Garmin Edge 1040 Review
Garmin Edge 1040 Review TL;DR: Edge 1040 Represents Pure, Creeping Evolution but not enough evolution to warrant an upgrade from the 1030+ and not enough to encourage a switch from competitor brands. I don’t see any change in any direction to tempt anyone away from Wahoo and, as my local bike store said, “Wahoo is taking chunks out of Garmin’s market share“.
Garmin Edge 1040 is obviously better than its predecessors but this is an optional upgrade that will ultimately cost Garmin customers, here’s a review that tells you why.
The majority of owners of much older Garmin Edges will still stay within the Garmin ecosystem and the Edge 1040 is a great bikenav for them to upgrade to. A new cyclist or disgruntled owner of an older, less reliable Garmin Edge might choose a Hammerhead Karoo or Wahoo Bolt 2 for either the ‘Wow’ factor or the ‘Just works’ factor, respectively.
The price? #Ouch, Even at $600, I still bought one. I buy all Garmin products with my own money. I have no relationship with Garmin, they exert zero influence. I don’t even get a press release. Read on if you want to hear how good the Garmin Edge 1040 is in detail. One more thing, please buy from one of the links here as it helps support the ongoing independence and months of real, in-depth testing on a whole raft of endurance tech products, thank you…you’re awesome! Let’s start with a summary as I know you are all busy.
Garmin Edge 1040 – USA $600, GB £520, Eu600
Garmin Edge 1040 Solar – USA $750, GB £630, Eu750
Garmin Edge 1040 non-Solar Bundle – USA $700, GB £600, Eu700
Garmin Edge 1040 Review - Lasts Longer. Increases Accuracy. Costs The Most.
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Price - 85%85%
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Apparent Accuracy - 95%95%
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Build Quality & Design - 90%90%
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Features, Including App - 95%95%
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Openness & Compatability - 95%95%
Garmin Edge 1040 Review - Summary
The Garmin Edge 1040 is the best performance bikenav. It has all the features from the Edge 1030+and the addition of Stamina, Power Guides, Course Demands, Cycling Ability and an impressive Solar option. Interaction with key features is improved compared to all earlier Edge bike computers by adding Widgets to a revamped Home Screen and by many design tweaks throughout Garmin’s extensive list of features. If you want the latest and greatest Bikenav then this is for you but existing Edge 1030/1030+ owners need to think carefully before pressing the upgrade button.
The Edge 1040 is the pinnacle of bike computers with the best array of navigation tools and a great big screen to pack full of performance metrics & maps. Dedicated performance cyclists know that all their sports sensors can be attached and that they have all the choices they need to send their workouts back to their coach or to 3rd party training platforms like Training Peaks & Final Surge.
Garmin’s global maps and new cycle-type specific heatmaps support a complete solution for routing and navigation but if you prefer to grab your routes from Strava, RwGPS or Komoot then all is good there too.
The physical package is robust and long-lasting enough to handle multi-day, off-road adventures or that pesky commute to the office. Battery life is further boosted into the stratosphere with Solar and the super-accurate new GPS chip delivers notably better accuracy under trees or in urban canyons compared to all competitors.
Naturally, you get a built-in Altimeter, a Barometer and a Magnetic Compass. Linking to your phone further delivers rich cycling data to display weather, accident notifications, tracking and smart notifications.
Prior-generation Garmin owners from over 4 years ago endured too many button presses and screen swipes to enjoy the Garmin experience – this is now significantly improved. Using Edge 1040 is far more intuitive and quicker than anything that came before but I’ll be saying the same thing in 5 years when Garmin has delivered the improvements that are still needed.
Edge 1030plus owners won’t find too many truly meaty reasons to upgrade and might want to wait a few more months to see which of the new features, interface improvements and speed improvements make their way to them.
Pros
- A saddlebag full of Garmin navigation features and feature-full maps
- Every performance feature
- Most of Garmin’s physiology features
- Cycling’s most unnecessarily accurate GPS (GNSS) to date
- Super-impressive battery life that will definitely last longer than your legs even when navigating. Battery packs or solar will boost further.
