Garmin StreetPilot c550 Car GPS Receiver

I've been looking for routing devices (primarily car based) for over a year now, and none have seemed quite right. Most are in the $2,000 range, and/or require professional installation. Since I lease my car, and don't want to spend that much money, I've just continued to get lost (a lot). So when Garmin released the StreetPilot III, I was pretty excited. I was also a little concerned because it didn't seem to have a lot of buttons on it, and I hate dealing with confusing interfaces. However, I decided to try it, and found a good deal for $800 (they seem to be going for $900-1,000 elsewhere). Use mySimon.

I've been using it every since I got it (about 2 weeks), and it is really just about perfect. The controls are VERY intuitive, and Garmin has provided accessories such as a car charger (with speaker) and dash mount so you don't feel nickel and dimed by having to buy commonly used accessories. It really looks like this went through some good product design and testing.

Some useful features:
When you look up a point of interest category, you are shown the listings with the mileage and an arrow indicating direction (which is good if you're going home, want to get something to eat, but don't want to head away from your destination).

The setup allows you to set route preferences to avoid U-turns and highways.

You can calculate routes based on fastest time or shortest distance.

The small drawbacks:
It is a little bigger than I was expecting (compared to the regular GPS units) which makes sense considering 1) it does a lot of work 2) it needs 6 batteries if you want to run it without being plugged into the car.

It gets a little confused every once in a while. A couple of times it has erroneously decided it's off route, and had to recalculate. However, it has recovered quickly, so I don't see it being a real problem.

The PC based program you have to use to upload the selected map data was confusing. I'm a programmer myself, and usually don't have any problem figuring out software, but I had a little trouble with this. The in-program help wasn't helpful. I finally had to resort to the manual.