I'm still happy with mine, but it's not necessarily ideal for all occasions.
I think if you want a GPS that tells you where to go, ie one that will indicate the turns along a route, then the Active 10 probably isn't as good as others, since it won't do that. You can load a route up into it, and it will display it for you to follow, but it won't tell you where and when to turn, it's up to you to make the turns at the right time.
It works wonderfully well at night, but in daylight the screens are just a little too shiny and reflective to work well in bright sunlight, which can be annoying. You can use it, but sometimes the sun can be in just the wrong place.
A couple of software downloads have made it pretty reliable now. The only time I've had it crash on me recently, is when I've changed the backlight brightness at the end of a FNRttC. It may be coincidence, but twice when I've done that, it's locked up and I've had to pop the battery out to get it to reboot. Not a biggee, and it's a lot more reliable than when I first got it, it had an annoying habit of stopping updating the screen after a few hours use, although it would continue to record the route into it's memory.
I have got use to the foibles of transferring routes in and out of it. Since I tend to create routes with Bikely, the "follow the road" option seems to create routes with thousands of points, which reasonably enough made the Active 10 a bit slow. It would still work, but the screen could lag behind a bit sometimes. Using GPSBabel to slim the route down cured that. Likewise a recording of the track you've been following also has thousands of data points, and Bikely doesn't always like that either, so GPSBabel simplifying the route before you upload it to Bikely also makes things work better in that direction. Not a big issue, but handy once you work it out.
I think the Active 10 would be excellent for walking, although I haven't used it like that yet. It does work fairly well for cycling, but it can be difficult to read any details on a screen that small when in motion. Like any device, you don't really want to be concentrating on the screen whilst hammering down a hill at 30+mph, and that's probably true of most GPS and bike computers. If all else fails you can always stop to inspect the route!
You can't really fault the ability to carry the entire UK 1:50000 mapping on one small device. The screen isn't really ideal for planning a route overall, but it's fine for checking on basic features, like what road you are on, and what was that strange thing you just cycled by. The screen is a mite small, but again that's a limitation of it being a portable device, there's always going to be a compromise between being able to view large areas of map, and being able to make the thing small enough to be sensible. I think they've got it about right.
I haven't really stressed the batteries on mine, but glancing at it from time to time, and with the screen on a 3 minute timeout, it easily seems to last through an entire FNRttC (this is on the Li-Ion battery). How long it would last if I left the screen on permanently isn't something I've investigated yet, but it's probably a significant fraction of a nights cycling. You can always carry one or two extra batteries (if you can afford it! It's £30 for a spare battery).
Mainly I like the fact that I've got a map of where I am, wherever I go. I haven't had to bother digging out my OS maps for a cycle for ages now. I still have to use something like Bikely to plan things, but that's reasonable enough, since the bigger screen makes it a lot easier. You can plan a route on the Active 10, but it's a lot fiddlier that way, and you spend a lot of time zooming in and out of the screen to see where you are.
It's not perfect, but at the moment it's the only game in town, and I think it's a reasonable effort. If you aren't desperate for it, waiting for the next generation device will almost certainly increase usability, and features, but I think they've done a fair job with this one. The post above may seem to rather list the negatives, but it's much easier to see those. I think having all these maps with you, all the time, is really great, and more than worth the odd niggle.