- ANT+, BlueTooth, WiFi, CIQ apps & FE-C connects everything
- Garmin’s open platform connects it everywhere
Cons
- Garmin assumes you ride with a phone and didn’t add LTE & NFC payments.
- Garmin Edges can’t get all the physiology features that come from smartwatches…you don’t sleep with your Edge after all.
- Power Guide/FTP give incorrect recommendations for me.
- Up to 5-second lags in part of the menus
- GPS-based grade lags by up to 50m and zeros when stationary
Table of Contents (Click to Expand)
What’s The Same
The Edge 1040 remains Garmin’s pinnacle bike computer and will get all the new features for several years but that will also be true of the upcoming, smaller Edge 840 and 540. The Edge 1040 is simply Garmin’s largest GPS bike computer with a bigger touchscreen and longer battery life than the 840/540.
It’s not Garmin’s best it’s Garmin’s biggest.
Thus the Edge 1040 squarely aims at those who frequently navigate or who just want a bigger screen.
What’s New
The Edge 1040 is broadly similar in appearance to the Edge 1030plus. If you looked closely you would see the addition of a USB-C charging port, a repositioned tether hole and a metal twist mount.
Under the hood, hardware improvements see the addition of a new, super-accurate GNSS chip and a solar charging option – that’s pretty much it. Headline battery life with GPS is improved from 24 hours (1030+) to an impressive 35 hours even without any solar boost.
Turning to usability, we see that Garmin has again tinkered with the layout of many menus and options. It works more logically now than before but the visual aesthetic remains bland and regressive. I like the improvements to the home screen with the addition of widgets but there’s still plenty of room for improvement, for example by wasting less screen real estate.
So that just leaves the features ie the cycling problems that the Edge 1040 can now newly solve for you. There is a long enough list of mini feature-tweaks that dcrainmaker lists in his Garmin Edge 1040 review but few stand out to say “BUY ME“. Except maybe these…
This is new(ish) – Stamina
Garmin’s latest headline metric is stamina, which is making its way to all high-end sports devices.
Stamina combines the progressively negative effect of fatigue throughout the exercise with the more debilitating hits your body takes when you go anaerobic in Z4/Z5. If your power (or heart rate) zones are correct then stamina gives meaningful insights to help you pace yourself. For example, if you ease off a hard effort, you can recover your stamina levels back to POTENTIAL and you also get an estimated distance that your current stamina levels support.
I’ve previously used the new Stamina feature on the Epix 2/Forerunner 955 and it’s made its way onto my main screens.
Full details: Garmin Stamina
This is new – Ride Type Maps
There are still free global maps but the non-Solar version comes only with your region pre-installed. The bonus is that you now also get heatmaps specific to the kind of riding you want to do – gravel, for example.
Trip Resources (POIs) also become searchable. Want a nearby coffee or a replacement inner tube? You got it.
This is not new to Garmin’s stable of features – Easier Setup & Configuration
Your new Edge 1040 might recognise previous setups you had and automatically get your configuration off to a quick start by, for example, using all the ANT+ and BLE sensors from your last Edge. You will also find that the Connect app now lets you optionally set most of the 1040’s settings on your smartphone. But these are one-off trivialities and not a reason to buy an Edge 1040.
There is also a cut-down CIQ app store on the Edge.
I found the setup poor, it wouldn’t pair with my iPhone 12 for 15 minutes, didn’t find any previously paired sensors and the CIQ store is devoid of anything useful right now. Really poor.
This is new – Analysis & Targetting Features
Workouts now have secondary targets. #Shrug.
Less of a shrug is the new Cycling Ability feature from Firstbeat. The feature is heavily based on the existing 4-Week Load Focus metric which determines how you have invested your training intensities be that aerobically or anaerobically or for extended endurance rides. But the new Cycling Ability feature offers little more than a descriptive context to the Load Focus feature
This is new – Power Guide & Course Demands
Course Demands simply analyses the elevation profile of a route that you supply and suggests the ideal cycling abilities (Load Focus) required to nail that course, contrasting that to your actual Load Focus. It’s certainly interesting and naive in equal measure.
