Garmin Edge® 1040 Solar, GPS Bike Computer with Solar Charging Capabilities, On and Off-Road, Spot-On Accuracy, Long-Lasting Battery, Device Only

I'll preface this review by saying that I am fully bought into the Garmin ecosystem, including an Epix 2 watch, various HRM straps, and a reliance on Connect for most of my performance tracking. I used am Edge 1030 Plus for a year (for both road and mountain riding) before upgrading. I was perfectly happy with the 1030, and really tried to resist the upgrade urge when this unit was released, but I gave in pretty quickly.Am I happy with my upgrade? Yes, overall, but that stems from the fact that I am a Garmin fanboy and I really wanted a few specific features that Garmin has made clear they will NOT retroactively add to older head units. I find a lot of value in the stamina data fields for long road rides (especially in the Texas heat), but I was most interested in the new UI, including the home screen and the new way that widgets are handled. I find it to be far more usable and informative than the old UI. I'm in my mid-50's and that is why I got the 1030 Plus originally -- screen real estate and readability -- smaller computers are a challenge for my eyes at this point. The redesigned UI really works well for me on that front but, of course, that is purely a subjective matter -- I strongly suggest you take a look at one at your LBS, or watch the excellent DC Rainmaker/GP Lama reviews to determine if you personally find the new UI appealing.On to the main gimmick of this unit -- solar. Thus far, I am unimpressed, Again, this is a subjective matter in that my rides may bear no resemblance to yours. On a typical summer morning road ride of, say, 25 miles in a mix of suburban tree cover and open sky, I typically generate about 2.5 minutes worth of solar recharge. Not meaningful, for many of my most typical rides. I'll update that if I find a material shift as I start pushing my start-times later in the fall - I imagine it will make a big difference when I ride with the sun directly overhead at noon, rather than at a morning angle. If you're an enduro specialist living in Arizona, you might find it to be much more beneficial, but for my riding style, it is purely a nice-to-have for now. I will say that I have had zero pairing issues with it, and I did have a few with my 1030 Plus - mostly related to my SRAM eTap group set. Everything paired flawlessly out of the box for the 1040, and has been 100% stable thus far -- transferring data from my 1030 Plus was also a breeze.So, I'm a compulsive upgrader and early adopter, and the improved GPS accuracy, UI, and new data fields make this worth the upgrade for me. I think, though, that for many people with a 1030 or 1030 Plus, you'd be fine (and more economically sensible than me) to skip a generation.

I have always used Garmin for gps cycling computers. I started with edge 510, upgraded to the 830 and on this most recent Gamin sale convinced myself to give the 1040 solar a try.In terms of size, I was initially shocked by how big it was compared to 830. It is smaller than my iPhone 15 pro. But the thing is big. That being said, once you have it in hand for a few minutes you start to appreciate how big it is. Its not too big, but it makes getting around menus and settings a little easier. I just took it out for a 4 hour ride and once its on the bike I didn't mind the size. I actually appreciated the larger screen. Felt like it was easier to see metrics at a glance.Battery is good too. Rode for 4 hours late afternoon/early evening. Battery dropped 14% and it said that I gained 17 minutes of battery life from solar while on the ride.The other thing I really like that I could not do on my 830 is you can adjust settings and data display screens/activity profiles from the phone and sync it with the device.The cons so far is that my radar, shifters and phone would sometimes disconnect and then immediately reconnect, or the device was at least showing that banner a few times. If that happened with the 830 it didn't notify me like it did today on the first ride with it. Only happened a few times and wasn't annoying enough to dock it a star.If the device starts to annoy me or give me issues ill update this. Otherwise I wasn't sure about its size but after the first ride im leaning more towards keeping it than not.

man, i have used 4 edge now. i love riding my bike. i had like a 530 last with no touch screen. having that is REALLY nice. i did not like my 530 at all. the size as well makes it so easy to read when biking. the 530 had many buttons and i always forgot what they all did. it was very annoying. the 1040 s has only like a couple making it A LOT easier to remember what they do.garmin really just makes top end stuff. i have a fenix and have had several and several edges. this 1040 will be my last edge for a while.HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

As someone who has toured around by bicycle quite a bit, I have serious questions about how the Garmin determines routes. The safest roads are usually the ones with the widest paved shoulders, IMO. Also, being on a bicycle, one usually wants the SHORTEST route between two points. Very often the Garmin will route a rider on a small road with no shoulders, 20 miles off of where one wants to go. Unless one is independently wealthy and doesn't have to work, frankly, I always want the shortest route that allows bicycles. That is not an option in the Garmin. More bizarrely, it often totally ignores amazingly straight, wide roads with designated bike lanes simply because of traffic, I'm guessing. Some of this craziness can be thankfully turned off, but I have never once been able to auto-route using Garmin's mapping abilities. Very often I simply preview potential routes on an old automotive Garmin which DOES have an option for "shortest route".

This device will charge during your ride or keep your device at full power. Everytime I come out of a 3hr ride it shows that I only used 2% of my battery life.

I use it as a navigator. It works great.