Jun 04, 2014

Garmin Edge 1000 Full Review

After a month of testing the long awaited review of the Garmin Edge 1000 is up on DC Rainmaker's website.

We really love DC Rainmaker's reviews, and think you should check it out, then bump back here for our thoughts.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/06/garmin-1000-depth-review.html

Hey... welcome back. So basically the response seems to be... "meh"

The unit is bigger and heavier, and comes with a heavier price tag - $600 USD.  The problem is - nobody is asking for this. There are a lot of people perfectly happy with the form factor of the Edge 500. They just want Garmin to refresh it - since it's now going on it's five years old.

I've seen a similar thing with running watches for awhile now. Not everyone needs a Garmin 620. I often recommend older models and they are perfectly fine (don't tell anyone but I still run with my FR305 "brick" when my Ambit2 isn't charged, LOL).

I’m not sure I’d personally recommend it at the price that it’s at.  Perhaps a lower price, but not $600.

The shifting control is interesting, but immature. Segment challenges are in a "walled garden" that nobody is visiting.

And again, Garmin seems to be plagued with quality control issues on the firmware front, releasing beta software to customers (read the quote from the support person who probably no longer works there).

Have we now reached the point in the watch & GPS market where innovation is slowing down? Do you think vendors should focus on the basics such as build quality, battery life, GPS accuracy an... maybe bring the price down instead?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.