Q: But how do you ride that course on race day? It’s too late then to adjust your training, right?
A: Use the new Power Guide Feature. Constant power is generally assumed to be optimal for perfect pacing. That’s not quite the case and solo riders going for best times on more complex routes that involve winds and gradients will probably need to push harder up hills. But how hard? And how easy should the downhills be? Best Bike Split has, for many years, offered tailored power strategies to answer that conundrum and now Garmin gets in on the game with Power Guide.
Q: What if you have accumulated fatigue at the start?
A: I would kinda hope that Garmin automatically factors this in but they appear not to. You can, however, manually compensate for tiredness by toning the Guide Effort Level up or down for the entire course.
Each section of your route has a target power and Garmin offers a dedicated pacing screen to guide your efforts over each section. This is a good solo feature in principle but with very restricted real-world use cases like that regional TT Championship or just to get a PB/PR around your local park.
Garmin does not correctly recognise my FTP and Power Guide is heavily dependent on FTP in its calculations. If I followed Power Guide on local routes that I know extremely well, Power Guide definitely paces me too slowly even with the Guide Effort Level maxed out to 100%. It will be a nice but niche feature when it’s finished.
It is possible to manually set a correct FTP. I did this on one course that I know will take me 39 minutes or less on a TT bike. Garmin said it would take about an hour and needed an average of 94% of my FTP. That was with a setting of the ‘hardest’ goal effort with the correct FTP. Power Guide had me doing 160% of FTP up some of the hills which seems WAY too high for me.
Bascially, this feature is pants in its current implementation.
Tweaked – Daily Workout Suggestions
Daily workout suggestions are improved to more actively target your race day when previously they mostly maintained fitness.
This is a welcomed and sensible improvement but I don’t know anyone who uses Daily Workout Suggestions as a plan directed at race day. It’s best used as a way to fill occasional days with sensible, progressive workouts.
This is new – Solar
Garmin adds new Power Glass solar charging. Solar performance obviously varies but you can typically expect a 10-20% battery boost or at most 30%.
Garmin Edge 1040 Review Trivia
The new Edge 1040 is 2g heavier and 1mm thicker than the Edge 1030 plus. It now comes with a metal rear mount and re-positioned tether holes.
The Edge 1040 Solar has 64Gb of onboard storage whereas the non-Solar model has 32Gb and the latter is unchanged from the Edge 1030 plus.
Edge 1040 also has a gyroscope. Now you know. Gyrating will be significantly easier as a result (it probably boosts the accuracy of incident detection & maybe also grade change detection)
Garmin Edge 1040 Alternatives – Comparison to Karoo, Elemnt & Dash
There are several alternatives to the Edge 1040 and perhaps the best navigation option to consider is the Hammerhead Karoo 2 which beats the Edge 1040 with its better screen and better looks. The Karoo does have really good mapping options but Garmin’s ace up the sleeve will always be its heatmaps that only Strava could match.
The Wahoo Roam 2 (review) is simply easier to use than all other advanced bike computers but its focus is as a performance bike computer whose maps are ‘functional’, if you navigate a lot then give the Roam a miss. The Dash L200 is newly released and, like the Roam, is more focused as a performance bike computer that can also offer competent navigation but is not up to the same mapping standards as Garmin.
All these bike computers have a rich set of features and good ecosystems, however, none matches the physiology data on offer in the Edge 1040.
Garmin Edge 1040 Accuracy & Performance Tests
I was extremely impressed with the battery performance when navigating on long rides. These are two full days of testing when following a route with TBT and with significant sections of going off-route (requiring re-routing). On the second day, I had the map screen on show almost all of the time to try to deplete the battery – I failed!
Each day used battery-gobbling Multi-band GNSS and, as you can see, the Edge 1040’s battery happily handled a big day on the trails.
