Got this to replace my 1030 unit, as wanted faster re-routing and some of the additional fields. I was sceptical about getting the solar version living in the usually overcast UK, but thought I'd give it a shot. Having used it in a number of different rides and done >250 miles the battery is still at 45%. During a 100 mile sportive on a sunny day the battery regained 90mins of time over the course of a 6 hour ride. The new UI changes are an improvement and the stamina widget is helpful on longer rides, but there's not heaps of improvements. If you already have a 530, 830 or 1030+ then it's probably not worth the upgrade, but if you're coming from an older unit it's an amazing improvement in features, speed and battery.

I was previously using an older Edge Explore for MTB and an Edge 1000 for road/training and bought the 1040 Solar to replace both. The training and navigation is a step up over both my old units and it works much better with Garmin Connect for routes etc. Particularly off-road. The built in maps are excellent and routing in general seems to be more reliable without the rerouting glitches the older units were prone to suffering. I went with the 1040 solar rather than the new 1050 because I do a lot of multi-day events and so far (on brighter summer days) without having to use power save mode, I haven't had to charge it once. The solar almost keeps up with usage and leaving it in bright light for a few hours switched off has been enough to fully charge after a ride. I did look at the new 1050, but it's main selling point is the more vivid screen, but I'm not trying to watch movies on it so don't really see the point in that, especially for an extra £100 or so. The 1040 screen is very bright and has excellent contrast even in direct sunlight. For me the solar charging is a better feature to have.