This page is in response to the ever increasing interest in the Garmin Edge 705.
Rather than trawl through 390 odd comments and replies which takes an evening I am told, far easy to read this page. It is the summation of mine and everybody’s input.  It’s going to take a while but will cover all aspects of the 705.

You can download and install the latest versions of the software before take delivery of your Edge in most cases.  MapSource updates require an original. Comment from Stuart : You can get around Garmin saying you have to have an original Mapsource before applying the latest version as an update by unzipping the download file, then running MSMAIN.MSI then SETUP.EXE

Maps

You need a map of some sort to make your Garmin Edge 705 function. The decision you have to make is whether to buy DVD based map or a plugin MicroSD card map.  DVD maps need installing and then loading on to your 705 or memory card. The advantage of a DVD map is that you can plan routes in Mapsource and you can see them in TrainingCentre.
SD card maps are plug and play. They have the auto routing built into them along with all the points of interest (POI). This includes garages, restaurants, cash machines etc. They have a novelty value but you didn’t buy your 705 for them.

The SD card map can be uploaded in MapSource by renaming a copy of it as PCbasemap. I’ll up load a link to a tutorial. It is not for the novice computer user and things can go wrong.

If you’ve come to a 705 via the Ordnance Survey digital mapping programs like Memorymap, Trackogs or Anquet in the UK you are going to be very disappointed with TopoGB. The level of detail that you get is very inferior to digital or paper maps as Garmin uses a vector system and OS maps are raster images.

Software Updates

To get you Garmin Edge to work straight out of the box you need to update your programs, drivers and firmware straight away. Without Garmin Communicator installed other programs won’t see your new toy as a device. So you can’t import or export anything.
Latest Versions
TrainingCenterVer 3.43
MapSource 6.15.6
Garmin Edge705 Ver 2.80 (24  Jun 09)
GarminCommunicator PluginVer 2.6.4
WebupdaterVer 2.4.
http://www8.garmin.com2/support/download_details.jsp?id=591

Routing Software and Websites

It should be apparent that Garmin don’t do very good routing software. That’s being polite, I’ve met a number of you who expressed it in harder terms. Fortunately there are others out there that do do good routing software and there are a lot of great websites out there.
First off you need to know the difference between a Route and a Course

Routes
Your Edge has a 100 waypoints limit. You use the waypoints to mark the turns on your Route.  You Navigate the Route from Waypoint to Waypoint.
I’ve done rides up to 200 km using this method and it is entirely different to riding a course.
Routes rely on as the crow flies (straight line) navigation between Waypoints. The compass always points to the next waypoint.  When you follow the route as long as the compass screen is always roughly pointing forward you are on Route.  If it is 90 degrees to you something is amiss.  This can be within a 100 metres of the waypoint.
A Waypoint will bleep and give you a countdown to the waypoint in distance and seconds.
It’s a great way to ride if you are on limited resources ala Garmin Edge 305.
See the Route planning Tutorial on this site for planning and riding a Route.

Courses

A Course can consist of 17000 trackpoint. It can be a saved ride. It can be planned in Mapsource, Digital OS maping software and the Google map based websites. You can race against the virtual partner as it contains speed info as well as position. File size is a lot bigger than a Route GPX file. You can save multiple Courses on a Memory Card. I’ve a dozen on mine. You can also convert your riding history to a Course within the Edge.
Riding a Course is not the same as riding a Route.
Your essentially reriding another ride. The only time the Edge 705 bleeps at you is when you go OFF Course. Don’t press enter but retrace your steps to rejoin the Course. Your Edge will say Course Found and the black triangle will be back on the pink Course track.
There is a musical fanfare when you complete the Course.

MultipleCourses
Save your Courses to the Courses folder on the Edge 705, not your Memory card. They should be in .TCX format. Limit of 50 Courses.