If you follow routes and navigate a lot you will probably have always had worries about the battery lasting the day. If you crank the Edge 1040 down to use GPS-only it should easily navigate you for a whole weekend with no need to recharge. It’s very impressive. (Note: My tests showed very little difference in battery life with GPS-only, probably a bug)
Elevation performance is also excellent – with one caveat.
The raw elevation tracks are great. Even over the two long rides from the battery test, above, I had no significant issues with the elevation. A minor glitch seemed to be with elevation changes when stationary but the Edge 1040 was significantly better than the Wahoo Bolt 2 in this respect.
The only problem is with the responsiveness of the grade metric on the Edge 1040, it’s WAY too laggy. I was forced to stop on an off-road grade that exceed 20% and at this point, the grade reset to 0% (zero) even though I was following a course with altitude points in it. Pushing the bike up the remainder of the hill it became obvious that the live grade metric works from 3D-GPS changes and that several seconds or up to about 50m can be required to show the correct grade.
GPS accuracy in multi-band mode is generally excellent when used on roads to the point where there is nothing worth showing you. The following examples are through some heavily forested areas in Southern England including parts of the South Downs Way. I compare the 1040 to the 955 Solar which is using GPS-only and to the Bolt 2. I had some trouble here determining if the bike computers’ tracks were correct as the paths marked by Google were sometimes wrong. Tentatively it looks like the Edge 1040 beats the accuracy of the marked trails on the satellite images in forests! and is certainly better than the Bolt and 955.
Full Route Link: dcranalyzer
More accuracy test results on the Edge 1040 are here.
Garmin Edge 1040 Specifications
| Garmin Edge 1040 Specifications | |
| Dimension | 2.3″ x 4.6″ x 0.8″ (59.3 x 117.6 x 20.0 mm) |
| Colour Touchscreen | yes |
| Display | 3.5″ (88.9 mm) diagonal, 282x470px |
| Battery Life | 45 hours |
| Weight | 4.7 oz (133 g) |
| Power Glass solar charging | (Optional) |
| Battery type | Rechargeable lithium-ion |
| Battery Boosts | Battery Save Mode, Solar (optional), Battery Pack (optional) |
| Water rating | IPX7 |
| Basemap | Preloaded Garmin cycle map |
| Ability to add maps | Yes |
| Storage | 32Gb (64Gb Solar) |
| Waypoints/favourites/locations | 200 |
| Navigation Routes | 100 Courses |
| History | Up to 200 hours |
| GNSS | Glonass+GPS+Galileo and Multi-Band |
| Barometric altimeter | Yes |
| Magnetometer | Yes |
| Gyroscope | Yes |
| Accelerometer | Yes |
| Ambient light sensor | Yes |
| ANT+, FE-C, WiFi, CIQ5, BLE | Yes |
Opinion – Garmin Edge 1040 Review
Keep your Edge 1030plus for now.
There are reasons to upgrade to an Edge 1040 just not very compelling ones – crazy battery life, solar, accuracy, the stamina feature and the Power Guide Feature. Save your money unless you want the latest, greatest, largest Edge or unless you know that the few new additions solve a specific problem for you.
If you are a Time Triallist or need uber battery life for multi-day adventures…go for the new features. Otherwise, wait.
But hey if you have an old Garmin Edge or are buying a bike computer to complement your Garmin watch then you won’t go far wrong with an Edge 1040. If you can wait a while the smaller 840 (touch) and 540 (non-touch) will soon be out with the same feature set.
Price & Availability
Thank you for supporting the work here by buying from these links.
Grab one while you can, all recent Garmin launches have been initially short of stock. Beware retailers who claim to have stock but don’t. You might have to go direct to Garmin in June and I learned in the USA that Amazon.com will not have stock for a month. Links in the USA include Power Meter City which is highly reputable.
