Garmin 530 Alternative
Stayla Casillas
When reviewing smartwatches, I tend to wear them for around two weeks or so before passing judgment. This allows me the opportunity for the watch to track my sleep for a week, take it on a few different workouts, and get a feel for the watch - but I just have to tell you about this one.
The simplicity is actually incredibly refreshing, not overloading you with information initially: a quick scroll down allows you access to the weather, your last workout, heart rate, sleep stats, blood oxygen and activity level, although this list is customizable.
As an alternative to the high-priced premium watches it's great so far. The big question is whether it can match up to both premium offerings and the best Garmin watches in its weight and price class, like the Garmin Instinct 2.
The original Amazfit T-Rex has dropped in price down to under $100 - if you see some great deals on the T-Rex 2 in the coming months, after its new-product sheen has worn off, you may be in a position to grab a top-quality adventure watch at a real bargain.
Matt is TechRadar's expert on all things fitness, wellness and wearable tech. A former staffer at Men's Health, he holds a Master's Degree in journalism from Cardiff and has written for brands like Runner's World, Women's Health, Men's Fitness, LiveScience and Fit&Well on everything fitness tech, exercise, nutrition and mental wellbeing.\n\nMatt's a keen runner, ex-kickboxer, not averse to the odd yoga flow, and insists everyone should stretch every morning. When he\u2019s not training or writing about health and fitness, he can be found reading doorstop-thick fantasy books with lots of fictional maps in them."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Matt EvansSocial Links NavigationFitness, Wellness, and Wearables EditorMatt is TechRadar's expert on all things fitness, wellness and wearable tech. A former staffer at Men's Health, he holds a Master's Degree in journalism from Cardiff and has written for brands like Runner's World, Women's Health, Men's Fitness, LiveScience and Fit&Well on everything fitness tech, exercise, nutrition and mental wellbeing.
Ive had two Garmin devices over the last ten years. The first one was a GPSMAP and the lastest was an Oregon 550. Both have failed the same way. (see attached photos of the Oregon) The rubber on/off button perished and eventually fell to bits exposing the microswitch inside. Ive not had it outside since I realised how exposed the electronics were and ive just sent an email to garmin asking if its fixable.
Yes, I have seen earlier threads where people have mentioned replacement 3-D printed buttons. I have repaired other devices myself by scavenging keys from keypads off old remote controls or giveaway pocket calculators. If possible choose a button the same size that has plenty of surrounding flat rubber.
My current devices are an android phone, or a Garmin Nuvi 1310 satnav. (Found a cache today with the 1310 but it had dozens of woodlice on it so I will return in a few weeks time when hopefully they should have gone wherever they go for the winter.) As for the 1310 on off button I have been gentle with this for a while as it seems fragile and unlike a handheld GPS it is not expected to be used regularly in normal car navigation use.
My advice is to fix it. Buying something newer will only disappoint you. All devices will have their weaknesses, but the older ones were not built to break to the same degree. I'm using a Garmin Nvi 200, the single most durable piece of electronics I have ever owned. The amount of punishment it has been subjected to would have destroyed anything else. It has one flaw, the USB connector (used for charging) comes loose after a few years of daily use. When that happened, I bought a second-hand identical replacement unit for $10 and used that until it developed the same problem, then I repaired the original one and have been using it ever since.
See GPSrChive for more details.
Yeah exactly. Either pushed competitors out of business or bought them. Oregon 7x0 was one of the best "bang for the buck" GPSr ever(was my first one too), remember my dad buying it for me before my first deer season(along with gun cleaning kits -tools-accessories/cleaning-tools/ and other stuff)
I'm still using my Oregon 600, but the rubber has formed a tear by the user button (not the power button) and I have to make sure I press it at the right angle or the plastic pin will pop off the button and I have to use tweezers to get it back in place. I'm patiently waiting for Garmin to update the Oregon line so I can have a more updated touch screen handheld. I guess I can search for an Oregon 700 since it's unclear whether Garmin is going to continue the line, or even continue developing its handheld GPS lineup at all.
