Thanks for tuning in today we're going to be reviewing the CYCPLUS M1 GPS computer
and the Z2 out front bike mount. Computers generally fall into two categories non-GPS and GPS.
GPS computers provide positional data that makes it easy to analyze your rides and compared with
others however they're a lot more expensive than the non-GPS variations. That's why we're excited
to review this CYCPLUS M1 GPS computer today which is really affordable for a GPS computer.
We also have their out front mount which is a Garmin compatible mount that makes it really clean
and easy to install on your handlebars. Packaging wise are both really simple cardboard boxes white
and black graphics CYCPLUS logo with a really nice representation of the full screen and all
the data on it. You have some basic specifications here and a qr code for the associated app.
The out front mount is similarly designed really simple white and black there's a little bit of
loss in translation as you can see on the specs there's a suitable pipe diameter which really
should say handlebar diameter. Also you'll see steven at CYCPLUS is going to get all your after
sales emails or warranty questions which is kind of a funny email to have instead of just warranty.
They do have a one-year warranty which is nice to have even though they're a smaller Amazon brand.
Now let's go over the specs while iI take it out of the box. So retail price on the M1
GPS computer is 49.99 which is really impressive and undercuts a lot of GPS computers. The mount
itself is also really cheap, this is 9.99 which is quarter the price of traditional out front mounts.
The M1 computer has a 2.9 inch FSTN LCD screen really large
for the price. It's non-touch monochromatic and it has ANT+ sensor connectivity which is
really nice to have. So you can connect your speed, cadence, heart rate and power meter directly to it.
It has a bluetooth connection for an associated app. It has a 1100 milliamp battery built in
with a 30 hour runtime and USB rechargeable. Here on the back it has a Garmin compatible
mount which is really cool especially at this price point and it's IPX6 waterproof. Now the
Z2 mount also really affordable as i mentioned $9.99 which is really unheard of. It is plastic
with a Garmin compatible mount and a really interesting security feature that lets you run a
bolt through the back and into the back of the GPS computer which is something we haven't seen before.
It is a little bit bulky because it's plastic but has a simple hinge design with a one bolt to
attach your handlebar. Now in terms of what comes in the box, with the mount you get the mount itself
and the Garmin puck already in here. You get a little allen wrench a bolt and two washers to use
both on the hinge and on that little security bolt which is what this additional bolt is
for. With the computer you obviously get the computer. Really big screen especially at this price point and
you get a handlebar mount which is a traditional gasket on the back and then two o-ring design
with a one extra in case you lose one. You also get a micro usb charging cable
to charge the device and a basic instruction manual which is fairly easy to use but
it could be a lot clearer. That's about it so pretty simple overall. Now let's
take a look at the weight of the computer and mount. So we just take the computer by itself
that comes in at 76 grams so very light. You also have the handlebar mount with two o-rings which
should be pretty light that comes in at only 10 grams and then the Z2 out front plastic mount
with the bolt already on the hinge that comes in at 32. It's a very competitive overall package.
So now let's take a look at the fit and finish of the CYCPLUS M1 computer and the Z2 mount.
Now right out of the box it's really impressive how large this is at 2.9 inches this is larger
than a lot of more expensive Garmin units or other computers on the market.
It's actually larger than the Garmin 830. It has a pretty typical bezel on the side,
three physical buttons on the bottom and the CYCPLUS logo here. You also have the cyclus logo
on the front for a little advertisement but pretty stealthy it's not really in your face. You have the
three buttons. They're actually labeled here on the top and also labeled with these little imprinted
symbols on there. Now what's really cool about this even that even though it's such a budget computer
it actually has a Garmin mount so if you look underneath this is a standard garmin compatible
quarter turn mount works well with their mount locks into place and doesn't really jiggle.
It's fairly thin as well for the computer now being a black and white non-touch screen you
would expect it to be nice and small. It's also fairly lightweight as well you have a usb charging
port back here with this nice protective cover so nice package overall. It looks a lot more premium and
you see it this is actually a matte screen as well. So you can see there's no reflections here as
you would have with typical ones and that helps really reduce the reflections while you're riding.
You get the standard handlebar mount but I don't really recommend this it's good for putting it
on your stem but if you want to mount it on a handlebar I definitely recommend buying a out
front mount. This is their Z2 mount which is only $10 which is really impressive. Now because it's
so cheap it is plastic and you can see it's very bulky with these little structures here
and it flexes as well so despite how thick it is it's still more flexible than a standard
aluminum mount. I don't really recommend this as I would prefer a metal mount which doesn't vibrate
and even could offer a dual side configuration. This is cheap works with any Garmin device but
if you have the budget I definitely recommend spending a little bit more and get a metal
variation. What's really cool about this though is that security device so if you
lock this into place you can then put a bolt right through the middle
and you can see on the computer you have a threaded hole so that makes a little bit harder to
steal. Obviously if you have a little allen wrench you can pop it off but if you had a thief walking
by your computer they couldn't just rotate it and run off so it's a nice security device and it's very
creative. When you mount it on the out front mount it actually works pretty well
as i said it does vibrate just because of the weight of this and the plastic construction though.
