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Comment by Kototama | Hacker News Reader

My experience with Garmin devices is that the hardware is good but the software is average. GPS device for example are robust and they can function both with batteries and piles BUT the software can crash, searching for names on a map or entering text is almost guarantee to not work. They are years behind Android for example for user friendliness.

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Their main distinguishing market at the moment seems to be wearables for athletes as well as dedicated GPS for aviation, etc., not consumer turn-by-turn navigation where smartphones can perform adequately. For example, tracking and providing analytics for training, particularly for running, bicycling, and other distance-based outdoor activities.

that also seems to be a much higher value business - towards the tail end of when dedicated gps navigation devices were reaching full saturation, before everyone switched to just using google maps or waze on their phone, they were down to like $89 per piece... Or the functionality is now built directly into the car. Whereas the higher end fitness watches and their 'tactical' product lines are $350 to $950.

Their software is average compared to maybe other web services, but when compared in the segment - the alternatives are often even worse - I came to Garmin from the Suunto world and it was a big step forward - before, i was facing constant syncing issues, very poor sync software, migration to a newer platform at Spartan watch era was a sad story (multiple different web platforms, missing functionality, etc). Garmin works pretty flawlessly for me, though I'm primarily using Strava for all the analytics (or used till they limited their free tier recently)

Ever since my Oregon 650 refused to boot until I connected it to my computer I kind of lost faith in their hardware. I was hiking so connecting it to a computer was not an option. Needless to say I was not amused.

The best line for outdoor is still the GPSMAP-Series (the 62st for example), very robust but heavy.

Agreed, I've had 2 in that family and never a problem in the field. I just wish it had the larger screen like the Oregon series.

>I just wish it had the larger screen like the Oregon series.

Yes true, the screen bigger and buttons less smush'i :-)

Piles? Is that a typo for wires?

A Pile was the first type of battery [0] and you can still see this in French where la pile is a battery (or more strictly usually used to refer to a cell).

That being said it looks like OP might be German and I've never heard anyone using the term die Säule in this context.

I would take a guess that they are drawing a distinction between rechargeable and disposable batteries.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile

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