CoursePoints
CoursePoints are what your Edge is all about. They are Icons built into a lot Garmin Navigation products. There is a limited number to choose from and there is another 100 CoursePoint limit.
They behave similar to a waypoint in that they bleep at you when you arrive at one.
This is where you have to abandon Garmin products to add CoursePoints to your Course.
You can only add CoursePoints in Garmin TrainingCenter and with a PCBasemap that isn’t an option.
This is where the GoogleMaps based sites come to the fore, particularly WWW.BikeRouteToaster.com
BRT does CoursePoints as well as trackpoints, you can set which side of the road an how far from the centre you ride.
It auto routes you and automatically puts the right CoursePoint at a junction. Along with warning Coursepoints before the junction it is a great bit of software.

Another reason to use Coursepoints is when you are actually doing a Course you get another screen with extra datafields on it relating to the Course. Such as Time to Course, Distance to CoursePoint, ETA and so on.

 TrainingCenter

http://www8.garmin.com/products/trainingcenter/This is where all your ride data is stored.  I’ve got nearly two years worth of rides and spinning classes from an Edge 305, Edge 705 and a Forerunner 50.  You can overlay rides and compare all the data from the ride.
It comes with a PCBasemap which is useless. Once you get a Garmin Map installed things become a lot better. You can save your ride History as a Course and use the Course point tool to add Coursepoints.
This is the only way you can add Coursepoints with Garmin Software.
Personally I wouldn’t bother it’s easier to use BikeRouteToaster to plan one.
The file format used by Training Center is .TCX which is Edge specific. Along with Latitude and Longitude it contains heartrate and cadence data.  Your digital mapping software probably won’t recognise this format yet but it will recognise a GPX file. You need to convert the TCX file to a GPX file with a conversion tool like TCXConverter.
TCXConverter opens in a new window.

Tracklogs
Tracklogs now supports the Edge 705 for file transfer as it supports the .tcx format. (this page has looked out of date on the google searches because it autosaved an early version.) You can upload your history as it now sees the .tcx history files in your device.

Course(.crs) to Course(.tcx) Conversion
If you have graduated from the 305 or get routes from other sites that don’t support the .TCX format you neeed to convert your Courses from .crs to .tcx. This is not that easy as the format conversion programs are some way behind the format changes. Garmin Communicator enabling helps in the file transfer as the 705 is a file based device.
I have about 120 Courses on Motionbased from 305 rides that I can’t transfer into my 705 unless I use a conversion program.
After a fair bit of searching this seems the easiest at the moment. WWW.GPSies.com
It allows conversion between the .crs format to the .tcx format which your 705 will see as a course in the Courses folder.
It is an important jump, I hadn’t seen it as a problem as I tended not to reride a Course. If you get a Course (.crs) off an organiser it becomes a big problem trying to get it into a 705.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch
Dead Edges may need the  Vulcan nerve pinch to revive them. Power and the lap button for a soft rest for a couple of seconds should see you back in business. Not so much a problem now but playing dead was an issue for early users. Can’t remember the pinch on a ride , big problem.
A big problem if you’ve just bought your Edge as you think it’s broke, cue panic and irate calls to customer services.

Hard Reset
Power and Mode button for 3 seconds will bring up a box with “Do you really want to erase all user data”.  This clears your Profile and all your History.

Backlight
 Using your 705  at night. You can ride a Course at night and use CoursePoints to warn you of the turns. The Edge turns the backlight on when it gives a warning signal. This can be a Waypoint, CoursePoint, OffCourse or paused message. It’ll stay lit for the length of the backlight timer setting.
If you want to see the screen at night pressing the power button once  will bring the backlight to 50% as will the toggle button, sideways will not alter the screen your on.

Profile problems
I’ve been having profile sync problems for a while this is the answer thanks to Motionbased.

Start – My Computer – C:\ – Documents and Settings – All Users – Application data (to get this folder to appear, you may need to click the following: Tools – Folder Options – View – Show Hidden Files and
Folders) – Garmin – Training Center.

In this folder you will find a file called UserProfile.bin. Delete this file and then connect the unit again. Choose to keep the profile on the unit, and the problem may then be solved.