So now let's set up the computer, here I have it mounted on the out front mount you
can see because it's plastic this mount actually flexes even though it's secure on the handlebar.
The plastic design just flexes i'd really recommend avoiding this mount and going for an aluminum
mount, it will cost a little bit more. This is $10 which is really cheap but i think it's worth
paying a little bit extra now. Configuration wise you're pretty limited on this computer but we'll
go ahead and go over the menu. So if you hold the bottom right button you enter the configuration
menu, the simple display means you don't get a lot of ui here. Everything is pre-defined so it's
really confusing so C2 is the first configuration menu and then the icon indicates that we're doing.
While the icon is blinking it means you're on this page
but active. If you want to change it you left click and now it's automatic in the search it'll timeout
in 10 seconds. I have a cadence sensor that you can see it picks up. I also have a Bryton heart
rate monitor which doesn't seem to pick up but hopefully other heart rate monitors would connect.
Now let's look at the other options, you have c3
now this is the wheel diameter and it is really confusing without a label of course.
This is only used if you have a speed sensor to compute the distance more accurately.
I've been using the GPS signal it's been pretty good except for forested areas where it might cut
out but again just millimeter distance you could look up this value to enter changes you left click
and then right click to change the number so pretty simple. Then C4 is the time setting
again really confusing this is relative to gmt so left click to modify and it'll stop blinking
and right click to change value. California is negative eight, if you happen to be in a time zone
that has a half hour increment you're kind of out of luck this is the hour offset from gmt.
Confirm it with the left button and when it'll start blinking again that means it's set.
C5 lets you set the speed units, you can do miles per hour or kilometers per hour again to change it.
You click it'll stop blinking right click to change the value so we'll put miles per hour,
confirm it with the left button. Then C6 is the temperature display so fahrenheit or centigrade,
left click to change right click to cycle through the option so centigrade or fahrenheit
left click to confirm. Finally you have c7 this is a recovery factor recovery if you left-click
it'll activate it and if you right click it will supposedly do something. I found that actually
doesn't reset anything, my odometer is the same and all my sensors are still the same so you
probably have to just remove the battery or let the battery completely die for this to fully reset.
To exit the configuration menu hold the button and now you enter the main screen.
So really simple GPS really big display with 2.9 inches. The top 50% is your speed, the bottom left
corner is the sensor display and you can see it would be heartrate monitor here, cadence and then
the power meter. If you don't have those sensors connected you're out of luck it just shows you a
blank area so it would have been nice if it would reconfigure automatically but it doesn't do that.
You have auxiliary information here so it's time or distance. You can cycle through a couple options:
altitude and ascent or odometer and percent gradient. There's also a fourth screen which
is the average screen shows you the average of everything with the altitude and gradient shown
for the auxiliary information which is a little bit strange. I've never wanted to
look at average altitude and if you click again you can show the maximum of everything again.
Now you can't configure the grids and you can't change anything else, so what you see is what
you get and that's one limitation of this kind of display and cheaper GPS computers such as this.
To start a ride you just left click on the bottom left button
and you see the play icon. Now it's recording it auto pauses when you're not moving
and you can manually pause it by clicking the bottom left button again. If you want to
save your ride you have to remember to hold the middle button until that icon goes away.
It's really easy to forget to record your ride otherwise there's no beeping
there's no automatic save there's actually no keytones or anything which is really strange.
Finally you can you can change the number of laps so if you're in a activity with the bottom middle
button. That will change the lap number and it'll display here. Now you can't actually display
anything about the lap so it's a little bit less useful so you can't actually see how long
any lap data like average speed or anything else. It's all for post-processing. Now one of the
biggest issues with this computer is the backlight as you can see here it's already on and it's quite
bright. There are no controls on brightness but it has good visibility. The main issue is you can't
turn it off, it's automatically on between 6pm and 9am. Any other time it will turn on for about
5 seconds when you press a button but here whether you're doing any actions or just have it on
it will be automatically on between these certain times and that can really be distracting when
you're riding. Typically you have a bun to turn that off this automatic behavior but you
can't do that here and it's based on the time zone that's actually in here. The other issue is
it's very obvious that this is a cheaper computer by the unevenness of the backlight.
