I've had my Aera (not Area) 500 for several years and like it. I've used it to navigate around most of Europe. The automotive bit has also proved extremely useful in hire cars when on holiday.
I bought it just before SkyDemon was launched on the market. If I were choosing now, I think I would go for SkyDemon and an iPad mini (or even a super-cheap Nexus 7). The updates for the Aera are expensive if you choose to keep it fully updated. I gave up on that very quickly, and now update once or twice a year. The annual SkyDemon sub includes all the updates.
Annoying bit: the Aera keeps nagging me to update the "basemap" (at some exorbitant price). I've not heard of any mountains moving, so really don't see why it thinks I need to do that.