Bryton Rider 750 Review
The new Bryton Rider 750 that I’ve been lucky enough to review recently is one of the best-featured performance bikenavs I’ve seen at this price. That praise comes with a “But…”
Let’s start off with a summary review of the Rider 750 and then I’ll cover the new features from Bryton further below in more detail….for new features, we’re talking about voice navigation, virtual trainer rides and Garmin Varia radar support coming in at Eu249.95, which is over Eu100 less than what the touchscreen Garmin Edge 830 can sell for.
Bryton Rider 750 Review
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Price - 75%75%
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Apparent Accuracy - 85%85%
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Build Quality & Design - 75%75%
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Features, Including App - 90%90%
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Openness & Compatability - 85%85%
Summary
The Bryton Rider 750 is a fine performance bikenav. Better than that, it has unique and innovative features. Better than THAT, I even like those features. No, that’s wrong. I WANT those features, especially the voice navigation.
The problem is that I want those features on my Garmin or my Wahoo or my Karoo.
Garmin Edge, Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM and Hammerhead’s Karoo 2 are typically quite a bit more expensive but I will pay the premium for their overall platform offering that is richer and more polished than what Bryton offers. If instead, YOU want a bike computer that does the job for a fair price then read on.
Bryton ACES THE FEATURE LIST but is lacking on the interface & experience front. Don’t get me wrong, Bryton’s app and bike computer both work well enough. They are just a bit clunky. The Rider 420 from a year ago is also super-featured and at just over Eu/£100 it was a no-brainer for my best bike computer 2020 winner of category performance-COMMUTER. Bryton really does make good kit at good prices.
The Rider 750 has a good cost-per-feature and I can see why Bryton chose an RRP of $249.95. In my opinion, it won’t sell in volumes at that price.
Pros
- Free, pre-loaded, updateable maps with contours
- Follow track with POIs
- Upcoming elevation
- FE-C trainer control, power meter compatible
- Many data metrics
- Voice routing with Google
- Varia Radar compatible
- Shimano STEPS compatible
- Follow a virtual course indoors – with a real MAP !!!
- Training plan, structured workout support via Bryton App or TP
Cons
- Colour touchscreen is OK but both ‘touch’ and ‘colour’ could be improved.
- Like Garmin, connected features require your phone to be paired and present.
Bryton Rider 750 Review – What’s Included? What’s Changed?
The 750 is highly similar to the Rider 860 (early 2020). It also shares many advanced features with the smaller, much cheaper, mono-LCD Rider 420.
Other than the Rider 860, all of Bryton’s bike computers are mono-LCD. The Rider 750 is a mid-size unit and corresponds in size to the Wahoo Elemnt and hence it’s a bit bigger than the Garmin Edge 530/830 Plus models. You can compare the Bryton models in more detail on this pdf (link). Here are the key differences:
Comparisons Bryton Rider 860 vs Bryton Rider 750
- 750 has voice navigation – search by voice for destination
- 750 has virtual courses
- 750 supports Varia radar.
- 860 is the only Bryton model to omit Auto Sensor Display (ASD – data fields appear when relevant and flash on low battery)
- 750 does not support BLE sensors
- 750 is only Bryton model to support ANT+FE-C and Shimano Steps (E-Bike)
- 750 adds an update to firmware/A-GPS via the app. Both have that via WiFi.
- 750 introduces an FTP test.
- 750 has 20-hour battery (vs 16)
There are other trivial differences and I can’t see any reason to buy the 860 over the 750.
Comparison Bryton Rider 750 vs Bryton Rider 420
The Bryton Rider 420 is a super-cheap best-in-class device. The 750 is well over twice the rrp. The features are fairly similar but you DO get more with the 750? Is the 750 worth twice the price for a slightly larger, colour touchscreen format?
- 750 has voice navigation – search by voice for destination
- 750 has virtual courses
- 750 supports Garmin Varia Radar.
