I've had an Aera 500 for some time now.
Very capable and, up to now, reliable.
The updates are too expensive, and like others on here I don't bother with them, unless something big changes where I regularly fly.
I fly purely VFR so it's just used as a back up, but I find it reassuring to know it's there.
I use the Manchester LLR fairly often and the terrain alert is a pain. You tend to dismiss it out of course, which sort of defeats the whole point of having it.
To sum up - well worth having, expensive updates, Garmin quality.Highly reccommended.
As pointed out on here also just spend a couple of hours learning what everything does on it before taking it flying.