I have owned this GPS since December 2011 and mainly used as navigation back up whilst walking and geocaching. It was purchased as an update to my now ancient original e-trex vista, I have used plenty of different GPS units in the past as I teach geocaching to community groups and have to say this new unit is pretty impressive, I found its sensitivity and speed at acquiring a signal a vast improvement on the two previous models and now have good route recording ability in almost all areas bar extremely heavy overhead cover. Battery life and weight are also improved with 2 AA’s lasting at least 2 full days out on the hill, recording 20+km routes without fault.
I wasn’t so impressed with the Birdseye software I found it difficult to upload a specific area without wasting credits and using it to plot and adjust routes clunky and at times just plain frustrating when compared to other mapping software, I have also had compatibility issues when attempting to download routes direct to this unit from other mapping software so hopefully Garmin will update to fix these bugs.
If you’re looking for compact lightweight, battery efficient unit you can drop into puddles whist on the trail, then this little unit is for you, if you want straight forward mapping to use with your home computer I would look around for other options to help out.