Garmin Edge 1040 – USA $600, GB £520, Eu600
Garmin Edge 1040 Solar – USA $750, GB £630, Eu750
Garmin Edge 1040 non-Solar Bundle – USA $700, GB £600, Eu700
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Interesting thoughts, thanks. Will check out the detailed reviews but yes, it seems my 530 can keep me going for a while after all…GPS accuracy never was a problem. Stamina could be “nice” on long Alpine climbs but possibly distracting too and I have yet to see anyone making actionable use of it…
use xert.
its ciq fields give an excellent live take on things like stamina (different terminology, same thing), although its better suited to managing anaerobic efforts. but it is valid in group rides and that’s what most of us do most.
Nice analysis. I agree that it is a very underwhelming release by Garmin and many of the new features are very niche in my opinion. Personally, the power plan is interesting and I like the special screen for it, but BBS works fine for me. Maybe I’ll try to find a data field for my 1030 Plus that mimics that screen using the BBS race plan.
For most people I would suggest grabbing the 1030 Plus — it’s currently on sale (in the US at least) for $450, which is a killer deal.
Fortunately at Polar we have only m460 so we dont have such problems (joker 😉)
Don’t see it as a problem.
“…that the Connect app now lets you optionally set most of the 1040’s settings on your smartphone.”
wellcome to an Suunto feature of 2009 (Ambit1)and literally the way anybody (except garmin) doing configuration settings since the last decade, if course you would notice in writing fan biy style reviews…
Now appears to be available on Wiggle, well not the Solar version, for those who can’t help themselves 😉
Sure there aren’t many visible changes as it’s physically a similar size without smaller bezels but that’s likely a trade off for the additional space required for solar.
Internally there’s a new soc Which appears to have far better performance, and much better battery life.
USB-C is welcome and the gyroscope you mention allows much more rapid calculation of incline (it’s the same sensor that lets you use your iPhone as a spirit level).
Article feels a bit clickbaity TBH.
another media outlet confirmed from Garmin that the hardware internals were unchanged (apart from the obvious gnss/solar/usb)
clickbait to an article that shows no ads?…hmm that’s a new criticism but I’ll take it on board 😉
Haha. Fair play on the no ads/click bait 👍
Which site confirmed the same internals?
It would be really surprising to keep the same soc when there’s much better performance, at least one new sensor etc.
😉
“A spokesperson for Garmin confirmed to BikeRadar that the hardware used in the new Edge 1040 is the same as the outgoing 1030 Plus”
https://the5krunner.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Capture-10.png
Seems odd given the HUGE route calculation improvements as seen live in GPLama’s review and yes there are at least two hardware changes with the multi-band and gyro added so that statement is “incorrect”.
Painting themselves into a bit of a corner too as there’s no reason not to bring the new and much faster/better software on the 1030+.
Looks like they’ve switched the route calculation to run in the background which makes sense. Mines arriving today so will do some testing later. Agree that if the hardware is the same then they should retrofit to 1030+
Course Loading: London Loop (250km, off road) – took a very short number of seconds to load
Nav to start of course which was maybe 15 miles away took 30 seconds, which is not particularly quick IMO
I’ve not tinkered with the default route caching settings
The difference is it starts calculating as soon as you transfer the course, instead of when you load it to ride. Unless you’re riding a course immediately after transfer you won’t see the calculation time. Nice.
Hardware improvements are never more than incremental. If it’s a huge improvement, a change on the algorithm side of things is the only likely explanation (most likely involving a change in the data structure of the map files, probably involving some size/speed trade-off)
It’s not the same. The 1040 is deffo faster, more reactive. Or perhaps they’ve managed to optimize their system, which I doubt is the reason.
yes and that’s definitely one reason why 1030+ (maybe 1030?) owners should wait a few months and see what goodies Garmin hands to them in firmware updates.
