I'm a big Garmin fan. I have 3 of them. One for the boat the car and the woods. I have been using the Map76 model that comes with the base map for about 5 years and have never had an issue. It use to be my primary for the boat but I wanted a color screen so I went with the 276 for the boat.
The base map for the 76 is good for the road. I tried downloading the Mapsource Topo but for me it was just a big mess. There were to many lines and other stuff for me while in the woods. I like things simple and wanted to only see my tracks and waypoints that I created.
The Delorme software is awesome. Your able to transfer information from PC to GPS and vise versa. I like to get back to camp at night and download any points of interest from the day to my laptop which allows you to study the surrounding area. It's pretty neat to see over the years the puzzle of information you have created.
My dad and brother have Magellan's and like them. I personally do not probably because I'm use to the features on Garmins. I have also noticed that on my Dad's Magellan he loses satelites or has trouble acquiring satelites a little to often for my liking.

Hope this helps.

Joe

I agree with sageboy . There is lots of headaches for me to to get the map stuff to work . I also like to keep things simple . I have a Garmin Gps 12 that modle is discontinued . I can mark trails that i made and find my way back to where i started and put in waypoints that someone gives me .If some one gave a waypint to where they need a hand to get a deer out or something I could find them with the way points that they gave me . The small radios are a great item to have to Mine is good for 13 kms . My son has a Garmin hand held Ledgend. A little more money but worth it .If anythin happens to mine that's the new one I would buy . A great machine Tells ya on the screen the name of the place where you are . I would say Garmin is the way to go.. MPO

It seems like the big difference between the ones I'm interested in are the number of waypoints (some 500 and some 1000) and the amount of built in memory (24 mb to 128 mb). How much memory do you need?

If you want to keep it simple then you dont need anymore than the 24 mb's I'm not sure what the mb's are on my son's Ledgend but he can down load all the map stuff on his . The more you program into the machine the more mb' s you'll need I'm not excatly sure what mb's are in mine . I can check the manuel . As far as waypoints goes 500 is more than enough to keep it simple . I never save any more than 2 or 3 while hunting . Mine will only hold 30 way points while marking a trail . It markes a waypoint when you make a signifigant change in direction .. I just use mine while hunting to find my way back to my truck when i'm in the big wooded areas . I have a few waypoints saved in a small note book rather than fill up my machine with unnessary points . but it's good pratice to load the points into the machine if someone gives you a waypoint . M. P. O . You don't need to spend a lot of momey for somethin you may never use . The simple ones work fine for what I want to do . I think my son's cost a little over $300.00 and mine cost $200.00 .Garmin has the E- Trex for $153. 00 Can . If I ever need another one it's going to be the Garmin Ledgend . It has all the map stuff to download And you can get discs fro the 4 zones N>S>E>W you can type in the name of a lake and it will give you the exact waypoint . I'd put my money on the Ledgend for sure The map stuff is there if you should ever want it

Oh BTW the cheaper ones will all hold 500 waypoints Mine only holds 30 while marking a trail but i can program in 500 way points

I got the Garmin Etrex and it works really good. I only use it for hunting and it does everything that I need it to do. It only cost $99 at walmart. I can put in 500 waypoints. I use it mainly to mark good scrapes or trees my climber will work on. It will get you back to camp if you get lost also.

I recently purchased a Bushnell Onix 200 after researching all brands for several months. I have an older Magellan but wanted to upgrade to a unit with mapping capabilities. I have been very satisfied with my decision and would recommend anyone to check them out before they purchse anyone elses. Bushnellgps.com