by mrfish on Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:12 pm
Yes, normal. It's trying to use timing differences from signals from satellites orbiting the earth to pin down your position. So there's a lot of simultaneous equation solving going on to get a fix, then after that it can update very quickly, no doubt using some shortcuts. Thus if you switch it off, then on again within an hour or something, it restarts very quickly. It's also quicker to re-fix if you keep still so that it's not trying to work out where it is while moving as that increases the error of the fix.
Personally I'm very pleased with my Edge 500. I figured out how to upload courses to it from bikeroutetoaster.com recently and found that I could use it to do 35 mile routes on back lanes I'd never used before without getting lost or riding more than 400 metres on a main road! For that it's worth the purchase price alone as I could never be bothered to do that with a map as I would be checking turns every 5 minutes and questioning my sanity after 3 right turns in a row.
It even has turn indicators, i.e. in 200m turn right... It's not as good as car sat nav, but perfect for training in a new location or doing a sportif ride. Also even if you have no course pre-loaded you can look at the course map and see where you've been so that you can get back to the start. Also you can repeat exactly the same route and compare times etc... So now I know our tandem is much slower overall on rides, but only because I ride much harder on my own. It's aboiut as fast on the flat for much less effort. No surprise, but nice to know.
If you need more than this, probably better to look for a new hobby like orienteering, MTBing or rambling.