You see the little dots here with each lightning element and the fact
that it's not shielded, so you can see the edge of there and the edge here when
you look at certain angles so definitely one indicator that this is a cheaper unit.
Now let's take a look at the app. It let's see wirelessly connect from the computer
to your cell phone. Now this app is shared with a couple other computers so if you scroll down
you'll see the M1 at the bottom you click connect it will search for it you'll actually
see a little bluetooth icon here once it's actually connected on the computer itself.
See it found it and then now that's connected you see the bluetooth icon there. Now this app
is really basic so you can go to settings and you can see there's literally one option you
can either do a factory reset or you can update the firmware and that's about it. You can't even
change the units which is really bizarre. Now the main reason to use this is to sync your workouts
so if you go to your workouts you can actually upload them automatically to
Strava once you link the account and you can also look at your rides here on the app.
Now I found it the elevation seems to be incorrectly listed at least with
this version of the app and you can't really zoom in on the elevation charts so it's really basic. I
don't really like it, you can't even see your lap time so I recommend just using this to
auto upload to Strava or to manually upload. I've also found the uploads are very slow
so if you do a longer ride be prepared to wait a minute or two for it to fully upload.
Now let's compare the CYCPLUS M1 computer and other computers on the market.
One of the most popular computer reviews we've done is the Bontrager RideTime Elite.
This is a really compact $70 computer that's a lot smaller than the CYCPLUS 2.9 inch
but has similar features. It has ANT+ connectivity and also has bluetooth
connectivity with compatible Bontrager lights. What's nice about the Elite is that it is really a
modern simple computer but it's non-GPS and it's more expensive than the $50 CYCPLUS.
It lacks the GPS abilities but similar to the CYCPLUS you have a predefined layout of the screen
and you can cycle through data as you would with the CYCPLUS. What's nice about the Bontrager is that it
has more customization than the CYCPLUS which just lets you rotate through a couple screens.
With the bontrager you can actually adjust what's on the bottom and actually how what's displayed
on the top where with the CYCPLUS everything's predefined. Otherwise the 2.9 inch screen is really
the big feature here and the fact that you get GPS data. With the Bontrager it's all real-time data
with the CYCPLUS you can record it upload a Strava and still pay less than the Bontrager.
Now the more direct comparisons are probably the Garmin units. This is an older Edge 200 and you can
see the big difference with the Garmin is the fact that the screen. Even though it's not touch screen
has a much more a flexible screen design so instead of this LCD with predefined regions
you can see you can actually set up alerts. You have nice menus with this everything is
in predefined spot and even like the configuration menu after we use the top lettering whereas this
one actually has overlays so that's definitely one big difference here. You don't get the advancement
of the Garmin or some of the Garmin specific features but you pay a lot less. You can see the big
thing here is the screen is so much larger and more affordable than equivalent Garmin.
The other affordable computer on the market are Bryton.
Jere I have the Bryton Rider 320 which is something we've recently reviewed as well.
Here you get GPS connectivity, a lot more flexibility and that's a big difference here.
It's a glossy screen as you can see a better contrast more adjustability.
This one is GPS enabled as well and the big difference is there's so much configurability
with the screen. With the CYCPLUS you can't do anything with the brains you get over 100
data field options and it has alerts it'll automatically tell you to start the ride
You can change how the power meter data is displayed the averaging frequency so a lot more
adjustability but again more expensive. Where the brain is more of a competitor
versus the Garmin, I think CYCPLUS really beats simple computers like the Bontrager RideTIME Elite.
Now let's go over the pros and cons for the M1 computer. What we like about it is a very
competitively priced at $50 this is a really cheap computer and it's very hard to find a
GPS computer anywhere in this price range at all. It has a large and easy to read 2.9 inch display
and has the Garmin quarter turn style mount which is really nice to see at this price
price point. That means you can use any out front mount instead of having to use proprietary mounts.
Some of the negatives with this computer is the fact that minimal customization
that's typical with cheaper computers but with this you can't even adjust the grid
and you can't move anything around so there will be some dead space especially if you don't have a
power meter or heart rate monitor connected . It also has a confusing configuration menu
there's no labels it's just c2 / c3 labels with some numbers so that could definitely be improved.
Probably the biggest issue with this is the auto backlight
it's automatically on between 6pm and 9am and with no user override so it'll definitely run down
the battery and can be distracting. If they added a backlight button that would really improved the experience.
Taking everything into account would give the computer a 7.5 out of 10.
As i said it's a very competitively priced computer, it's not a Garmin replacement but
if you're looking for a cheap computer or a second GPS computer it's really hard to beat this at $50.
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