I used a Meridian Gold for a number of years and it is very durable - recently sold to another regular member here. However I switched to the Garmin Legend C for several reasons. First, I like the Garmin topo maps better than Magellan's topo maps. Second, I wanted a color screen. And third - probably most important though - it's smaller and easily fits in your pocket.
BTW, the Vista and Legend are the same unit but the Vista has an builtin compass and altimeter. It costs more than the Legend, so unless you really feel you need those extra features you can save some $ by getting the Legend.
All these handheld mapping units only include a basemap which shows major towns and roads. You won't see much of anything in the pines on those basemaps, although the screen will display a track of where you've been. To make them really useful you need to purchase the topo maps which cost somewhere in the $80-$100 range for either Magellan or Garmin.
Maps are proprietary and can only be used in the GPS made by the same company. In other words, you can't load a Magellan map into a Garmin GPS. Programs like USAPhotomaps and other third party maps are nice for uploading your tracks when you get home and for placing waypoints, but you cannot load their maps into your GPS for display on its screen.
Also note that the topo maps on the Garmin are not auto-routing. In other words, they are just displayed on the screen and the GPS can't use them to calculate a route between points A and B. For this you will need to buy one of their city maps. These maps are nice, and they show more urban/suburban street deail but they don't show very many of the little sand roads and they have much less accurate info on streams, lakes and other geographic features. They also don't show contour lines and elevations like the topo maps.
I'm assuming that you want the GPS mainly for hiking. If you want to do auto navigation then that's a separate topic. I have a Garmin 2620 for that which I really like. The Garmin Quest is a nice crossover product that's designed to work both in a car and in your pocket. These units get more expensive however.
This is a good website to check out with lots of information and unbiased reviews:
http://gpsinformation.net/
