Well form what Ive seen and heard the Garmin units are nicer, more user friendly. Ive got a Garmin GPSMap 76. Very nice unit. Probably find it for 330 or so online. It has a pre-set basic map with major roads, and has capability to download more from teh Mapsource cd's. It is even WAAS enabled, which is Wide Angel Augmentation System. Which means that it is capable of acheiving 3 meter accuracey. There are only 2 satellites in the sky that produce that signal. One over the atlantic and the other over the pacific. The garmin units are waterproof and are very tough. The customer service at Garmin is also very good. Their web-site has tons of downloads for each unit.Every time a new operating system come sout they put it on the web-site for everyone to download. Also there are the very popular Etrex series by Garmin too. Very compact and easy to use. The vista, Legend, Summit. Each opne has different features so look into it a little further. All in all though I would go with Garmin I guess[;)]
Oh ya, Ive got a basic Etrex for sale if you want it. It doesnt have any download capability though. Let me know if you have any more questions