LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

diego · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 414 Location: W2

Hello there,

This is another boring thread on GPS units, but given the price of the mentioned one I don't want to buy something which wouldn't do the job for me just because I didn't bother asking...

Well, I have this Garmin Edge 705 in mind...
I would buy the bundle with the heart rate, the cadence sensor and (here it comes the doubt) the City maps.

I have gone googleing for a while, trying to understand how it works, and it seems that if you buy the maps on DVD you can build your own routes on your computer, then download them to the GPS unit which brings you wherever you want
While if you buy the SD card version of them you cannot either download them to your computer or use them to pre-plan a route.

However, somewhere else I read that someone has been able to tweak it and copy the SD Card version of the maps onto his/her computer and use them to plan their trips.

Does anyone in this forum know something more on this subject?
Have you tried the Edge 705 at all?

Any other advices on why I should/should not buy it?

Also, does anybody know if the unit itself does the "auto routing" job (as a car GPS would do, calculating on the spot the route to go to whatever destination you select from the point you are at)?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Diego