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Old 06-02-20, 03:46 PM
  #4  
Steve B.
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: South shore, L.I., NY
Posts: 6,862

Bikes: Flyxii FR322, Cannondale Topstone, Miyata City Liner, Specialized Chisel, Specialized Epic Evo

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Originally Posted by maximum01
I received one of these units for my birthday. So far I'm really enjoying it, so much so I'm considering using it on longer tours. What I really like:

- Large responsive touch screen. Very clear and works well in the rain after testing during some recent wet rides.
- Very functional turn by turn navigation. By and large it avoids busy roads and put you on cycle paths and canal tracks if you set it up right.
- All the stats I could ever need.
- On the fly route generation. Give it a distance and it will calculate looped rides for you. This feature has been amazing and taken me to parts of my home town I never knew existed.
- Robust and light weight. I toyed with Quadlock mounting of my phone for navigation but quickly realised how futile this is for long rides. Battery life, dust, rain and the potential to destroy the phone's image stabiliser weighed too heavily on me during rides. This unit removes all this anxiety and my phone is now tucked away in my jacket pocket.

Negatives:

- Syncing with Connect IQ has been a bit flakey for me with my particular phone - thankfully this is only an issue when I need to download a new app or widget, which isn't very often.
- Battery life is only average....and this leads me to my final point.

Has anyone successfully attached a power bank to this unit and tested it in the rain? The micro USB port has a plastic rain shield and is underneath so I'm wondering how risky linking the unit to a battery pack would be in rain. I'd love to know if anyone has successfully pulled this off. If so I can see this unit being a fantastic touring partner - allowing me to leave the maps at home.
My 1000 and 1030 devices can run off USB battery sticks, so yes, this is an option for when you are needing more than 12 hrs. If it were pouring rain I’d cover everything with a baggie or some such.

I don’t think the Explore connects via WiFi directly, some units do. The manual actually has a note in the index for “WiFi” on page 1, but then there’s no mention of how to connect, typical Garmin. Page 8 in the manual has cryptic instructions that states you can do direct downloads from the iQ store to the device via a computer and USB cable.

Last edited by Steve B.; 06-02-20 at 06:37 PM.
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