Thanks for tuning in today we're going to be reviewing the Coospo BC26 GPS cycling computer.
Affordability and cycling gps computers are two phrases that don't often go together. Thanks to
companies like Coospo that's something that's changing with more budget-oriented gps cycling
computers on the market. In this review we'll be looking at their latest entry-level computer the
BC26. You can see the packaging is very simple you have a cardboard box illustration of the computer
you have orange and white coloring on here with nice high contrast. Basic specs on the back and
then on the side as well. We'll go ahead and take it out of the box and go over the specs.
Retail price on this is $35.99 although it is available for slightly cheaper
on Alibaba and Amazon. It is a dual gps system so it can use the standard gps as well as the Beidou
positioning system so you can use this in multiple countries. It is a 2.3 inch FSTN screen so nice
large display. It's a very simple computer though so it has 20 hour run time. No sensor connectivity
you can simply use the gps to monitor distance speed and altitude. It has a Garmin style mount
which is a nice thing you don't have a proprietary style mount which means you can use this with a
variety of aftermarket mounts on the market. It also has an automatic backlight which turns on
based on the time zone so i'll turn on half an hour before and then after the sunrise sunset. In
terms of what you get in the box pretty simple you get the computer itself pretty sleek black design
and then you get a little handlebar mount and this is a standard rubber mount.
So you can see you get multiple links you get a charging cable it's just a standard
micro usb port that we see with a lot of older devices.
You have the handlebar mount this is a little puck a little backing rubber backing to prevent it from
sliding and then different length o-rings which you can wrap around depending on your handlebar
or your stem. You also have the instruction manual but again being a very simple computer
it's actually something that's pretty easy to pick up. Now let's look at the weight of the computer
so if you put the computer on there that comes in at 54 grams so quite light and then if we pick one
of these shorter length o-rings and the handlebar mount that is only six grams so very light.
Now let's take a look at the fin finish of the Coospo BC26 if the company name didn't
give it away this is a chinese company but they have been around since 2011
and have made a variety of gps computers. This is their latest entry-level version and their
company name is actually short for cool sport as they offer a lot of cycling related accessories.
You can see with the BC26 it's a very simple rectangular design.
It is a large screen at 2.3 inches but you can see it as with any sub-100 gps computer it has an FSTN
style screen. So everything's actually pre-laid out and that means text can only go in certain places
which really limits the user interface so unlike a Garmin or Wahoo or multi $100 version of those
which have nice fancy overlays it's a lot more simple. Something more akin to what you find in
your home appliances where everything's just kind of laid out like an lcd screen.
You have a three button interface so a power button and then start and stop a ride you have the
top up and down buttons here which double as switching between real time max average.
The bottom button will cycle through the bottom options
and holding that will open the config menu. The profile is really small, you get 20 hour run time
with this which is not bad with the integrated battery. You get a micro usb port not a usb type c
unfortunately but still works well and you can see it's concealed under the little rubber cover
so it gives a nice weather protection. Even though this is such a cheap GPS computer you still get a
Garmin style mount which is really nice to see. You don't need a proprietary one which would require
going to them for certain adapters with this you can plug it into anything as the Garmin
ones are very common style mount. In terms of branding you just have their brand name on the front
and then on the front face as well. The mount itself that comes with this is really basic
I'd highly recommend buying an out front mount preferably a metal one something like the Topeak
UTF mount we've previously reviewed as i'll let you put that in front of the bike but otherwise
you can use this to put on your handlebar or your stem and it uses a simple rubber gaskets
that loop around and it works well. But i would recommend out front mount as you can put
your light and the computer directly in front of you. Now as far as the user interface it is very
simple, you cannot connect sensors unlike other computers so that means you can only display
speed distance and altitude. You can't do any cadence heart rate or power meter so the top
always shows speed you have a two row layout with speed here and the bottom. You can actually
cycle through a couple options time distance altitude odometer when you're not riding.
If you press play it'll actually start riding you can see i don't have gps so
it's actually not letting me ride right now but if you actually start the ride it'll do a countdown
and then you're ready to ride. It's pretty simple you have the current time on top battery
and then the gps symbol here. Configuration wise very simple so if we hold the button you only have
three options. So you have three pages the first page being time so you can adjust the time here
and then up and down to adjust it the right button to confirm and go to the next setting.
You can change the display unit so you can see we can do kilometers or miles an hour.
So I'll choose mph and confirm it with the top right. You can set a max speed which
is a little bit weird so this will actually beep at you once you hit a maximum speed but
for most people it really doesn't make sense i'm not sure why you'd want it.
So here you can turn it on or off default is off and i would probably leave it off there's no good
reason to have it. That's it so you cannot do odometer or anything else.Hold the bottom left to get out
of here you cannot do the odometer you cannot see gradient and you can't really rearrange
anything either. So what you see is what you get. Now let's go over the setup of the Coospo BC26.
It's pretty simple you press the power button and you're actually ready to ride very limited
configuration options. There is a configuration menu if you hold the bottom left button
and because of this lcd display everything's pre-arranged. You can see P1 in the corner
and no real labels you just have to know the utc is the time zone it's pretty simple with the three
button interface. You can do up down change the value confirm where you want and go to the next
one with the top right again up down then you have page two. MPH or KPH
and then again it will go to the page three the final setting which is the
maximum speed warning. It's a really weird feature it'll actually beep at you if you exceed the speed
if you have it on you can turn it on or off by selecting the option here. So
that is off that's on by default off not a very useful feature i wish i would have put
something else in here actually and that's it. So you press it again it'll go back to the page one.