Also rainmaker got the route calculation thing wrong, it should be clear that the route calculation isn’t instantaneous when it’s done on the 1040, it still takes few seconds, which is maybe a bit faster than the 1030+ however, what takes 1 second is when you’re loading the route, thus I think you’re right about the hardware, not so different although a tad more responsive and faster when browsing the map, and of course better battery life… if it has anything to do with hardware that is
Also, kinda disappointed that they removed 3D orientation mode via an update, ok it was an pointless and laggy mode after all
Hi, great reading based on your own user experience. I have been a wahooligan since I could afford to but now I am strongly considering a switch to Garmin. This has come not only after having bought my first Fenix 6Pro series for gym/run/swim workout but because I did get let down by accuracy and stability of my Element bike comp not once or twice… Essentially the massive problem with Wahoo Elment is well documented and published by Wahoo support. It simply struggles with getting correct data in bad weather, densed fog or both plus elevation. Also, I noticed screen gets moist and foggy occasionally, too. How frustrating it was when looking at my hard earned efforts that yield utter nonesense in remote locations. And if it wasn’t for F6Pro it would be embarrassing to even post them online. I gave Wahoo many chances trying updates and upgrades but I can’t do it no more. I need reliable piece of kit no matter the weather, None of them is perfect and I get that but out of all I give Garmin solid base performance. They also spend huge on R&D and offer results to all their users. The connect app is useful and pairs data well with my watch… Nope, I am not paid by Garmin at all in case you wander.
An often heard complaint about the x30 series is the very slow route (re-)calculation times. Apparently, this has improved dramatically on the new 1040. In dcrainmaker’s review it is stated that route calculation/recalculation is almost instant now due to an improved algorithm. I wonder if Garmin will include this updated algorithm in software updates for their x30 range, but I doubt they will.
I am in the market for a new bike computer after my edge 705 died yesterday, but the 1040 is too big and expensive for me. I am looking at the 530 right now, but am curious if we will see a new 540 being announced anytime soon. The FCC database states a lot of new Garmin device approvals lately, so who knows.
On June 1, there was the announcement of the new forerunner 255 and 955 watches. A week later, on June 8, the 1040 was announced. Will we see another new device next week, on June 15?
Tempted by the new features/speed but hard to justify TBH…I got the 530 for 200€ last year, a real bargain I think given all the features/metrics. Sure route calculation is not the fastest and you’re better off deactivating “route recalc” while riding if you don’t want it to get stuck for minutes on end. Could be useful if you’re in a pinch and your phone’s gone dead of course.
I doubt we will see the 840/540 for months. My bet would be next year.
I will do some tests tonight on loading some large route files on the 1040 and report back
Thanks, I upgraded.
The 1040 is a solid computer, I did read Rainmaker’s review. I do find it exaggerated that you claim there is not enough of changes… there was probably more changes than between 820 and 830… or 1030 and 1030 plus.
I think there is a little bit of absurdity in your post.
Btw, not everyone has the 1030, so if someone owns the 1000 explorer and hasn’t upgraded to 1030 plus, then the 1040 might be an interesting upgrade.
Ok, maybe the only con is that they merged all features from their Garmin Fenix series, which lost its exclusivity.
ty, i’ve clarified what upgrades are sensible…as you say, ‘obviously’ a 10-year old edge owner gets a big upgrade going to the 1040. in my mind, i was more contemplating existing, recent generation Edge owners.
I upgraded from a 1030 (bum battery). The responsiveness of the entire system is amazingly better. You touch it and something actually happens. You finish a ride and immediately there is a summary. The UI is a big upgrade as well. It’s much more intuitive to use over the old 1030. I haven’t even gotten into some of the training/racing features yet, but I’m already happy with the upgrade.
Good to hear the feedback from an actual user ! Was quite tempted to upgrade my 530 but it will probably do for now 😉
some of the menus are a tad laggy when responding to a button press (0.5 to 2 seconds) and the transitions from one screen to the next are sometimes not smooth.
It could all be better but it’s fine for me. then again my 935 was fine when new but now its rubbish
The fact that Garmin announced that going forward, new features will not be back-ported to the 1030/1030-plus is a good reason alone to upgrade, if you want to keep getting improved features over the next few years. What you have on the 1030/1030-plus now is what you will always have, other than maybe bug fixes.
did Garmin officially announce that? I didn’t see it
do you have a link please?
