Originally Posted by ooga-booga

so i've finally had it with garmin. bought an edge 510 about 3 years ago for essentially 2 reasons.
my (then) iphone 4 drained the battery to high heaven when running strava to track rides and
that particular phone had gps issues...esp in canyons or metropolitan dtown areas...so wanted
something more accurate.
the garmin edge 510 has been accurate, has been great with battery life and has an easy,
adaptable readout. no issues there. the issue is the uploading of rides-whether via bluetooth
or plugging into the computer. the garmin express/connect thing is a pita and doesn't always
work, resulting in "dropped" rides that i hafta enter manually. The ride always registers on the
actual 510 unit with all applicable stats when i check "last ride." the inability to transfer rides to
strava (or even the garmin connect app) happens about 25% of the time and doesn't seem to be
influenced by ride length, distance, terrain or time.

this is my 3rd edge 510. it is my 2nd replacement one after contacting the company about the
originally purchased one and its subsequent replacement. the other two had different issues
(no backlighting, randomly turning off, long periods of freezing). so it's been 3 years with essentially a
new or refurbished (no charge) one every year. none of the units has suffered what i would call a
compromising incident of water immersion, dropping, crash, etc. have already performed the various
"boots" to reset the unit without avail.

really dislike the entire garmin connect/garmin express interface. seems hokey and laborious.

looking for something to replace the garmin so as to be able to easily upload rides to strava but also
has good battery life and is accurate. weatherproofing is nice but lack of is not a dealbreaker.
will continue to rock the garmin as a during the ride computer but have little faith in it transferring info.
in the few solely strava rides i've done with the newer phone-iphone 5s-the gps seems more accurate
but battery drain still is an issue. really like to do one 5+ hour ride a week so considering adding a
portable recharging unit for the phone.

anyone really like their non-garmin setup for accuracy, battery life, dependability and ease of info
transferral to strava? i'd love to hear about what works for you. thanks!