- 750 is colour TFT touchscreen, 420 is mono-LCD
- 750 has a larger screen size: 2.3″ vs 2.8″ and is heavier at 93g vs 67g
- 450 is claimed to have over 80 functions, 750 is claimed to have over 99 functions
- 750 has a workout summary screen
- 750 has 3 bike profiles (vs 2), 8 pages per profile (vs 9 of the 420) and 12 metrics per page (vs 8 of the 420)
- 750 has WiFi
- 420 supports HR/Spd/Cad for BLE sensors
- 750 supports Di2/eTap/EPS and Shimano Steps and ANT+FE-C
- 750 has built-in OSM maps with contours
- 750 has on-device follow routes (offline navigation) whereas the 420 does that via the connected app on your smartphone
- 750 has address search and voice-address search
- 750 supports structured workouts with FE-C
That’s a LOT of flexibility and features to play with. Almost certainly more than you or I need.
Bryton Rider 750 Review – What’s New?
The Rider 750 sees these 3 features for the first time on any Bryton bike computer, I think the voice search might even be a first for any bike computer!
- ANT+ Radar support is added – this means it supports Garmin’s Varia Radar products (which are excellent)
- Multi-lingual online voice search for destinations (requires a connection to the internet, typically your smartphone)
- Virtual Ride – follow a previous ride on a map whilst on your indoor trainer.
Colour Touchscreen
The touchscreen does work and I’d say it’s just about OK. However, the colours are NOT as good as in the marketing literature, they are duller and more washed out than those in this image.
Voice Search For Destination
Bryton uses Google’s Voice Search functionality, which is separate from Google Assistant and which is activated manually by tapping the Bryton touchscreen. I do use Google Assistant on my iOS phone so I am unsure if Bryton somehow taps into that app or if the app has learnt to recognise my voice. Anyway, the short story is that voice recognition is really good. That said:
- It’s not so good recognising my test attempts to navigate to French locations. Perhaps that’s my accent or that the language needs to be changed to French?
- You have to tap the screen to start a voice search, which is fine. However, a tap is also required when you stop speaking which gets a little annoying.
Virtual Trainer Ride
Here you can re-ride a real outdoors route but indoors; the Rider 750 does a bit of maths and adjusts the trainer resistance to match the elevation profile stored in the FIT file that you’ve loaded up for the route.
As well as the elevation, Bryton also shows your virtual progress on the real map of the route. This feature is available on Wahoo ELEMNT and elsewhere and it’s great that Bryton has implemented this, however, I would add these 2 caveats.
- This is not Best Bike Split Compatible (Source: Bryton) – I don’t think that will be an issue for 99.9% of the people who buy the Bryton
- Following previous courses often encounters problems and this can manifest itself it unnaturally fluctuating resistance levels when indoors or bizarre-looking ClimbPro fails when outdoors with a Garmin Edge. I’ve never quite got to the bottom of this but my feeling is that you will often encounter these problems because you are following the original FIT file complete with all its uncorrected recordings of position and grade. Even if you smooth the grade based on lookup tables for the elevation you still might be doing that for an incorrect GPS position. thus my feeling is that you need to follow a manually created course or one that has been ‘snapped to’ the roads AND then had a correct elevation profile applied. I think STRAVA does that. But even then STRAVA may miss out valid micro-elevation changes that occur, for example, if you cross over a 100m long arched bridge.
Note: I didn’t get this feature in time to test it
Varia RADAR Support
One of the best safety features you can enable is by buying the Garmin Varia RTL510 or RTL515, it’s a great way to warn cars about you and for you to be more aware of what is approaching you from behind. I’ve used Varia with EVERY bike computer that supports it and the implementations are all fairly similar and Bryton’s implementation is fine. You have a vertical bar on the right-hand side of the screen with approaching cars moving up the bar towards you. The bar changes colour depending on the danger level and there are also audible alerts from the Bryton when a new car is detected. It does the job.
