This is my first GPS of any sort and I have gone through a mixture of emotions with this from frustration and disappointment at the beginning, to shear pleasure and exhilaration right now.
Firstly, I should say that this is a great little device. It has everything that you could want from an outdoor GPS: creating tracks, following routes, geocaching ready, rugged, easy connection to PC, micro xD-card slot, WAAS/EGNOS enabled (i.e. very accurate), 25 hour battery lifetime and so on.
Why was I frustrated and disappointed? Well I kind of expected that when I switched it on, after it worked out where I was, it would have some kind of lovely Ordinance Survey type map - this is so far from the truth. Even though I had been forewarned about the maps on Garmins, I still was not ready for the basic vector graphics and poor accuracy of the maps. You can walk down Fleet St, for example, and the map draws your track clearly 50m off the road. You can buy TOPO maps from Garmin which should be an improvement, but, reading those customer reviews, it is still a long way off the OS maps.
Anyway, that is the end of the negative part. Now for the good stuff. I love switching it on outside my back door and it tells me where I am within 10 feet accuracy (very accurate). It is very easy just to switch it on and just let it record where you are going. It will tell you all manor of facts during and after the trip - current speed, heading, average speed, area (odd, but may have a use if you are a farmer), and of course distance travelled. Then, when you connect it up via the USB, you can transfer the saved track to your PC. These can be uploaded into any mapping software, if you so wish, or sent to your friends for them to see where you went, or even for them to follow, if they have a GPS.
Routes, which are pre-programmed tracks for you to follow, are easily created via your mapping software - it can be done with the MapSource software provided with the GPS, and then sent to the GPS. Then, when you get to the start, switch on the GPS, choose the route and "Start Navigation". It will then tell you which way to go, when a turn is coming up etc. All fairly standard stuff you would hope but it works very well.
I could go on detailing a lot more about the device, such as the sun and moon rise/set times and electronic compass, but I thought it would be better to mention some of the whizzy stuff. What is really cool, are proximity alerts. These can be set on waypoints to tell you when you are getting near a certain point. An obvious use for this is Geocaching. This device is great for this - set up you route with proximity alerts and you can almost find them with your eyes closed. You are limited to 1000 waypoints in this GPS, however, as this is micro xD card ready, you can have an almost unlimited number of Points of Interest which work in a very similar way to waypoints. .
Overall, I am extremely pleased with the device, even though the maps are rubbish. Definite 5 stars from me.