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@ChasnotRobert
I've also purchased an Elemnt. Planned a little ride last night and rode it this morning using the Elemnt to navigate.
Initial impressions are favourable. Screen is good, on unit functions are simple and reasonably intuitive. It's big compared to my Garmin 500 but the comparable Garmin units are big as well.
Following a route created in rwgps was straightforward. Turns are indicated 250m in advance with countdown, plus your onward route is shown on the map as an arrowed track. Some quirks noted:
some turns were billed as "turn right" when they were blatantly left and visa versa, I expect this is something to do with the waypoints in rwgps;
Occasionally the map was slow to re-centre so I was cycling along at the edge of the screen.
As a navigation tool to follow a pre planned route, it definitely works. You'd have to try hard to get lost. It's easy to zoom in/out in the route view which is handy.
After a 2 hour ride, battery was down from 100 to 80% so I expect this to have sub 10 hour useable capacity.
In my view there are two areas where this unit is considerably ahead of Garmin; connectivity and smart phone app.
On the first point, it synchronises with all known training apps, has wifi and Bluetooth and pairs with your phone and any sensors that I've heard of so excellent compatibility.
All the set up and settings are managed via the smart phone app which is 100x easier than clicking through menus on a Garmin. Surely Garmin must adopt this model as it's so obvious?
Overall, I like it. Not perfect, but a significant step forward IMO.