I am an engineer and love data. The Garmin 500 is a great device if you are inclined this way.

I even have a DIY program to import my ride statistics into Excel. I don' really do anything with all that data, but (for example) I can tell you in a few minutes how much time I spent at 80% heart rate or how many feet of elevation I climbed this year vs last.

You can use it to navigate a preset path in an unfamiliar area, but this is a bit tricky and not the units strong point.