Hammerhead Karoo 2 – Ditch Your Garmin Edge For Riding in 2021?
If you’re looking to upgrade your Karoo 1, or if you are actively looking to get away from Garmin (Edge), or if you are looking for a new, sweet-looking bike computer then the Hammerhead Karoo 2 is probably going to be a good choice for you and your 2021 cycling goals. It’s been a hard year…you probably deserve a Karoo 2. Most likely you are mulling over the choice of the Karoo 2 vs. Garmin’s Edge 830 as they are both top-end, touchscreen bikenavs packed with many features.
Recommended Reading: Hammerhead Karoo 2 Review
Practice What You Preach – Will I Ditch My Garmin?
First off, I can’t see myself ever ditching my top-end Garmin tri watch (Garmin FR 945), whichever that might be at any given time over the next few years, I’m a Garmin realist and not a Garmin-hater; although I’m perfectly happy to seriously use some of the competitors’ products for extended periods like the Polar Vantage. But when it comes to BIKE COMPUTERS then I have already ditched my Garmin and I used either the Karoo 1 or one of the three Wahoo ELEMNTs as my main bike computer since mid-2019(ish).
There’s very little wrong with the Edge 530/830/Edge 1030 Plus range, I’d just rather keep it reliably simple with my Wahoo Element ROAM in 2021 now that the Karoo 2 has come to the end of its 3-month turn as my main bikenav. The Karoo 2 WILL have its turn again maybe towards the end of this year.
Nevertheless, I probably used the Karoo (v1) more than most other reviewers over the last few years as I got into the Karoo on the crest of the wave of its continued improvement rather than experiencing some of the trials and tribulations of the initial launch. So I’ve always been impressed with the Karoo and I’ve always been impressed with the continual addition of new features. The Karoo 2 has the same base product features as Karoo 1 but in a smaller, equally-as-pretty shell.
What are those 10 reasons to ditch your Garmin. It’s an interesting list because there probably isn’t a single feature that will wow you, as your current Garmin Edge probably does them all in some fashion.
Instead, what will wow you with Karoo 2 will be the usability and aesthetics. Surprisingly that doesn’t always sell sports products, it’s that pesky 100 item feature-list that tends to shift product off the shelves. You know, those 100 features that made you buy your last Garmin? Remember those? Yep, there were probably only about 10 of them that you ended up using !!
I reckon that at least 90% of you will have all your key features covered in the Hammerhead Karoo 2.
- Battery – 12 hours is the official figure but the real-world 10 that you will get were fine for me.
- Screen – It’s got perhaps the best touchscreen. It works and it looks fantastic.
- In-ride re-routing, using the onboard maps, refresh the upcoming elevation/hill profile
- Varia – It has an excellent implementation of Garmin Varia, perhaps even better than Garmin’s
- Strava Live Segments – Again, an excellent implementation. Perhaps the best on the market.
- Route management & workflow – Getting a route onto your Karoo 2 is a highly streamlined and impressive process with several innovative ways of ‘just getting’ a route that works for tomorrow morning’s ride
- Di2 Support – Some nice gear graphics plus the ability to switch between shifting profiles via the Karoo 2.
- Customisable pages and many novel data field formats.
- Sensors – yep, it supports your sensors and has clever ways to prioritise the order they are connected coupled with the ability to disabled ANT+ or BLE.
- WiFi – It ‘just works’ and syncs your completed to the cloud when you get home adding in some clever featurettes where you can choose if/how Strava will display your efforts. Garmin ‘just works’ here too…but Wahoo doesn’t.
- IMPROVEMENT: If you want to control your smart trainer in lots of exciting and varied ways then Hammerhead is ‘working on this’. For now, buy a Wahoo instead if this particular set of features is for you.
Need more info? these are all good bike computers.
- Recommended Reading: Hammerhead Karoo 2 Review
- Recommended Reading: Detailed Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM Review
- Recommended Reading: Detailed Garmin Edge 1030 Plus Review
More Details: Check out my detailed review of the Karoo 2 or check out the details on the Hammerhead site.
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