Honestly, I find myself geocaching by phone these days and just using the Garmin for hiking/backpacking/backcountry adventure trips. Phone apps work just as well, if not better, and I can run and download PQs for offline storage on a whim if I'm going out of cell service. I just don't turn the Garmin on very much these days. But I'm also not ready to throw it away either.
> I find myself geocaching by phone these days
I think you've hit the market summary spot on. They're in a tough spot. Look at their product line and you can see a hole and some rollup opportunities.
Etrex: small and large. $100 and $200 are good price points.
GPSMap: separate product entries at $300, $350, and $400 - each with submodels of different sensors, mapping options is too crowded. Clean house. A BME280 and a HMC5883L combined are under a buck in quantity. Does a camera make sense in these at all, especially at $100 when the sensors are < $3. Volumes for the multi-SV chipsets and antennas have driven the price to nearly the same as the GPS-only solutions. Printing and stocking different SKUs with training sales and support people (bwaaahahaha ) costs more than that. Fold all the 64, 65, and 66 devices together into one model. Remove Topo as a SKU and make it a download. Rhino and Montana are niche products at best. I just can't imagine that people are buying $800 Montana 750is.
Make Spot a separate unit that connects to the phone for a keyboard and location. Just don't even put it in the GPS. Just like the camera, that's on a different upgrade cadence than the core GPS tech.
New volume lineup: eTtex small $100 and large $200. GPSMap touch or dpad at $350. (Ask if we really need three different UX's with click-stick, dpad, and touch at all...) Hire a team to fix the problems that have been in these things for >10 years. The self-destructing buttons, switches, and rubber band problems are just not funny any more. Hire a usability engineer to count the number of button presses to street/foot navigate for a day of power geocaching, then go fix the UI. Read AC's list of long-standing bugs in the firmware and actually fix them. Crashing on certain PQs has been with us since Colorado. Make a legit sustaining engineering group to fix and support these things
Last time I picked up a eTrex, the performance was just torture. When we had 8Mhz Dragonballs, I understood why keypresses lagged by a second. Modern multi-core RISC-V and ARM parts with a good peripheral set and good power management are, again, about a buck in quantity. Quit using parts that just make the hardware so laggy to save pennies.
But you've exactly called out the elephant in the room. All, but particularly the entry level devices, have to be feeling the pressure from phones. As long as your touch screen device is $600, it's really hard to justify one instead of the touch screen you already own. That really leaves their island between those two points: hyper rugged (compared to a phone) hardware. They'll never be able to compete with the volume economies of Samsung or Apple - heck, probably not even Oppo or OnePlus.
I think there's space for them to survive with geocaching-capable devices inside the larger "outdoor" class of devices, but I suspect the $500 touch screen Oregons are so indistinguishable in the minds of consumers from a phone (that the already have) in an otterbox that we just won't be seeing more of those. Instead of trying to shove everything into every device, consider your handheld "power geocacher" unit using BT to pair with your Drive so the cache you just marked found disappears from the map and your next (auto-routed) GOTO is the navigation target. Quit trying to solve driving directions on a 2.4" screen and an AA battery budget for some users.
They used to have 20 Nuvis and then mobile phones happened. Now just have models at 5", 6", 7", and 8", I think it's time for some tough love in their outdoor line to clean the models up and lock them down into a sustainable maintenance mode product line. In that product line, like their fitness devices, external competition forced them to clean up. In handheld GPS, their hand isn't forced, but they can't coast with this product line forever.
If I were King, things would be a lot different here...
I'm just not sure we need an Oregon 800 at $500.
They have all failed in this way. Button ripped off suddenly after ca 1,5-2 years of light to medium use. It seemed the rubber gave up or dried out. Garmin sent a new gasket for free for the first eTrex which eventually failed too. After the eTrex 30 (2012), along with its horrible software which was at the time not anywhere near production quality for even recreational navigational equipment, I said enough is enough and didn't send a dollar more to Garmin.
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