I can’t point you to anything officially from Garmin, but DCRainmaker did refer to this near the end of the “What’s New” section of his 1040 Solar review…
“As usual, it’s common to ask whether any of these features will be added to any existing Edge units, and unfortunately this time the answer is no. While Garmin has added an insane number of features to the Edge 1030 since its release (including virtually all of the Edge 1030 Plus features), as well as a sizable number of features to the Edge 530/830/1030 Plus since their releases, this time around the new features aren’t being added downstream.
Garmin didn’t clarify why, though, I suspect it’s largely tied to the new user interface on the Edge 1040. Bringing those features down to older units would have required either updating the UI on those older units, or, changing the code on the newer features to work in the older UI (which in turn has more developer time associated with it). Of course, that doesn’t change the reality that the Edge 1030 Plus especially, as well as older units, are largely fully capable technically-speaking of receiving future firmware updates, they just won’t from a business standpoint.”
ty, i saw that
let’s settle on ‘dcr was recently told there were no plans’.
it seems strange that garmin uses a blogger (an excellent one) to make announcements.
plans can selectively change for some newly existing features but for new features we haven’t yet seen, i would agree, those are even less likely to find their way to older models.
I had had a succession of Garmins culminating in an Edge 1000 All seems to have an inbuilt and unpredictable unreliability factor. So when the Edge gave up completely I looked at alternatives (including the 1030 plus) but concluded the Karoo 2 suited me best. It provides all the metrics I need albeit not as extensive as the Garmin has regular updates to increase its functionality asnd it’s navigation capability is in a different league than anything available from Garmin. Redirecting when you go of the preplanned route is clear, sensible and straightforward even if you choose to take a different route for miles.
So, for me a Karoo2 was a no-brainer until it was taken over by SRAM and lost all its integration with Shimano. Choices now are to chuck it and buy an Edge 1040, put up with the lack of integration that had been a key part of Shimano Di2 and get the regular enhancements to the Karoo2 or curse Shimano, Sram and Karoo and avoid any updates so I can retain integration. Up to now I’ve stuck with the latter as being the least bad option!!
hi totally agree with all of that and the sentiment behind it
for other readers tho i would say that recent Garmin Edge devices are more robust and reliable in my experience.
I upgraded from a 1030+ to this (non-solar) and it’s mich better. The interface, syncing is a big improvement even over the 1030+
My favourite features;
Battery life is amazing. 120km ride and had 91% left!
“Latest route synced” being right there on the home screen to just go, with a little map. Makes the pinned ridewithgps/garmin syncing invaluable.
GPS GNSS is much better in tricky terrain/forests
The fact the terrain minimap has colour coding and the other improvements to ClimbPro
It does need a UI spring clean though. Looks like they got someone to do it who had seen a modern UI but never used one. It’s now harder to change data elements on a panel mid-ride.
The GarminIQ store on the Edge is pointless.
Not tried the other advanced training features yet.
😉 it’s recently had the spring clean
As I have a 820 and my eyesight is geting worse as my age advances, a bigger screen seems a good idea.
Very good review!
On the Garmin hotline, they explained to me rather condescendingly that I cannot relicense my purchased Swiss Topo Pro map from the Oregon 700 to the Edge. I have to buy the card again. I returned the thing. Astalavista Garmin. I can fool myself alone.
To be fair to Garmin, that’s a licencing requirement from the map owner, not from Garmin.
In 2023 the biggest reason to upgrade from the 1030 to the 1040 is True up 2.0 that garmin rolled put earlier in 2023, which is essential for people like me that have multiple garmin devises, to ensure the numbers are aligned across all devises. My fenix 6 now has True up 2.0 but my 1030 plus won’t get it, I now have different train loads and recovery times across devices. This is despite my 1030 plus coming to market after my fenix 6.
Garmin makes great hardware, but as usual the software is so disjointed and clunky, it’s no wonder other manufacturers are making in roads, Wahoo in terms of cycle computers and Whoop wipes the floor from a health tracking perspective.
yep
not sure why a ride i only did on my 1040 didn’t appear/sync on my 965 too.