and 15s power. It does not record 1 min, 5 min, 10 min, 20min, 30 min or 1 hour power. It doesn't even display real time w/kg power...only an average over the course of a ride. I don't know why I had such high expectations given the price point, but this Magene C606 fell flat on it's face and was a huge disappointment. I hope many of these complaints will be corrected with a firmware update and I am proven wrong. Time will tell.
I agree with some of your points, and I have also communicated with Magene. They replied that they would increase navigation mileage in subsequent version upgrades. The screen switches automatically when moisture touches the screen, you can wipe the screen, the situation will improve. Plus, I think the C606 offers users more features at a reasonable price in a sub $160 bike computer. For this price range, I think the C606 is an appropriate choice.
@@k.l.7755There are many times where I wouldn't feel comfortable taking my hands off the bars to wipe the screen. It would be really nice if they could implement a two button sequence that can be enacted with one hand and would lock the screen on. For example, the change page button (lower left) and the power button.
I think we have to remember that this device costs significantly less than the comparable Garmin, and I tried to do my best to keep that in mind when talking about this unit. Comparing a $150 device vs a $350 or $450 device(touchscreen) , the more expensive device is obviously going to be better. I think there is alot of things that can and NEED to be fixed via software updates. At the end of the day for me, I'm Still going to be using my garmin.
I've never used one of these but I've run far too many warranties for Wahoos to ever recommend getting one second hand. I never thought a GPS could outdo Garmin with warranty claims.
Great write up on what it can't do. I am thinking of trying this computer. I feel it is in the same playing field as a Garmin because I wouldn't use the additional features a Garmin has. I have a Wahoo Bolt V1 right now and I have used the maps exactly twice. Recently got a power meter, but do not track anything more than 3s. Not being able to configure heart rate zones are a bummer though, but I have these numbers mapped out pretty good in my head. I love my Bolt V1, but they don't plot my gear shifts correctly on my 12 speed Di2 so I'm looking for a change. Still trying to find more info on how the Magene looks with respect to electronic shifting.
1:37 that sound actually reminds me of one of those handheld tiger electronics LCD games from the 80s and 90s. So $150 for what seems like an even smaller version of one of those small cheap low end android phones you can buy for $20-30. I can overlook the price due to it being a dedicated biking computer, and a lot cheaper than most for what it offers, and nowhere near the hassle of trying to use a smartphone as a biking computer. But it seems like it would be much better if the price was around $60-$70 instead of $150. Speaking of android phones, it seems like it would be a no brainier to use it instead of a dedicated biking computer being that they are a portable pocket computer with GPS capability and such. BUT having to try a multitude of separate apps tends to be a huge pain because none of them even listed the bike paths available in my location, and only a few of them listed a few out of many bike trails In my area. Plus i don't like having to create an account just to use a biking computer (some of them required just to use the app). Quite a few of them in order to use offline you have to pay, and some in order to start from somewhere that wasn't listed (like take a bike path that the app doesn't list) you have to pay. I just ended up buying a cheap basic biking computer for around $20 that only does speed distance and time.
