Hammerhead Karoo 3

[Guenther]

I'm gonna need that Karoo 3 even more now.
My weight weenie computer mount snapped today and my Karoo 2 went flying while going down a descent. I spent 15 minutes looking for it in the bushes.

That sucks. I have a silicone sleeve around my Garmin. Prevents it form slipping from my hands like a bar of soap, but also protects it in case it should fall.

[BikeTyson]

This is exactly why I always use the tether. Had a lightweight mount break but zero damage to the computer. It's like 1g for extra security and peace of mind.

But then you have the heavy Computer dangling against the frame, possibly with sharp-edged parts of the mount sticking out. I also use the tether, because I find it super convenient on occasions when the computer is off-bike (those happen to me more frequently than to most others I think), but I'm not entirely sure if I consider dangling the against-the-frame scenario an upside or a downside.

Well you don't ride with it dangling. It just prevents what happened in the above post. If the mount snaps your computer doesn't go flying. In my case it saved my computer and GoPro from getting smashed or lost.

[usr]

When the mount snaps, the device would swing right into the headtube, that's what I mean. I doubt think it's a rational fear, I'd rather have some paint scraped than getting stranded without navigation (had that once, before I went Garmin, two border crossings away from home), but it's there as in I'm not fully convinced I need the tether because of the mount, but I use it anyways, for off-bike reasons (like connecting the tether to a backpack or even to the helmet strap while searching for the hotel room and/or a bar)

[kode54]

If the mount fails and the tether hangs and dangles off of the handlebar, it only stays there for less than a minute. Stop, remove and place in jersey pocket. Never hits my head tube if that’s what you’re worried about and much better than the Karoo getting run over by a car or lost in the bushes.

I have since stopped using the Garmin adapter mount since the ears broke on two different occasions. Once without tether and once with. I prefer the later.

[gloscherrybomb]

Leaked!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Karoo/s/yTYHRxtZim

[elfuinha]

On Facebook

[RDY]

INB4 it turns out to still be Android 8 and it's exactly the same software ... which would beg the question just wtf they've been doing for the last 12-18 months.

[mikehhhhhhh]

If you showed me that new vs previous picture and asked me to pick which was the new one having never seen one, I'd pick the one on the right.

[jadedaid]

They're out in the wild now, I thought it looked pretty good in person.

[Hapsmo911]

Looks like no Karoo2 on their site. Landing page says "Something new is on the horizon" I would guess anyday or launch during seaotter

[gloscherrybomb]

My issue is the bezel. It's 2024.

The igpsport 800 has a tiny bezel. Shrink the thing down, maximise the screen real estate, make it a nice profile.

I'm not surprised the software is staying the same (apart from AXS features). They iterate regularly and it's already a great platform, but the hardware improvements are 'meh'.

[Lina]

The one thing that people care with this is battery life. If they've made a noticeable improvement on battery life it will start looking interesting to people that want something that isn't Garmin or Wahoo.

[calleking]

I switched from Bolt -> Karoo2 -> Edge 1040 but not entirely happy with the 1040 either since it uses the Garmin UI. It's just not intuitive for some reason and the display is unfortunately old tech with low pixel density.

I did like the Karoo 2 in some ways and the battery was not an issue for me. The real issue was visibiility and the sometimes laggy experience in the UI. You could tell the modified Android OS was not really optimized and it was intermittently laggy, especially with some third party APKs which most of us used (Ki2). Some more RAM was absolutely needed since I suspect it was swapping to the memory card/disk.

Another issue I had with the Karoo 2 was that visibility wasn't that great in direct sun light or varying light conditions.

Wish list from most important to least important:
1. Optimized and performant Android OS
2. AMOLED-display (Garmin Epix 2 Pro is great even under direct sun light)
3. Tiny bezels like mentioned above
4. 4-6GB of DDR3 RAM
5. Better battery life

[mikehhhhhhh]

I think it's pretty strong to ask for AMOLED, more ram, better performance AND more battery life!

I personally think Garmin have struck the perfect balance of display tech with battery life.

[toxin]

The display at least looks better in those pics