I’m not saying that Garmin doesn’t deserve this reputation but just going from my Strava feed recently there seems to be more “wahoo lost my ride” posts than “Garmin lost my ride” posts - which is a massive turnaround to how things were 1-2 years ago. I do genuinely think Garmin have improved with this generation on units.
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I have never lost a single ride with my Wahoo, but many with Garmin….n=1 and all that.
That said, the I have been bumping into more issues lately with having to take a few extra steps to get my rides to upload from the Wahoo, which used to be automatic. At least every few weeks ( usually because of an update) I have to turn off the BT and then turn it back on to get rides to upload. Never had to do that for years and it is a bit annoying.
Oh yeah I would never for a second say that wahoo now are as bad as garmin were - more just that the difference in reliability between them now is not significant.
The current crop of garmin units don’t deserve the reputation lumped on them by the previous generation in my opinion.
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I have no experience with the 830 but I do have a 530. On the whole it does the job — the basic functionality is fine and Climbpro/segment effort/training stuff is nice to have. The screen is good.
But: it has quite a few niggles. One of the buttons is a bit hard to push. I find the UI a bit unintuitive and hard to get into muscle memory, leading to a lot of wrong button pushes. There are many menu options and it’d be really nice to be able to configure it with a phone or computer instead of fiddling with the unit itself.
The navigation is a bit laggy and now and then I find I am slightly ahead of the animation, making it hard to work out how to navigate unknown junctions. And it has some truly annoying quirks, like popups only being dismissable with one specific button. Very often I find I have one hand on the computer doing something and a popup appears (e.g. turn right in 140m) but I can’t dismiss it with any of the buttons that are within convenient reach of the hand I’m using at the time.
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I had two 510s and they were turds though they worked. Still over many years I only lost one ride when the 510 shut down mid rid with a low battery warning. It was winter and near freezing. I didn’t realize that the battery still had a charge and if I had just turned the unit back on, I would had had the ride.
The primary issues with my 510s were bluetooth connectivity. It always seemed hit and miss and at the whims of the device. There was no way to just click “sync now”. You just had to wait for whenever it would do it. I finally bought the 530 because Garmin did some firmware changes and bluetooth syncing stopped working
altogether on my 510. With a USB cable, my 510 was always solid.
My first 510 got smashed in a mountain bike crash. Garmin replaced it with a refurbished until for $75. I thought that was decent for a $300 unit that I had no other way of repairing.
My 530 has been essentially flawless. …other than not having the easier to use touchscreen… 
I have a 530 and love it. Much better than the 520plus I had previously.
My wahoo bolt died last week after just over a year of use, so I’m back to garmin. The 530 seems to tick all the boxes for me, but I’m wondering when the 530+ or 540 will be released. Based on previous release timelines, it looks due soonish.
Does anyone have their ear to the ground for a projected release date?
I’m very glad to have the 530 because I smashed the screen after about 3 months of ownership, cut an old phone screen protector down to size, and have been running problem-free for almost two years now. Some of the cracks will confuse me with roads on the map view, but the 830 would probably have been junked with the touch screen.
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…the 830 SUCKS in the rain or sweat… and I mean SUCKS (with capital letters). If you stand and drip (climbing), it will go haywire. If it’s raining, it will go haywire. I have the 830 and I would swap to a 530. The touchscreen is great, as long as it doesn’t get wet!
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Sounds like somebody hasn’t found the “lock screen” function? just tap the power button during an activity 
https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/edge830/EN-US/GUID-017CF5C8-FF88-494C-B2AD-64F59F51B297.html
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I’m well versed with the lock screen. It still hangs up, gets stuck, or wigs out (even when locked).
I’m not a hater (I have 3 other garmins)… just not a fan of the 830 touch screen.
I’d vote 530, I’m very happy with mine. I cannot imagine I’d ever want to faff around with a touch screen on my bike, I prefer buttons all the time, lockscreen or no. After the first few Firmware releases 2,5 years ago its been rocksolid, never let me down, awesome batterylife (still, 2,5 years on). Only reason to go for a 1030 would be the bigger screen and the more comprehensive navigation options. To go with the 830 I see no reason at all.
Cheers!
The 830 has several software sided advantages the 530 does not offer.
I wrote about it here:
https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/anybody-trouble-with-edge-530-buttons/59714/7
Recently I very much appreciated the 830 with its very easy way to switch to a different track on the go during an active session. As we all know Garmin for some reason does not allow to change any sync with the phone during active rides… it is off and therefore tracks assembled on the phone do not reach the device unless you end the session… anoying
So the only way to change the track on the go is via Course Creator on the device itself.
with the 830’ touchscreen it is very easy to set up a new track via Course Creator and follow it without ending the ongoing ride. I tried that on the 530 before but the button simply make it supercomplicated and it takes forever.
I would not change back to a 530.
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I’m not certain I understand the benefit of locking your screen when the whole point of a touchscreen is to make accessing features easier.
Touchscreens for a bike computer are just dumb, IMO. I have had a touchscreen across multiple units (starting way back in the days of the old Motorola running watch) and it has always been problematic.
(Side note - the Motorola watch was brilliant, but just way ahead of its time. GPS, integrated MP3, Bluetooth, etc. Think it came out in 2009?)
ETA - the Motorola MOTOACTV was released in 2011, discontinued in 2013. Which also got me thinking….Motorola may be the company responsible for the current War On Vowels, since they introduced the Razr phone back in the 00’s. 
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The touchscreen on my 510 was the one thing that worked really well. I still think the touchscreen is easier and more intuitive than the button dance on the 530.
My criticism of touchscreens is not therefore an endorsement of Garmin’s button interface. As noted, I would recommend a Wahoo Roam (or Bolt) over a Garmin.
Having to lock a touchscreen to avoid wonkiness from sweat / rain just illustrates that the technology is not appropriate for a bike computer, IMO.
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That depends if you want a laggy interface or not. Stick with the Garmin 830 and you can’t go wrong. The original wahoo bolt was brilliant but they haven’t improved it sufficiently. The roam is laggy and the bolt V2 is buggy.
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My Roam has never been laggy, (nor have I seen widespread reports of that issue), but N=1 and all that. Never used the Bolt, so can’t speak to that,
Saying you “can’t go wrong” with a touchscreen is debatable.
DCRainmaker review of the 830, search “861” and you’ll see that for a guy that lives in Amsterdam, the 830 touchscreen in the rain isn’t a problem. But hey, the next poster (#862) says his previous 800 was better in the rain. 
Structured training outside is better on Garmin. So good that I use my 530 on the trainer inside, one interface for all my workouts. Stable, fast, and a bunch of useful features that are not on Wahoo. Roam and the updated Bolt are good basic computers, but my iPhone only cost $20 more than a Roam.
More random thoughts on a TGIF… A lot of people I know still record and two rides - Strava app and Wahoo/Garmin - before deleting one of them, it seems nobody trusts their computer (I’m also seeing more lost rides on Bolt/Roam, but its popular). Using RideWithGPS and airplane mode I can get ~12 hours of battery on my iPhone. I’ve also used Cyclometer. Would have no problem using either of those if my computer stopped working. There are some interesting features on Stages Dash and Hammerhead Karoo 2.
TGIF and have a great weekend!
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