Your Garmin help, please

Tried that. And contact cleaner. And jiggling a sacrificial USB cable in and out repeatedly with contact cleaner. Still borked. I should really get rid of them, as the 130 and 1030 I have now do 90% of what I need, and the Wahoos fill in the gaps. Thinking about getting a 530 though.

Wow, thanks for the replies guys!
On this particular tour I won’t have dynamo but my other tourer does so charge through would be nice but not essential if doing what @hippy suggests is the best option.
Will be navigating on and off road, doesn’t need anything like strava live etc just to be able to use files from wherever to get where I’m going.
Happy to pay a little more for ease of use rather than most basic I guess. I’m a proper numpty with directions and most technical things...
Can’t imagine I’ll ever be more than a day away from power if needs be so 40ish hours run time inc external battery would be fine.
Never had an external battery before so not sure what I should be looking for so cheers for responses.

@jdp I’ll be starting in Edinburgh and heading south as far as time allows.

Halfords doing garmin 820 for £150 at the mo. Good deal? Will it do what I need for on/off road touring? I do need turn by turn as I’m useless...

I used a 520 plus for my recent tour but it only navigates pre-loaded routes. It doesn’t offer on the fly navigation, ie take me to the nearest town or address unless you’ve preloaded them as favourites. Something I failed to be able to do.
I got around this by creating a very short route for each town I was likely to want to go to, then once in the Garmin you can load this course then navigate start.

Yeah I’d suck at that. On the go navigation would be preferable.
Thanks for the heads up.

Take it to a phone repair shop to have them replace the connector? Or if they're cheap, do it yourself? I need to do this to my previous phone that has a very sensitive micro USB socket. Annoyingly the phone is rock solid save for this connector.

Be wary of using Garmin nav on the fly for too much. It can be quite hit and miss with routing. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's like double the distance you would expect. If you can plan ahead and dump GPX files from RWGPS or something onto the unit for the bulk of your riding it's much better. Garmin nav is still good for finding hotels and stuff off route.

Also, what about a phone for nav? Do you have to have a Garmin? If budget is an issue and you already have a smartphone...

I’ve used my phone before with free gpx software and it’s always been shite. Is there a good option for iPhone? Don’t mind paying seeing as I was considering spaffing on a garmin.

I don't use iPhone but I know people who navigate with them. RWGPS maybe, with the phone in a pocket or on the bars telling your directions over the speaker, screen off to save power. Galileo Pro was mentioned to me. I use RWGPS and OSMAnd as backups on Android, both paid versions. You probably have to pay a few quid to get the functions you want. Still lots cheaper than Garmin if you have a phone already

Cycle.travel is good for routing if you have a connection. It optimises for bike routes. Can be a bit "timid", but you can drag and revise the route. Then save it as a GPX file.
Have done this once, by swapping the MicroSD card from the Garmin (Etrex20) into the phone and copying the GPX from cycle.travel into the Garmin when I forgot to save a route onto the Garmin.

Have you done this in the past? As my 800 USB connection is similarly mashed and some sandpaper on the connector hasn’t done the job

Nope, all my Garmin USBs work. My old phone is flakey/annoying enough that I want to fix it so I can use it as a spare or sell it or something. I don't see why someone with electronics experience can't de-solder a connector and add another one.

Ignore me if I'm missing something - but the above exchange sounds like you thought Alan was saying don't get the 820, when he was actually talking about the 520 plus.

The 820 does do on the fly nav (not that I necessarily recommend it either!)

True that. I had an 820 before the 520 plus and moved away because the touch screen is a bit rubbish and to use it in the winter you have to take your gloves on and off.
But it’s probably worth £150 new, although you’ll need to create or buy detailed maps to use it effectively.

Any ideas why my 520 has started to record my speed data real 'lumpy'? Data is set to 1 sec recording, GPS trace is 100% accurate. GPS & GLONASS both activated.

Almost pancake flat road, and effort pretty constant throughout apart from the first few mins.

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So have had a chat with Liz and she’ll be using it for hiking etc from time to time as well as touring so gonna set budget at £3-400 inc getting a power bank any other bits like screen protector/case.

See a lot of chat about buying uk maps etc, do the preloaded ones tend to suck on such devices? I assumed they ran off google maps or os. Sorry for what are probably daft questions.

OSM maps are free. Don't buy Garmins unless you really need them.
No they don't use GOogle maps, Garmin has their own and OSM maps are a big, frquently updated open source mapping tech that is constantly improved by humans like us.
If your device has an SD card slot, you buy an SD card, download some OSM maps and save it to the card, install and you're good to go typically.

Dunno about etrex but Garmin Edge 1030 for example comes pre-installed with Garmin's Europe maps (it'd fucking want to as well, costing £500!)

No sd slot on 830.

Having never looked into sat nav before I’m shocked and baffled at how many standards and variables there are. I just want to avoid dying of exposure on a hillside and assumed they’d all be as straightforward as the satnav in my van :/

Fuck the 830 then :)

I like my devices to have SD slots so if something corrupts on it you can swap it, or you can swap say an SD with USA maps on it with an EU like I do when I race TABR and TCR.

There's not that many variables and if you're worried about dying I'd take more than one unit and learn how to use them both well in advance of anything adventurous.

If you don't need/want bike stuff like cadence and power and HR and shit, then get an etrex. They're cheaper, probably more robust, a little clunkier to use but make up for it by running off AA batteries which you can carry spares of and buy anywhere with shops.

I'd loan you some of mine but I don't want to be responsible for you freezing to death on a mountain :P

Nah I don’t need cadence/hr etc. Just want to be able to upload gpx and follow the route basically! Things like navigate to start and search function would be nice.
Will look into etrex.

What about the other satnav brands or is that a whole ‘nother rabbit hole?

As much as I hate on Garmin, they normally do the job. I'm a navigational idiot and I've made it across continents with my 1000 and 1030 (etrex, phone as backups). Missus has a Wahoo but I like being able to do stuff on the fly on the Garmin. I have years of experience with Garmin though so I know a lot of their quirks. Newer models are better but more expensive. Etrex pretty much do the same thing year in year out with some added bells and whistles as you go up the range.

When are you going? If you can get near west london maybe I could show you how Edge vs. etrex work and you have more info on which to make a decision?