Hi jags!
I saw this as well, and pondered it at some length. It looks like a nice evolution of Garmin's bike-specific GPS units. I'm looking forward to user reports and to holding one in my hands.
I think so far for my needs, I prefer my more general-use Garmin Oregon 400T. It comes with a base Topo map for North America, and I added maps on 8GB cards for City navigation in NA as well as all the UK and Europe and bike-specific maps for the Benelux countries. It has profiles for a number of uses including hiking (which I use off-road) and automotive (which I use for on-road and snap-to-route) as well as turn-by-turn routing if desired. The touch screen is really good and beats the pants off a joystick interface for my needs.
I have finally solved the problem of short-lived batteries. I had settled on disposable Lithium batteries, but they were an expensive solution. Since switching to Sanyo's rechargeable "XX" Eneloops (rated at 2100mAh), I now get reasonable service. With the screen fully dimmed, it will run and record tracks continuously for 19.5 hours with a 15-minute reserve at the end. At full brightness, it will go non-stop for 7 hours and 37 minutes with a 3-minute reserve. Half-brightness gets me somewhere in between, but I usually just go with daylight and no internal lighting on sunny summer days.
If only it would charge the batteries while in place, I'd ask for nothing more. Still, the alternative isn't bad; I just swap the spent batteries for freshly charged ones when needed, usually at the end of each day even if there is charge remaining. That way, I can be assured of continuous track recording throughout the next day.
As it is, I charge the two "XX" AA cells in my little Eneloop USB charger using either the bike or trailer charging system, or in camp at night using the accumulator battery on my solar charger. Seems to work very well, and allows me to at last save my actual recorded tracks day by day instead of trying to recreate them later. I can also power the Oregon 400T direct from The Plug2+ or via my 2200mAh buffer battery so I don't even have to change the Garmin Spanner settings to revert to internal battery power at rest. While I'm riding, the buffer battery serves as a pass-through and is drawn down only when I am at rest. With the buffer and charging, I can go for days with this setup. It's working out really well, and I can even use it in the car with my car-power adapter and windshield suction mount.
My setup won't get weather or allow for live-tracking by others via a smartphone connection of Garmin's Edge 810 and 510 models, but I'm often out of cellphoen range anyway on my tours. It appears the new Garmin Touring GPS won't get those either. In many ways, the new Touring model looks a lot like what I'm using now. If so, it should be really handy for a lot of riders. Looking forward to see it in stores, jags.
Best,
Dan.