The connected app is far better at re-routing than the garmin. You can skip waypoints using the wheel. If for instance you see a fuel station in the distance off your route and you head for it taking you off your inputted route the app will try and put you back on your route as soon as it can, it won't totally reroute you to the next waypoint, well that's what I've found it to do. My only gripe with it is it doesn't do off-road routing, if it did it would be perfect.
This is basically correct.
Where the recalculation can go wrong (it’s something I pointed out testing a new Beta version) is where you have a loop in the route or where one part of the route runs for a significant distance along the same road twice but in opposite directions.
The Connected app can, under some circumstances, recalculate / redirect you so that you miss the loop out and or get a bit confused if its position cursor isn’t quite sure what side of the road you are on or (in extreme circumstances) which way you are pointing. Of the two, the missing out of loops is probably the most fundamentally annoying. This can be fixed if you put a fixed ‘I must go through this point’ at the top of the loop. Garmin devices are much better at dealing with this problem.
One other weakness, though this is not peculiar to the Connected app on its own. Whilst the app will do its best to bring you back on your bespoke route as soon as possible. Two things can happen:
A. If it was a road closure, the app will often try to turn you back into the closure. Just ignore the instructions and let it keep recalculating.
B. It can reroute you down some very unsuitable goat tracks. I had this in the Belgian Ardennes, where I just thought to myself: “I am not going down THERE!” There being a near vertical mud logging track down into the boondocks.
In short, with A and B you just need to use your common sense, just like anyone using any sat nav. If you can see something better, then take it. A classic example would be “Make a U-turn” when it would be obviously easier to just stay on the road (not turning around) as it leads straight back onto your route. The app (and others) will give the U-turn instruction, as doing so is a yard shorter and therefore ‘quicker’.
Where the app does I think does falter against say a Garmin, is the zooming in and out to use the screen image as a kind of paper map. I think the map quality and zoom ratios are much better on a Garmin. But maybe I am just more used to them.
Don’t though let any of this put you off. Most of the time, the app is very good.