Hold the bottom left to exit the menu you can't connect sensors you can't do anything else no
screen adjustment so very simple and when you're in the non-activity display you'll see
time at the bottom the distance altitude odometer and then the total time.
You can't actually input those so it's from the time you first turned it on. When you want
to do an activity press play you get a countdown and now we'll actually display values as you ride.
You can also pause it by pressing the button and it'll also auto pause so if we press it again
it'll detect that we're not moving and it'll show a pause symbol with auto underneath it. As you can
see here so nice feature you don't have a reminder to start the recording which is something you have
on the Bryton and other computers as you can forget but it doesn't display anything until you
start recording so it's pretty obvious. To save the activity you hold the top right button
and then it saves it and that's it so it once you understand how it works pretty simple and because
there's not much configuration option options it's really easy to get set up and going. Now
in terms of our riding impressions with the BC26 it was very favorable. We found it to be a really
easy computer to use and the gps reception comes quickly especially when you turn it on outdoors
once it's connected we didn't have any real dropouts except for tunnels where all our
other computers drop out as well. The interface is also very simple you can cycle through the options
and there's really not that much customization we would have liked to see a gradient display
or odometer settings but for $30 it's kind of hard to complain. It's on par with the other
more budget computers we've ridden with and with the wireless design you don't need any sensors
so it's something you just throw on your computer and start riding.
Now let's take a look at the Coospo app it's a free app available both on android and ios
so you simply bind the computer with your bluetooth on you can see there's a couple
options with the different computers. They have we have the BC26 so we'll click that.
Bluetooth is on you can see it finds it pretty quickly so we'll select that one
then we'll wait. Then you can see their settings on here it pretty much repeats all
the available options on the computer so it's much quicker to use it. This way you can set the time
change your units you can even do your speed alert if you want to do and the reset you also have this
option for key tone which you don't actually have on the computer which is nice. So you can turn off the
beeping so you can see very simple. You can't do any configuration of the actual view everything's
pretty much preset. The main reason you use this app is that you can do the strava linking so
you can go here and sync with strava so you just set up your strava account
and every time you connect the Coospo to the app it'll automatically send it off to strava where
you can view it and compare with other people. It's a really nice feature and one of the main options
for uploading otherwise you can upload directly by connecting usb here
and then pull in the files but it's much easier to use the app.
Now let's do a little comparison between the Coospo BC26 and some other gps computers on the market.
We've reviewed quite a few affordable computers so we have a nice comparison here between Cycplus
Shanren as well as Bryton. So one direct comparisons is the BC26 versus the Cycplus
G1 so this is the most affordable one at 30 dollars. So almost the same price as the
Coospo version you can see very similar. So both of them have non-sensor design so
you can't connect any sensors to it and you're simply limited to what you get.
Both of these are almost identical as far as what you can see so you can only see the
distance, ride time and then the current speed. With both of them you can see the max
or the average speed at any time with the speed prominently on the top and then the bottom row. The
layouts are a little bit different the Coospo is a more a traditional rectangular design while the
Cycplus is more square. It is more bulky though you can see from the side because of that square
shape it looks a little bulkier even though it's about the same thickness. They both have the Garmin
mounts and functionality very similar as far as which one to pick it depends on what you're
looking for. I think the Coospo looks a little bit better, the square profile with the thick bezels
just looks bulkier with this shape but feature sets are very similar.
Cycplus also has some cool newer computers I believe this is the M2 which is a round. It is actually
more expensive almost a hundred dollars currently but you can see it is round bigger screen and it
has a coolness factor as you don't see round very often. It can connect to other sensors and you
can actually do some minor configuration with it and just a cooler profile to it. You can see it's
same thickness Garmin mount, usb charging but obviously you're paying a little bit more for this
cool factor. As you go up in the price point you see similar screen
technology but just more options like the Shanren here. You can see it has a lot more options you can
actually display a simulated power. You can connect a power meter cadence heart rate monitor and you
can actually see things like gradient you can set your odometer and you can even connect to
Sharen's taillight which will light up that little led here. So if you're willing to pay more
so around a hundred dollars or 50 to 100 you can get more features like sensor connectivity but at
around $30 you can forego that for more simple basic computer. At the high end of the market we
have something like the Bryton so this is their 750 which is a touch screen so you can actually do
gestures. You can actually see your map you have more flexible displays you can see this round
graph instead of a traditional just number display because this has a better screen.
That's a big difference between cheap and more expensive computers you don't get color and you
don't get the higher definition screen but if you're just a cyclist looking for real-time data
or you just want to track your progress on strava or other apps
something like the Coospo is a great option. Otherwise you can see form factor
is very similar and no one will really know you have a cheap gps computer unless they look closely.
Now let's go over the pros and cons for the Coospo BC26. What we like about it is as a budget price
and only $30 it's a very affordable gps computer. It also has a Garmin quarter turn style mount
which makes it compatible with a wide range of third-party mounts. Finally it has a convenient
rotating time and distance display which you found really useful while riding as it switches between
the two fields every couple seconds. Some of the cons for the computer is the fact that there's
no gradient display it's a really nice feature to have when you're going up a steep hill.
You're also not able to set the odometer settings so if you already have a computer
you can't transfer your current mileage over. Finally being such a cheap computer you
cannot connect any sensors so if you're looking to do more workouts or more training
we'd recommend getting a higher end Coospo or other brand cycling computer. Taking everything
into account would give the BC26 an 8.4 out of 10. Its a budget friendly GPS computer with a very
simple interface. Thanks for watching this review don't forget to like and subscribe.
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