Garmin Edge 1050 Cycle Computer

I’m rather disappointed with my purchase. I’d been eyeing up this cycle computer for ages, given all the positive reviews I’d seen. In terms of mapping, GPS accuracy and battery life, I’ve got no complaints. But when it comes to navigation (which is what you’d expect from a GPS cycle computer), it’s a disaster. When I received the cycle computer, it had some old maps pre-installed and an old version of the firmware (which is to be expected), so I updated everything as recommended. After that, I experienced crashes whilst navigating, and the voice guidance was glitching (the speaker kept repeating in a loop: ‘in 100m, continue on the road…’, ‘in 90m, continue on the road…’, ‘in 80m…’). I had to switch off the sat-nav – it was driving me mad. And at no point did I get any information on whether to turn left or right, or which exit to take at the roundabout. So I had to constantly check the map, and that wasn’t why I’d bought this sat-nav. So I opened a support ticket with Garmin, and it turned out there was a bug in their update: between 2024 and 2026, the maps had been renamed. The map update had successfully installed the new maps but hadn’t deleted the old ones. So there were two maps covering the same area that were conflicting with each other, which was causing all the navigation errors. I therefore had to uninstall all the maps and then reinstall them properly... The reinstallation took 10 hours… Yes, 10 hours via Wi-Fi (despite having a 1Gbps internet connection), and I had to keep the device switched on for it to work… But it sorted out my problem. However, that wasn’t the only bug. Strava Live Segments aren’t working at all. According to support, this is also a known bug at Garmin – one that’s been known for over a year but hasn’t been fixed. So I’ve disabled all the hydration and nutrition notifications, which was a real pain (both in the profile settings and in the system settings – because, yes, Garmin duplicates the places where you have to configure the options just to confuse us even more...) And despite all that, I’m still being spammed with alerts on my bike computer, which force me (whilst cycling) to tap the ‘X’ to close the message – it doesn’t disappear on its own and hides my data and the map… Could there be a third place where I need to disable these alerts? It wouldn’t even surprise me. For a cycle computer costing €600, I was expecting far better firmware quality... The bike computer was released two years ago, after all. I hope the next updates will sort out my issues (which Garmin is aware of) without introducing any new bugs. I’m quite a fan of the Garmin ecosystem, but this bike computer has clearly let me down: lots of really cool features on paper, but far too many bugs to use them comfortably, and ultimately it’s a real mess and not at all user-friendly.

It runs really smoothly, and the screen is large and clear.

Pros & Cons

The Garmin 1050 delivered previously was clearly a ‘Monday morning model’. Mantel sorted this out really efficiently and quickly by sending a new Garmin straight away. @Mantel – BRILLIANT! This one works perfectly and had the latest software installed straight away. Took it on my first bike ride and have nothing but praise for it! Fast, crisp display; pairing with all the sensors was a breeze. Setting up the displays was easy. In short, I’m really happy with it! Thanks, Mantel, for the excellent service

Pros & Cons

I was a bit unsure beforehand about the unit’s battery life, and whether I shouldn’t have gone for the 1040 version. With a power meter and heart rate monitor connected, and after 5 hours of mountain biking in the Ardennes, the 1050’s battery had dropped by around 35–40 per cent. That’s more than enough for all my activities. The screen is easy to read even in direct sunlight, and as I wear reading glasses but don’t bike with them on, I can still read the display thanks to its size and brightness (this was the deciding factor for me in choosing the 1050). The menu structure is and remains completely illogical and unintuitive (just like the Garmin Connect app). I’ve been using Garmin sat-navs for nearly 20 years; this is a persistent flaw that they simply can’t seem to sort out. There has been some improvement. That said, the unit is responsive enough and I can do what I want to do fairly quickly. The last thing you want to be doing with a cycle computer is setting it up before a ride. Do set aside an evening to sort out all the settings. It has a bike bell (a double tap on the screen). Although it has an incredible amount of potential (just loud enough; I’d have liked it a bit louder), it’s not very practical. The double-tap has to be done at exactly the right speed, or you have to aim precisely at the screen. This isn’t adequate for emergencies and is even dangerous. Quite often, when you need it, the bell doesn’t work. It’s only a matter of time before the first user looks down at their screen to see why the bell isn’t working and ends up in conflict with traffic as a result. I consider this a safety issue. A physical button is essential; otherwise, you’ll have to rely on a physical bell on your handlebars. Furthermore, route recalculation is very slow. Too slow for a new device in 2026. I’ve certainly configured all the settings so that it should be fast, but it remains sluggish. The device has also crashed twice during a ride in the space of a month. Then there’s the issue of searching for an address to navigate to; looking up an address simply doesn’t work (street name, house number, town). The device keeps referring to saved routes nearby. This last point isn’t quite enough for me to stop using it whilst biking, but it’s obviously incredibly unacceptable for a navigation unit to fail in this respect, and it will certainly be a bottleneck for a lot of people. It’s worth the money for training purposes and pre-saved routes, but not for ad-hoc navigation.

Pros & Cons

I’ve been using a Garmin (1000, 1030) for years and thought I’d treat myself to an upgrade with the Garmin 1050. Stunning screen, lovely device… but what a let-down. The Garmin crashed as soon as I tried to start it; after some investigation, it turned out this is a known issue (bug) with the 1050 and 850…A firmware/software bug that prevents the Garmin from booting up. Now, I work in IT and am quite handy with software, but it took me over four hours to get the Garmin working and updated… I’m so happy! During my first ride and whilst loading a GPX file, the Garmin crashed again several times. Lost my ride data #@%, but above all, it’s a massive let-down for this rather expensive device. I’ve lost all confidence in this Garmin and have now sent it back to Mantel under ‘warranty’. @Mantel I expect a suitable solution to this, but I have no doubt about that

Pros & Cons