Structured Training on the Rider 750
This is a nice addition and has the ability to download my pre-canned structured workouts FROM Training Peaks so that I could follow them on the 750 with FE-C. I could also create my own structured workout and store both types in the Bryton workout library. You can do a similar thing with the cheaper 420. Unlike the 750 though, the 420 doesn’t control the trainer resistance.
GPS Accuracy
I’ve completed just under 200 miles with the Rider 750, mostly outdoors. Superficially, the GPS tracks look very good on the Bryton app. There is certainly nothing unusual to report. The track seems to be plotting a point each second and playing dot-to-dot. Luckily the dots seem to be in the right places. Corners are almost always drawn correctly, the only exception seeming to be higher speed bends like a roundabout/circle where the entry and exit corners are smoothed over. Very occasionally the recorded track runs parallel to the actual track by a few metres.
All looks good.
Take Out
If you want the features AND want to save some money compared to a Garmin, then the Rider 750 could be for you. The experience you will get interacting with the 750 can be improved. However, if you can work with it, you will be happy that you have good access to some advanced performance and navigational features for a decent price.
Bryton Rider 750 Price, Availability & Discounts
The minimalist and sturdy out-front mount is nice and the bundle offering also includes a chest strap and speed/cadence sensors that look similar to those from Garmin.
Basic: Rider 750 E (Device & Mount) | Sensor Bundle: (Device & Mount & SPD/CAD/HR Sensors) | |
USA | USD $269.95 | USD $349.95 |
UK | GBP £219.95 | GBP £289.95 |
Australia | AUD $429.95 | AUD $549.95 |
EU | EUR €249,95 | EUR €319,95 |
Are you sure that have upcoming elevation? If yes, have you some pictures of that? Thanks for review
1. Historical elevation is shown from the altimeter
2. Future elevation is shown only from the source route FIT file and when following a route
3. No future elevation can be added in the Bryton app to route files via DEM
4. For a planned route eg using voice navigation. No forward elevation is available. this is being looked at
Thanks man, so it’s like garmin climb pro, hope that had also graphical view like that, gorgeous. If you’ll be some tests, also with this, will be great!
Does it support pressure sensors, like tyrewiz?
no, sorry.
that sort of thing will only ever come to Garmin.
Perhaps Lezyne too.
Hi! I am hesitating between the Rider 750 and the Edge 530. Now in Hungary the Edge 530 is only 20 USD more expensive than the Rider 750. It’ s worth that little extra?
check out the Garmin Edge 530 review https://the5krunner.com/2019/05/29/garmin-edge-530-review/ and see which aspects of each you prefer.
you are not comparing like with like. the 750 is touchscreen so compare that with the Edge 830 which is more expensive.
Hi all, I just bought a Bryton Rider 750 and I found the screen not as clearly visibile as the Rider 320’s screen. Colors are washed out and the contrast is low. Specially in some light conditions like before the sunset. Someone have had the same experience? How the screen of the 750 compares against wahoo roam o bolt or other bike computers? Thank you very much
roam’s screen is not as high resolution but is more readable in more varied light conditions.
Terrible display that you have to run permanently at max brightness to see anything. Inexcusably complicated to set up, but the worst part is the requirement for the device to be permanently linked to the smartphone app to function. As soon as this link is lost, a screen starts flashing demanding reconnection and all navigation capability is suspended meaning if your phone runs out of charge on a ride, or heaven forbid you go somewhere that has no 3g or 4g signal, then you have to find your own way home. On my brand new unit the gps signal reception also seems terribly poor and takes an age to get service even though I live in an area with plenty of satellite coverage and very little building interference. It’s going back immediately and shame on any reviewer for not highlighting such serious drawbacks.
You can check the google wayback engine to make sure I haven’t edited it:
in Cons: “Like Garmin, connected features require your phone to be paired and present.”
and “Don’t get me wrong, Bryton’s app and bike computer both work well enough. They are just a bit clunky.”
and I say it’s probably over-priced