UKH

Question for those who know about such stuff.

I've been happily recording my rides with Strava on my phone (and I have a cheap Sigma cyclometer from Decathlon to show me realtime speeds, distances etc). I've just noticed that Halfords are selling the Garmin Edge 25 for £70 which seems like a very good price. Does it offer me much more than my current set up or should I resist temptation?

I've bought a Bryton 330 which has been great so far (6 weeks). This one was about £70 but they start from £50 ish for a very basic GPS computer. Might be worth a look if you don't want to spend too much. They also look like a basic cycle computer so much less 'Nickability' for want of a better word.

The biggest advantage to me over just using a phone is battery life. My Iphone doesn't stand a chance on a 4 hour ride running Strava

Personally, I'd go for it. The Garmin is more accurate than most phones and battery lasts about 7-10 hours quite easily. The counter point is that I don't think you'll find it as easy to break your pbs using a Garmin... 

I also like having the device visible on my bars, something I didn't do with my phone on my mountain bike. 

Re: accuracy - they almost certainly have the same GPS chip in

Maybe, but I've run my phone and Garmin on the same ride and got differences. 

I also would say the garmin will be far more accurate. Did 3 days biking with my girlfriend recently. She used an iPhone and strava app. I used a garmin 500. Did the same rides. I waited around a fair bit and cycled a but further. I always cyclied about 3% less distance and height each ride according to the data. 

So how do you know which is more accurate? All you've done is compared two measurements.

Should add I'm a fan of stand-alone bike computers, mainly on the battery-life front.

One of the things I've read about Garmin devices is that the sampling frequency of GPS readings can vary leading to less accurate readings. I'm not sure how that compares to using a smartphone though. I really have to say that I know very little about such stuff hence my initial plea for advice.

Also, I haven't noticed that using the Strava app on my android phone depletes the battery any more quickly than normal. (I've yet to do any extended rides however.)

Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

I've also compared an os map too (as an overlay) and the Garmin was closer to the map features I rode.

I have noticed on the occasions that have used my phone and my garmin that where inaccuracies have occurred there are clear deviations on the phone gpx file when overlaid on the os mapped position (and google earth sat pics) of paths.

The Garmin is not 100% either, but the aberrations appear more frequently and are larger on the phone (tell tale is straight lines jumping missed data points).

It's also worth noting that whilst chips maybe the same in higher spec phones, the way the output signals are processed makes a difference to accuracy (e.g. GPS walk compensation and calibration, behaviour on low satellite acquisition etc). The other difference is people tend not to put their expensive Iphone on your handlebars, and it's much harder to maintain a good signal from a pocket or bag.

The Garmin 25 is terrible to use compared to other Garmin models.  However I have had good experience of returning goods to Halfords so it might be worrh a try.